Once more India and Pakistan are on the brink of war. Once more only because it is hard for our Government to sit back and allow Pakistan to get away with infiltrating terrorists into India. But this time, if we do not manage to pull back from the brink it will be as much the fault of America as that of Pakistan. America is no longer a distant observer of events on the subcontinent. It is an active player without whose financial and moral (amoral?) support, Pervez Musharraf would not be able to sponsor terrorism. Pakistan was broke and an international pariah until 9/11 when America decided for its own reasons to turn Musharraf into a hero and an ally. This may have helped the US in its campaign in Afghanistan-although with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar possibly hiding in Pakistan, nobody can say for sure-but in the end glorifying Musharraf undermines the global war against terrorism and robs America of its moral authority.

US President George W. Bush took a high moral stand from the beginning. This was a fight, he said, between good and evil. The countries of the world could either be with the US (and so on the side of good) or against it (and so on the side of evil). We in India understood this well. Not only have thousands of Indians in Punjab, Kashmir and the North-east lost their lives in the past 20 years to terrorism-mostly financed by Pakistan-but with Islamist fundamentalists in the "evil" category we sympathised deeply with the US.

The problem is that unnervingly soon after 9/11, American foreign policy in South Asia became so confused that the lines between good and evil began to blur. We found ourselves confronting the bizarre reality that in the eyes of the US State Department Musharraf was a hero and not, as we saw him, the chief patron of terrorism in Kashmir and Afghanistan. We knew, of course, that the US President did not even know who Musharraf was a year earlier but we had hoped that someone would brief him on Pakistan's active role in creating his enemy, the Taliban.

For our own sake, we had also hoped someone had told Bush that there would have been a political solution to Kashmir by now if Musharraf's export of jehadis had stopped. But, if the Americans knew all this they chose to pretend otherwise. Not only was Musharraf lionised but endowed with millions of dollars ostensibly to rebuild Pakistan's shattered economy. The Americans chose to close their eyes to the fact that in his January 12 speech renouncing Islamist fundamentalists, the General made it clear that Kashmir was different. "Kashmir runs in our blood. No Pakistani can sever his relationship with Kashmir. We will continue to give Kashmir moral, diplomatic and political support," he said.

We saw what that meant in the massacre at Jammu in which the victims were mainly women and children but America clearly did not. America has also chosen to ignore the fact that most of the 2,000 Islamist fundamentalists Musharraf arrested after his speech have now been released. As for the organisations he banned, even the US State Department must have noticed that all they have done is reincarnate themselves under new names. Will they be allowed to continue their murderous activities as long as they confine themselves to India or will President Bush wake up to the reality that the jehad in Kashmir, Afghanistan and the attacks of 9/11 are all linked? What kind of global war on terrorism is this? If the US cannot stop Musharraf from being the chief patron of terrorism in south Asia then should it not at least stop funding his activities? Meanwhile, what should India be doing? Every option before our Government is a bad one. If it does nothing despite the Jammu massacre and the assassination of Abdul Ghani Lone we can be sure that terrorism will escalate and elections to the state Assembly due later this year will become impossible.

If it bombs the terrorist training camps in Pakistan, as BJP hotheads suggest, it could be the beginning of a full-scale war in which, as Musharraf proudly told the German newspaper Der Speigel recently, nuclear weapons could be used. So, is dialogue with Pakistan the answer? No. Not, if you consider the failure of earlier attempts in Lahore and Agra.

It seems the only option left before India is to persuade America to play a more constructive role in South Asia than it has so far done. If Bush wants the world to take his global war against terrorism seriously then he needs to make his friend and ally Musharraf change his ways. If the General cannot be persuaded that terrorism is terrorism, whether in Afghanistan, New York or Kashmir then the very least America can do is to stop funding Pakistan. There is no point pretending either that the jehadi terrorists do not have the support of the Pakistan Government. That can happen only in a democratic country and Pakistan is far from being one despite the General's recent referendum.