Word: musharraf
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...Then Musharraf emerged as Washington's prized ally, earning global praise for his tough conversion to fighting terrorism. Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Islamabad in October and came away struck by how different Musharraf seemed from typical Pakistani strongmen obsessed with domestic order and India. Powell saw in Musharraf a military man of unusually creative intelligence who could focus on an objective, then determine the steps needed to get there. Powell reported back to Bush that Musharraf "quite distinctly intended over the long term to eliminate the sources of extremism" in his country...
Vajpayee doesn't much believe it, though. He suspects the crackdown Musharraf has begun on the terrorists will prove merely cosmetic. So he too has made a sharp shift, throwing off his almost avuncular detachment to launch a scary game of military brinkmanship. Pride and domestic politics lie behind that stroke; his party is facing an important state election, and the hard line he has adopted may help at the polls. But Vajpayee also owns a taste for boldness that he has demonstrated before. In 1998 he was the Prime Minister who ordered the atom-bomb tests that made India...
...Though Musharraf and Vajpayee managed a handshake at a South Asian summit last weekend in Nepal, they are hardly speaking, even by long distance. So far, the historic dynamics of the India-Pakistan relationship have trumped the peaceful ambitions of these two, not the other way round. But as they work to avert a new war on the subcontinent, both the poet and the general might usefully recall how each has publicly aspired to the higher title of statesman...
...change is in the air. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has already replaced ISI chief Lieut. General Mahmood Ahmad, a Taliban sympathizer, with a progressive moderate, Lieut. General Ehsan ul-Haq, and sidelined another general who helped shape Pakistan's recent Kashmir policy. Last week, under mounting pressure from the U.S., Pakistan's government promised to shut down the activities of foreign extremists in Kashmir. Ilyas, it seems, may soon have to find some other way to feed his family...
Senior foreign correspondent JOHANNA MCGEARY followed the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir well before the two countries became capable of attacking each other with nuclear weapons. This week she looks at the two very different leaders in the conflict, Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf and India's Atal Behari Vajpayee. Talk with her on Wednesday...