Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 13

Indian Politics & Policy
tain) into well dug in Pakistani positions
... New Delhi could easily decide
to open another front elsewhere along
the [LOC] to ease its burden and force
the Pakistanis to fight on territory favorable
to India. Even if the conflict
remained confined solely to Kargil, the
danger of escalation was high.” 46 Deeply
concerned about the prospect of an
escalating war between two nuclear
weapons states, Clinton dispatched the
commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), Gen.
Anthony Zinni, to Islamabad from June
23 to 27. Zinni urged Pakistani leaders
to call off the Kargil operation; 47 in response,
he reportedly received “fairly
clear” assurances from his interlocutors
that the so-called insurgents would be
withdrawn from the Indian side of the
LOC. 48 Immediately after Zinni’s mission
to Pakistan, U.S. Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Gordon Lanpher
briefed Indian officials on Zinni’s trip
and urged continued Indian restraint in
the face of escalatory pressures. 49 Then,
during a late-June visit to Beijing, Sharif
was rebuffed in his efforts to seek Chinese
support for “Islamabad’s efforts to
internationalize the Kashmir issue.” 50
Ultimately, New Delhi’s resolve
to eject Pakistani forces from its side of
the LOC, Indian military successes on
the Himalayan ridges, and Pakistan’s
diplomatic isolation convinced Islamabad
to call off its misadventure. On
July 2, Sharif called Clinton, pleading
for American intervention to stop the
fighting and mediate the Kashmir dispute;
Clinton replied that he could only
help if Pakistan first withdrew its forces.
A similar exchange took place the next
day, with Sharif offering to meet with
Clinton in Washington on July 4. 51 According
to one account, just prior to the
Clinton–Sharif meeting, U.S. officials
received “disturbing evidence that the
Pakistanis were preparing their nuclear
arsenals for possible deployment.” 52
However, Musharraf contradicts this
version of events in his 2006 memoir:
“In 1999 our nuclear capability was not
yet operational. Merely exploding a
bomb does not mean that you are operationally
capable of deploying nuclear
force in the field and delivering a bomb
across the border over a selected target.
Any talk of preparing for nuclear strikes
is preposterous.” 53
The July 4 meeting was tense,
with Clinton hammering home both
the need for Pakistani withdrawal and
the dark specter of nuclear war in South
Asia. 54 At one point, “Clinton asked
Sharif if he knew how advanced the
threat of nuclear war really was? Did
Sharif know his military was preparing
their nuclear tipped missiles? Sharif
seemed taken aback and said only that
India was probably doing the same.” 55
Indeed, India reportedly had been “doing
the same.” In an unverified account
that refers to “several high-ranking [Indian]
officials” but mentions no exact
dates, an Indian journalist writes, “India
... activated all its three types of nuclear
delivery vehicles and kept them at what
is known as Readiness State 3—meaning
that some nuclear bombs would be
ready to be mated with the delivery vehicles
at short notice.” 56 Clinton “then
reminded Sharif how close the U.S. and
Soviet Union had come to nuclear war
in 1962 over Cuba. Did Sharif realize
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