US envoy tries to cool tension over Kashmir

Critics say Bush's obsession with Iraq has put other pressing crises such as the Arab-Israeli conflict on the back burner

Richard Armitage, Washington's diplomatic fireman in south Asia, was seeking to quell a new upsurge of tension in the region yesterday as India and Pakistan exchanged accusations over Kashmir.

On Friday Pakistan said India had staged an air and ground attack on a mountain post in the disputed Himalayan territory, a claim denounced by New Delhi yesterday as "a big lie". In turn, the Indians said suspected Islamist militants killed eight Muslim villagers, including three women, in an attack early yesterday. India insists that the militants are armed and trained by Pakistan.

In June, when Mr Armitage was last in the region, the two nuclear-armed nations had appeared on the brink of nuclear war. In Pakistan yesterday the deputy secretary of state said he felt tensions had eased in recent weeks, but he could not dispel another impression: that in its preoccupation with "regime change" in Iraq, Washington's attention is straying from other issues. These include not only Kashmir, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Afghanistan's continuing instability.

The obsession with Iraq has served one useful purpose: it has diverted attention from the original war with al-Qa'ida, continuing fitfully in eastern Afghanistan, and Washington's failure to find Osama bin Laden, or even establish whether he is alive or dead.

Last week saw the first clear signs of wavering in American public support for war on Saddam Hussein, and this week Saudi Arabia's influential ambassador to the US will travel to President George Bush's ranch in Texas to press Riyadh's arguments against an American invasion of Iraq.

The visit of Prince Bandar to Crawford – interrupting Mr Bush's summer holiday – is a privilege extended to only a handful of foreign leaders, among them Tony Blair and President Putin of Russia.

Although the Saudis are working closely with Washington to break the bloody impasse between Israelis and Palestinians, they are among the Arab countries most strongly opposed to a military campaign to oust President Saddam. Prince Bandar is likely again to make plain Riyadh's refusal to allow US bases there to be used as a springboard for an attack.

The Saudi government argues that the top priority in the Middle East is a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, failing which an unprovoked US attack would only destabilise the region further and generate more anti-Americanism in the Arab world – with possible implications for the survival of the ruling House of Saud. And the signs are the Bush administration may be starting to listen.

The "national debate" on Iraq started by last month's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings is starting to take shape in earnest. A USA Today/CNN poll last week revealed a sharp decline in support for the despatch of US ground troops to Iraq. Eminent Republicans – some of them veterans of the 1991 Gulf war waged by Mr Bush's father – have also been voicing their anxieties.

The result was a significant change in Mr Bush's rhetoric last week, as he made clear during an impromptu press conference with Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that any military operation was still some way off. Mr Rumsfeld accused the media of creating a "frenzy" over Iraq – notwithstanding the fact that he and his officials have deliberately fuelled that frenzy.

Mr Bush will now also find it next to impossible to avoid obtaining prior approval from Congress for an attack – which in turn means he will have to set out his reasons far more clearly and extensively than he has done so far. This weekend he is campaigning in California, where he said: "You'll understand clearly, as time goes on, why I feel strongly that we cannot allow the world's worst leaders to develop the world's worst weapons."