On the brink of a catastrophe: Indian artillery pound Pakistani infiltrators in the Kargil region of Kashmir. Pakistan was reported to be readying its nuclear weapons until President Clinton intervened

WASHINGTON: During the first week in June [1999], just as Milosevic was acceding to NATO’s demands over Kosovo, Clinton turned his own attention to India and Pakistan.

In letters to Nawaz Sharif and Vajpayee, the president went beyond the studied neutrality that both prime ministers were expecting—in Pakistan’s case with hope, and in India’s with trepidation. Clinton made Pakistan’s withdrawal a precondition for a settlement and the price it must pay for the U.S. diplomatic involvement it had long sought. Clinton followed up with phone calls to the two leaders in mid-June emphasizing this point.

The United States condemned Pakistan’s “infiltration of armed intruders” and went public with information that most of the seven hundred men who had crossed the Line of Control were attached to the Pakistani Army’s 10th Corps.

In late June Clinton called Nawaz Sharif to stress that the United States saw Pakistan as the aggressor and to reject the fiction that the fighters were separatist guerrillas. The administration let it be known that if Sharif did not order a pullback, we would hold up a $100 million International Monetary Fund loan that Pakistan sorely needed. Sharif went to Beijing, hoping for comfort from Pakistan’s staunchest friend, but got none.

Pakistan was almost universally seen to have precipitated the crisis, ruining the promising peace process that had begun in Lahore and inviting an Indian counteroffensive.

On Friday, July 2, Sharif phoned Clinton and pleaded for his personal intervention in South Asia. Clinton replied that he would consider it only if it was understood up-front that Pakistani withdrawal would have to be immediate and unconditional.

The next day Sharif called Clinton to say that he was packing his bags and getting ready to fly immediately to Washington—never mind that he had not been invited. ..He warned Sharif not to come unless he was prepared to announce unconditional withdrawal; otherwise, his trip would make a bad situation worse. The Pakistani leader did not accept Clinton’s condition for the meeting—he just said he was on his way.

“This guy’s coming literally on a wing and a prayer,” said the president.” That’s right,” said Bruce Riedel [NSC aide], “and he’s praying that we don’t make him do the one thing he’s got to do to end this thing.”

It was not hard to anticipate what Sharif would ask for. His opening proposal would be a cease-fire to be followed by negotiations under American auspices. His fallback would make Pakistani withdrawal conditional on Indian agreement to direct negotiations sponsored and probably mediated by the United States. Either way, he would be able to claim that the incursion had forced India, under American pressure, to accept Pakistani terms.

After several long meetings in Sandy Berger’s office, we decided to recommend that Clinton confront Sharif with a stark choice that included neither of his preferred options. We would put before him two press statements and let Sharif decide which would be released at the end of the Blair House talks. The first would hail him as a peacemaker for retreating—or, as we would put it euphemistically, “restoring and respecting the sanctity of the Line of Control.” The second would blame him for starting the crisis and for the escalation sure to follow his failed mission to Washington.

On the eve of Sharif’s arrival, we learned that Pakistan might be preparing its nuclear forces for deployment. There was, among those of us preparing for the meeting, a sense of vast and nearly unprecedented peril. When Clinton assembled his advisers in the Oval Office for a last minute huddle, Sandy told him that overnight we had gotten more disturbing reports of steps Pakistan was taking with its nuclear arsenal. Clinton said he would like to use this information “to scare the hell out of Sharif.”