The dubbing of all intrusions across the line of control in Kashmir and attempts to change the status quo as irresponsible by the Group of Eight has sent the stock prices zooming in India and made the media in Pakistan upbraid the Nawaz Sharif government for having alienated those who matter most in world affairs. Similarly, the capture of certain strategic high points in Batalik has boosted the morale of the Indian army. It has also brought home to the generals in Islamabad the danger of losing in the coming weeks the advantage their troops and the Afghan mercenaries hired by them had gained by surreptitious occupation of strategic heights in a long stretch of mountainous territory in Ladakh commanding the Srinagar-Leh highway. In neither case, however, has the shock been unsettling enough for Pakistan?s ruling elite to abandon midway the risky adventure in which it invested so much effort and hope. It can console itself with the thought that, considering the scale of its dangerous provocation, the reference to the Kargil conflict in the resolution passed by the G-8 nations in Cologne is worded in a somewhat low key manner, does not name the country responsible for the intrusion and carries no hint that its censure of the intruders will be followed by any punitive action. As for the military reverses, future initiatives are still with Pakistan the army of which has made no secret of its desire to open many Kargil-like fronts. Thus, while it is legitimate for India to draw some comfort from both its military and diplomatic gains, the unfinished job on both these fronts ought to serve as a stern warning to the government as well as the public here not to read more into the recent developments than is warranted by a hard-headed assessment of the situation. One interpretation of the G-8 summit resolution, for instance, regards its emphasis on the need for the two sides to respect the LoC as a virtual recognition of it as a permanent international border. This is mere wishful thinking. There is an undercurrent of anxiety in the United States over the malign turn taken by developments in Afghanistan and the threat that fundamentalist fanaticism of the kind the taliban setup there embodies. And the US is showing a little more sensitivity to India?s security concerns than in the past. But there is no sufficient recognition in the West as a whole yet of the menace that export of armed terrorists to Kashmir by Pakistan has created for the people of the valley, keeping a vast region in turmoil for over a decade by blurring the distinction between parties which want a larger measure of local autonomy and sponsored separatist outfits manned by mercenaries trained, armed and financed from abroad. Those who think of Osama bin Laden as an ogre cannot conveniently forget the hundreds of smaller fries of the same ilk spawned by Pakistan. Have the self-styled leaders of the international community no moral responsibility to penalize those who breed and nurture terrorists for export? Some powers want more convincing proof that regular Pakistani troops are involved in the Kargil operations. Does it mean that providing training, arms, money and logistic support to foreign mercenaries and using them as instruments of their policy in invading a neighbour?s territory are activities less reprehensible in the eyes of whatever passes for international law? This is not to underestimate the significance of such shifts as seems to have taken place in the attitude of the Western powers to the Kashmir problem. The G-8 resolution is at least an unequivocal declaration of a desire to see the sanctity of the LoC in Kashmir ? drawn at the time of the Shimla agreement ? is preserved until such time as the two neighbours resolve their differences through peaceful negotiations. The problem is that a mere declaration of intent will not put an end either to the continuing export of terrorism or, as the Kargil case shows, to extension of the proxy war being waged by Pakistan to new areas in the absence of effective sanctions. There is no hint of any international sanctions to force Pakistan to clear the Kargil area of all intruders and no ground for the cosy belief that the Pakistani economy, however weak, will collapse if Pakistan does not soon wind up its misadventure. So there is no escape for this country from a long and nerve-racking war which it will be fighting under the double handicap of being in a much more disadvantageous position in many areas than the enemy and not being able to pursue him into his side of the LoC from where he gets his supplies and reinforcements. It will be quixotic to hope that the job of ridding the entire area of intruders will be easy or swift. Any illusion on this score should be dispelled by the latest briefing by the army at which the number of intruders still on the Indian side of the LoC ? 700 to 800 ? was stated to be the same as cited a month ago. What happened to the over 300 who were supposed to have been killed? Apparently, reinforcements have kept pace with casualties. There has been no letup in Pakistan?s war effort. It has an ample supply of mercenaries and suffers from no inhibition in dispatching regular troops when necessary. Indian troops will have to fight for every square metre of the rocky terrain. Those in charge of both conducting the war on the ground under conditions which try the body and spirit of the soldiers at every step and the campaign on the diplomatic front need also to take good care not to let management of the home front slip out of control. Though all parties unreservedly subscribe to the goal of clearing the Kargil sector of the last intruder, whatever the cost, none of them is quite able to give up their not so secret wish to use the war emergency to their advantage in the pending parliamentary elections. All this cannot but warp the national perspective and detract from the war effort by covering up mistakes which let the intruders go undetected for months while they were entrenching themselves in so many strong positions or raising irrelevant controversies as on the issues of forming a national government or calling a Rajya Sabha session to discuss the Kargil war or showing symptoms of paranoia as the case made recently in Panchajanya, the organ of the Rashtri-ya Swayamsevak Sangh, which is the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The writer implores the prime minister to exercise the nuclear option to teach Pakistan a lesson. The right place to air his view for a person who thinks up such a provocation is not the editorial page of a journal but a loony bin. The present government, despite its caretaker status, speaks for 18 parties. The formation of a national government will involve the addition of pe