WASHINGTON: Against the grim backdrop of the 9/11 anniversary memorials in the US marking the world’s biggest terrorist attack, Pakistan has begun an earnest campaign to outflank India on the issue of terrorism and Kashmir.

Pakistani’s military ruler Pervez Musharraf got quickly off the mark by arriving in the US over the weekend and embarking on a publicity blitz to counter the negative perception his country suffers despite being certified by the Bush administration as a loyal US ally in the war against terrorism.

Dispensing the military uniform that he frequently wears in Pakistan, Musharraf has begun donning smart western suits while telling American audiences that India is running a global smear campaign to depict Pakistan as a terrorist state.

“Indo-Pakistan relations are at their lowest ebb,” Musharraf told a gathering at the Harvard University on Sunday, while accusing New Delhi of an intransigent attitude in not responding to his offer for talks. “Pakistan has made major commitments and taken significant steps to ease the current crisis. India must take reciprocal steps.”

Analysts say Musharraf appears set to make Kashmir the one-point issue during his visit in order ot draw international attention and mediation. Musharraf’s campaign to project India as the cussed party is aided by the failure of Indian diplomacy in explaining why it is not talking to Pakistan, they add.

“India’s biggest failure lies in not explaining the lies and contradictions of Pakistani policy,” says Anupam Srivastava, a South Asia scholar at the University of Georgia. “The resolution of Kashmir will not solve the problem because Pakistani needs confrontation with India to reinforce its identity in contradistinction to India.”

Srivastava says, among other things, India has failed to explain to the world > That Musharraf personally initiated the Kargil war and encouraged terrorists > That Pakistan has given away strategic territory in Kashmir to China > That its questioning of elections in Kashmir goes against its own record on democracy > That Pakistan has been the breeding ground for terrorists no matter that it says now > That a militarised Pakistan is inimical to peace with India

At the Harvard lecture, Musharraf in fact asked the international community not to be ‘misled’ by the elections in Jammu and Kashmir, saying, “there is no possibility that these can be free, fair, open, transparent and inclusive.”

Musharraf gets away with such a brazen assertion, says Srivastava, because India’s public diplomacy fails to immediately point out that Pakistan’s military ruler himself rigged a referendum and is now holding a farce of an election that actually puts gloss on India’s efforts in Kashmir.

Musharraf is also setting out to court the US media, which has been scalding in its criticism, even while recording the administration’s appreciation of the vital role Pakistan is playing in the war on terrorism.

He is scheduled to meet the editorial boards of various newspapers, including the Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times, in an effort to counter the negative impression of Pakistan. He is also scheduled to make various television appearances including shows on CNN and PBS.

Over the next week, it appears that the war between India and Pakistan will be fought as much in the public forms in US as the trenches of Kashmir.