Two years after the passage by a unanimous House of Representatives and all but two senators of the August 7, 1964, Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and amid continuing escalation of the Vietnam War, then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright published The Arrogance of Power, in which he attacked the war’s justification, Congress’ failure to set limits on it, and the dangerous and delusional impulses that gave rise to it. Fulbright’s critique, to which he had already given voice in unprecedented hearings on the war, legitimized the growing anti-war movement in a way that had not been possible before the book’s publication and shattered what until then had been an elite consensus that U.S. military intervention in Indochina was necessitated by cold war geopolitics.

Neither U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell nor any other observers expected the Secretary’s visit to South Asia to produce a breakthrough in the tense standoff between the region’s nuclear-armed rivals. Powell’s failure to obtain any assurances of further concessions by either side cannot therefore said to be a disappointment. Surprisingly, however, the Secretary of State did make news. In India he called for India to allow international observers when it holds elections in Jammu and Kashmir this fall, and reportedly declared that Kashmir is now “on the international agenda.” In Pakistan he expressed the hope that these elections in Indian Kashmir would open the way for peace. Taken together the statements indicated an evolving U.S. position that neither likes–one that essentially ignores Pakistani calls for a plebiscite to determine the wishes of Kashmiris, while questioning India’s right to determine unilaterally that Kashmiri aspirations had been met.