This is John Batchel, a conversation with former ambassador from Pakistan of the United States,

Hossein Akane, about what we know fog of war of an exchange of gunfire between Pakistan and India

to do with the massacre, the terrorist attack by Lashgari Taiba, against non-Muslim tourists, Indian citizens,

that has enraged all the region and is looking again to ignite a larger conflict

between two extremely well-armed powers.

The remark by the ambassador speaks to whether the U.S. does or does not intend to get involved.

There's much more ahead on this, but right now the ambassador's belief is that Mr. Trump will stand back from the conflict

and not in any way inject the U.S. power into the region.

At this point, this is dangerous business.

Much more tonight.

I think that the president's instincts are not to get involved in third party conflicts unless and until the outcome is the

one that he or the United States may want. And here, the United States doesn't know what outcome

would be truly favorable to U.S. interests. So stay out as much as possible. That said,

of course, the U.S. does not want an

escalation that could end up involving some kind of use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons.

And so in the past, and this has been going on since the 90s, the U.S. has always joined other countries in trying to put pressure on both India and Pakistan to back off and to find face-saving measures that are acceptable to both sides.

That happened in the 1999-Kargyl conflict. It happened after the Mumbai attacks. It happened after the 2016 and

2019 attacks inside India and Indian retaliation against Pakistan.