NEW YORK, March 7: Saying that President Bush’s visit to “Pakistan and India may have done real harm”, the New York Times chided Mr Bush for “sticking” President Musharraf with the unwelcome task of explaining to Pakistanis why his friend and ally, Mr Bush, had granted favourable nuclear terms to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India, while withholding them from Pakistan.”

“It has left him (Gen Musharraf) less likely to do Washington any special, and politically unpopular, favours on the terrorism front,” said the Times in a stinging editorial: “Mr Bush’s Asia Road Trip.”

“So when Mr Bush agreed to carve out an exception to global non-proliferation rules for India, it should have been obvious that Pakistani opinion would demand the same privileged treatment, and that Mr Musharraf would be embarrassed by Mr Bush’s explicit refusal to provide it,” the Times observed.

“The spectacularly misconceived trip may have inflicted serious damage to American goals in two vital areas, namely, mobilizing international diplomacy against the spread of nuclear weapons and encouraging Pakistan to take more effective action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters operating from its territory,” the newspaper asserted.

Reflecting on the timing of the nuclear deal in the backdrop of the Iranian crisis, the Times said: “The nuclear deal that Mr Bush concluded with India threatens to blast a bomb-size loophole through the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. It would have been bad enough on its own, and disastrously ill-timed, because it undercuts some of the most powerful arguments Washington can make to try to galvanize international opposition to Iran’s nuclear adventurism.”

However, it underscored that “the most immediate damage was done on Mr Bush’s next stop, Pakistan. Washington is trying to persuade Gen Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military dictator, to defy nationalist and Islamic objections and move more aggressively against Pakistani-based terrorists. This is no small issue because both Osama bin Laden and the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, are now believed to operate from Pakistani soil.”

Lambasting Mr Bush for the treatment he meted out to the Pakistani leader, the newspaper said: “It’s just baffling why Mr Bush travelled halfway around the world to stand right next to one of his most important allies against terrorists — and embarrass him.”

“India and Pakistan are military rivals that have fought each other repeatedly. They have both developed nuclear weapons outside the non-proliferation treaty, which both refuse to sign. When India exploded its first acknowledged nuclear weapons eight years ago, Pakistan felt obliged to follow suit within weeks,” the New York Times said.

While saying that “Mr Bush was right to say no to Pakistan,” the newspaper said: “It would be an unthinkably bad idea to grant a loophole to a country whose top nuclear scientist helped transfer nuclear technology to leading rogue states. Granting India a loophole that damages a vital treaty and lets New Delhi accelerate production of nuclear bombs makes no sense either.”

Asserting that Mr Bush should have just stayed home, the Times said: “There is a lot of good a president can do on a visit to another country: negotiate treaties that enhance American security, shore up a shaky alliance, generate good will in important parts of the world. Unfortunately, President Bush didn’t do any of those good things on his just-completed visit to Pakistan and India and may have done some real harm.”