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George Bush will wake up one of these mornings and realize that there is one obvious way to salvage his Presidential legacy — solve the bitter Kashmir dispute that has simmered between India and Pakistan ever since the British, in their colonial wisdom, carved the two countries out of what used to be one, in 1947.

This dispute has not just simmered for 60 years, it has boiled over several times into all-out war. In 1947, and 1965, and again in 1999. And, for many months in 2002 there was a very real concern in the west, especially in the U.S., that India and Pakistan were on the brink of a nuclear war. In May 2002, the State Depoartment was concerned enough that it was “urging Americans to leave India and (authorized) a voluntary departure of non-essential embassy personnel”.

Clearly one of the hot spots of the world. Moreover, in terms of international diplomacy, it’s practically a virgin, untouched hot spot, one that nobody has so far been able to make any headway at defusing. Nobody has even been able to mount a serious, creditable effort. Just a big fat opportunity, sitting there for Bush to seize on, and still carve out an enduring legacy for himself.

If Bush could solve Kashmir and bring peace to India and Pakistan, that would be as big and bold and beautiful as Nixon‘s historic visit to China. And no matter what other past presidents he likes to compare himself to in public, in private — and especially when thinking wistfully about his legacy — Bush has to be comparing himself to Nixon a lot. And he has to be saying to himself: “If Nixon could salvage his legacy, I can too. It’s just a matter of finding the right issue.” (And at some level even Bush surely realizes that nuclear strikes against Iran — or bunker-buster strikes against their nuclear facilities — isn’t exactly the way to carve out a positive legacy?)

Also, I imagine that Bush is not the only one in this administration who is seriously alarmed about the clock ticking away on his chances for building himself a lasting legacy. Surely Condi Rice too is pacing up and down in frustration, both at how little she has achieved in her time as Secretary of State, and at how little time is left to her now. For Bush, it’s only about legacy; for Condi, it’s also about future ambitions.

This lady has got to do something big, and she’s got to do it soon. And it has to be something where Prick Cheney is not already arrayed against her as both an immovable object and an irresistible force. Something where he might even be an ally.

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Isn’t that just what America, and the world, needs? To see the likes of Condi Rice and Prick Cheney go to work on a Pakistani president who is increasingly more precarious politically, increasingly more desperate, to see them bring their own unique geo-political insights to bear on this dispute between two bristly nuclear-armed rivals?

And let’s not forget that these two countries are steeped in an unreasoning blood-feud hatred which easily rivals the Sunni-Shia love-fest in Iraq. Just the kind of combustible material that Prick Cheney’s band of merry men would love to be let loose to play with. Because once you set that region burning, no one will be able to put out the flames for decades. It’ll be just like the sectarian bloodshed in Iraq, only better. This time we’ll have got two different countries involved. Two countries with nuclear weapons and a critical mass of blood-feud hatred for each other. With any luck, we’ll no longer have to wear the shame of being the only country ever to have used nuclear weapons in a war. Equally important, we won’t even have to commit our own troops or treasure. Just rub those two sticks together, and let all the dry tinder that is their political baggage burst into flame.

And then the arsonists in firefighters’ uniforms can have a field day pretending to put out the flames. Of course, a couple of instances of mistakenly pouring gasoline on the flames instead of water are only to be expected. The fog of diplomacy, you know.

And there will, of course, be a million ways later to spin how none of it was our fault. There’s always “Who could have imagined…” and “I would surely remember something like that”. Not to mention “Go eff yourself!”

Rice and Cheney — George Bush’s legacy is clearly in very good hands.

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Oops! Totally forgot to mention the double bonus silver lining. Osama bin Laden‘s safe haven might very literally be wiped out.