Fourth July at the Blair house

It was around 1130 hours on July, 1999 on an extremely hot and humid day, when the motorcade of senior Pakistan embassy officials in Washington DC, including myself, led by our brilliant Ambassador Riaz Khokhar escorted PM Nawaz Sharif and his limited entourage directly to the Blair House from Washington's Dulles International Airport.
Built in 1824 and in service with US government since 1942, Blair House stands across Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House and is the US president's Guest House, playing host to foreign heads of state on official business.
July 4 is the US Independence Day and a public holiday. It is extremely rare for a US president to attend to official work on this day. But in the backdrop of two nuclear armed South Asian nations engaged in an intense and bloody war over Kargil heights, PM Nawaz Sharif's air dash to Washington for an urgent meeting with US President Clinton made this July 4 most significant in American diplomatic history.
The meeting at Blair House started around 1330 hours with a plenary session between Clinton and Nawaz Sharif alongwith their respective teams comprising national security, state department and foreign policy experts.
Bruce Riedel, special assistant to Clinton and senior director for South Asian affairs in National Security Council in White House was a key member of Clinton's team in these sessions that lasted for almost three hours.
Review of Bruce Reidel's Policy Series Paper titled American Diplomacy and Kargil Conflict at Blair House, reveals Clinton's tough stance and pressure tactics with Nawaz Sharif during the historic meeting.
According to Riedel, Clinton told Nawaz Sharif, he had warned him (Sharif) on July 2/3 on telephone not to come to Washington unless he was ready to withdraw without any preconditions or quid pro quo.
Riedel adds that PM Nawaz Sharif went into a long and predictable defence of the Kashmir cause as well as his efforts to urge the Indians for a dialogue to descalate the situation, but Clinton was unmoved. Clinton made his intentions clear to the PM with an already US prepared statement which would pin all blame for Kargil crisis on Pakistan and would also mention Pakistan's role in supporting terrorists in Afghanistan and India, in case Nawaz Sharif did not agree to a withdrawal behind the LOC.
As per Riedel the atmosphere of the meeting was tense and Clinton seemed obsessed with the information of reported plan for mobilisation of Pakistan's nuclear assets. Clinton was angry: "You have put me in the middle of today to set the US up to fail and I won't let this happen."
Bruce further states that Clinton was clear and firm; Nawaz Sharif had a choice, either to withdraw behind the LOC and the moral compass would tilt back towards Pakistan or stay and fight a wider and dangerous war with India without US sympathy.