It is hard to imagine that South Asia has become more dangerous than the Middle East, but it seems to be the case.

What is new, first, is that the Taliban, which some of the Afghans and the United States drove out of Afghanistan in 2001, mostly to Pakistan, seems to be coming back, in strength.

The second phenomenon is that Pakistan, under Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for better or for worse, had been somewhat stable but now has become decidedly not so.

Third, we have India, the vaunted world's largest democracy with economic growth consistently a multiple of America's, experiencing economic pangs and facing dots of disorder across its length and breadth.

Finally, the horrible icing on the cake, India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers who, with Israel, do not accept International Atomic Energy Agency inspection of their nuclear weapons facilities, are sniping at each other again over the 60-year-old territorial issue of Kashmir. Kashmir has led in the past to three wars involving the two South Asian powers.

There was a period starting in 2004 when some observers saw them moving toward peaceful resolution of the problem, under Gen. Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but not now, at least for the moment. A battle took place between them on the line of control last week.

All of this could have come to a head at the summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation held in Sri Lanka over the weekend. But SAARC, an eight-nation organization, has not yet become the problem-solving forum that it could be, and the Colombo summit appears to have included fine words but little consideration of basic issues. SAARC is useful as a talking place, but it cannot yet offer regional problem-solving, particularly on issues involving its most powerful members, India and Pakistan. (The United States is one of nine SAARC observer nations.)

Probably the most disturbing development in South Asia is the slippage in India. We know Afghanistan is a mess. We also know that Pakistan is a cockpit of competing civilian, military, Islamic and tribal forces. India seemed refreshingly to be on a steady, positive course. Now, acts of terrorism in cities in six of its 28 states raise questions. The concern is both that they take place and the possible response of the Indian government. Elections are scheduled to be held in India before May of next year.

It appears that the attacks are being carried out by a movement calling itself Indian Mujahideen, apparently lodged among India's 150 million Muslims. (Note that India's Muslim population is nearly as large as the entire population of Muslim Pakistan.) Trouble involving India has also reached across into neighboring Afghanistan, with a bombing in June at the Indian Embassy in Kabul.

The Indians blame Pakistan for the string of attacks, specifically Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence agency. That body has been a close partner of the CIA since the 1980s when the United States worked with ISI to support the Afghan mujahideen resistance to a Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. Pakistan has received some $10 billion from the United States since 9/11, mostly in military aid, much of which has gone to ISI.

Another problem for India is a so-far-slight decline in its economic prospects from recent golden days. It has claimed 9 percent growth for the past three years. For this year Indian forecasters predict 9.5 percent; more cautious foreign observers say 7 percent. The lower figure is still quite impressive but any drop is painful, and there is always the fear of worse to come. Another troublesome figure is 12 percent inflation in wholesale prices. India's oil import bill is expected to jump from $69 billion last fiscal year to $120 billion this year. (Maybe we'll get our jobs back?)

So what is there to do? Little can be expected from SAARC. It is helpful to have in place a forum where the leaders of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and its other sometimes bellicose members can talk without the protocol and visibility of state visits. But SAARC summits tend to focus on energy, trade and development -- useful subjects but also comfortingly vague and irrelevant to some of the sensitive areas of potential confrontation among the members.

The United States has little role to play in South Asian conflicts at this point. Because of its role in Afghanistan it is condemned either to dance with the Pakistani bear or to invade the place -- easily as much of a potential nightmare as the other thought flitting through the minds of our august leaders: bombing and/or invading Iran, or letting Israel do it, to stop Iran's nuclear program.

Our relatively positive relationship with India has a dark cloud hanging over it. India's parliament, after much acrimonious debate, ratified the nuclear agreement with the United States, which would provide U.S. help to develop India's civilian nuclear power industry. There is little reason to believe the U.S. Congress will do likewise before it throws in its hand for the elections.

The Middle East currently is in a sort of paralysis, with its snakes eyeing each other warily but without much tail-rattling. We could almost wish for comparable armed torpor in South Asia.