A carrot for Pakistan and a stick for India

Thanks to 11 years of shambolic diplomacy in the time of Modi, including most recently the mishandling of the aftermath of Pahalgam, Pakistan seems to have emerged from the cold, growing in global stature at India’s expense.

On 18 June, US President Donald Trump hosted a closed-door lunch for Pakistan’s chief of army staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, in the cabinet room of his office-cum-residence in the White House. Munir was promoted by his government to the rank of field marshal after the recent armed face-off with India.

“I was honoured to meet him,” remarked Trump. “They (Pakistan) know Iran very well.” If Munir can help Trump clinch a deal with Iran, it will be nothing short of a diplomatic coup for Pakistan.

No Pakistani army chief, unless he was concurrently the country’s president or ruler by martial law, has been extended the courtesy of a private meeting with a US president. On 11 June, Gen. Michael Kurilla, chief of the US Central Command, which has forward headquarters in Qatar, described Pakistan as “a phenomenal partner” to the US in countering terrorism.

Far from mobilising the world to join him in castigating Pakistan and tagging it a sponsor of terrorism, Modi has effectively set up a geopolitical resurrection for India’s perpetual adversary.

Pakistan was a partner and staging post in the US’s ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan to avenge Al Qaeda’s demolition in 2001 of the World Trade Center in New York and a section of the US defence department complex in Washington.

Eventually, the US came to think it had been double-crossed by Pakistan, and relations soured. This coincided with a blossoming of the US–India relationship under Dr Manmohan Singh’s prime ministership, which in turn resulted in Pakistan being downgraded in the US’s geopolitical calculus.

The importance of Pak Army chief’s lunch at White House

An assessment of the military balance sheet of Modi’s Operation Sindoor has stirred the West out of the perception that Pakistan was a pushover for India. The overwhelming superiority India was estimated to possess in conventional capability is now seen as erroneous. The West is impressed with the prowess of the Pakistan Air Force, if not its air defence capabilities.

A statement put out by India’s foreign secretary Vikram Misri quoted Modi — for the first time in six weeks — as apparently rebutting Trump’s incessant claims that he brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan by using trade as a lever.

As narrated by Misri, Modi conveyed to Trump in a telephone conversation that “at no point during this entire sequence of events was there any discussion, at any level, on an India–US trade deal, or any proposal for a mediation by the US between India and Pakistan”. As per Misri, Modi “firmly stated that India does not and will never accept mediation”.

Before his lunch with Munir, Trump dismissed Modi’s version of events. He reiterated: “Well, I stopped the war” and “I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man [make of that what you will]. I spoke to him last night. We’re going to make a trade deal with Modi of India. But I stopped the war between Pakistan and India. This man [Munir] was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side. Modi from the Indian side and others. They were going at it… and they’re both nuclear countries. I got it stopped.”

Trump–Munir lunch huge blow to Indian diplomacy: Congress

Pakistan has hailed Trump on his intervention and thanked him repeatedly for it. Munir has, according to a White House spokesperson, called for Trump to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Such flattery could go far with Trump.

Trump is the world’s most dangerous man, and he is fooling only the innocent with his sinister Middle East policy.

Israel continues to pummel Gaza, killing civilians, including women and children. On 12 June, the US was unsurprisingly among 14 countries who opposed a United Nations General Assembly resolution demanding ‘an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire’ in the war in Gaza.

The other nations comprising the G7 — which held its 51st summit in the Canadian Rockies (15–17 June) — the US’s traditional allies, France, Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada, were among the 149 who voted in favour of the ceasefire motion.

The Narendra Modi government ordered its Permanent Representative at the UN to abstain, joining a motley group of 19 other member states who did so. India stood isolated in the developing world, which it once spearheaded.

The International Criminal Court at The Hague issued warrants of arrest last year against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. In February, Trump in an executive order (the equivalent of a Central government ordinance in India) stated the ICC ‘has engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel’ and imposed US sanctions on ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, a British lawyer.

On 13 June, Israel alarmingly expanded the theatre of hostilities in the region with missile attacks and ground operations against Iran. Trump initially pretended he had nothing to do with it. The cat was out of the bag when after prematurely departing from the G7 summit, he threatened on his social media platform Truth Social: ‘We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there—we are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. We don’t want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.’ He followed that by demanding of Iran an ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ in screaming block capitals.

The previous day, he had posted, ‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. We are watching very closely, and we have total control of their skies. They know it, and they are scared. Any move toward a nuke, and it’s over for them. Big mistake to test us!’ Trump later admitted he encouraged Netanyahu to ‘keep going’.

Khamenei responded, “Wise people who know Iran, its people and its history, never speak to this nation in the language of threats, because Iranians are not those who surrender.” He was quoted by Iranian state television as saying, “Any form of US military intervention will undoubtedly be met with irreparable harm.”

At the time of writing, Trump seemed to be malevolently enjoying the spectacle of a world on tenterhooks: “Nobody knows what I’m going to do.”

This article was sent to press on 19 June for the print edition of NH on Sunday

Ashis Ray can be found on X @ashiscray. More of his writing can be found here