Trump administration can promote regional peace by staying off the Kashmir issue

US President Donald Trump was too hasty to credit himself for the halt in military exchanges between India and Pakistan on May 10 and announced it even before India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire. This kicked off a controversy in India that is yet to die down.

When Trump claimed credit and the Pakistani government paid enormous tribute to him for helping in fast ending the military exchanges, it appeared as if the US President pressurised India to discontinue with its punishing attacks on Pakistani military facilities, which was in response to the Islamabad-backed inhuman terrorist attack on unarmed tourists in Pahalgam.

It also made Indian people believe that the US did little to help India in responding to the brutal Pahalgam terror attacks except condemning the incident and calling for restraint even before India would seek to punish the culprits and their sponsors. The Trump administration maintained silence after the terror infrastructures were destroyed by India. Had President Trump made a statement soon after the nine terror camps in Pakistan were hit by Indian precision strikes with little or no collateral damage and called for a ceasefire, it would have shown him better light as a person who was against terrorist activities and who cared for peace between two nuclear neighbours in South Asia.

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The Trump White House also made no remarks on India’s carefully executed strikes against terror camps. Nor did it say anything when Pakistan was relentlessly pounding civilian targets in India by using a large number of drones. The high officials of the Trump administration woke up only after Pakistan attacked Indian military installations, drawing appropriate retaliation by the Indian Armed Forces.

There is little doubt that the ceasefire declaration between India and Pakistan preceded intense conversations by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio with both Indian and Pakistani officials. But the final decision was taken only after Pakistan’s DGMO called his Indian counterpart and discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire. And this call from Pakistan came only after India had given a befitting reply to Pakistani provocation by hitting hard their military bases that were responsible for attacks against Indian targets.

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Pakistan has traditionally approached Washington for help only after its miserable failure in military misadventures against India. And Washington has often been sympathetic towards Pakistan in view of their long-standing alliance relationship. When Pakistan started its first war in Kashmir in the 1940s, the Truman administration equated the victim with the aggressor and called for a ceasefire by the warring parties.

At that time, India was determined to stay away from the Cold War by adopting a non-aligned foreign policy, and Pakistan was courting the US to make it an alliance partner. By the time Pakistan invaded Kashmir in 1965, it was a member of US-backed regional security alliances, such as the Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation and the Central Treaty Organisation.

The anti-India policy of the US was so pronounced that the India-Pakistan ceasefire agreement was signed in Tashkent through Soviet mediation. During the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, Washington visibly tilted towards Pakistan, ignoring its brutal military suppression of the freedom movement in East Pakistan. During the Pakistani misadventure resulting in the Kargil War, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had begged President Bill Clinton to facilitate dialogue with India and reach a ceasefire agreement!

However, a ceasefire agreement is fundamentally different from holding dialogue on the Kashmir issue. India has a consistent policy against third-party interference on the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. As far as India’s bilateral dialogue with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue is concerned, it is only about ending Pakistani occupation of a portion of Jammu and Kashmir, an area known as PoK.

But then the US has a habit of offering its role to discuss the so-called Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. During the 1962 Chinese invasion of India, Pakistan lobbied in Washington for US mediation in the Kashmir dispute, and President John F Kennedy had expressed his willingness to do so, but India firmly refused. In the 1990s, Pakistan yet again lobbied in Washington by proposing ending its nuclear weapon programme if only the US could help in resolving the Kashmir dispute.

Pakistan appears to have succeeded in persuading Washington to interfere in its disputes with India by invoking its doctrine of nuclear danger in South Asia. Terrorism, nuclear weapons and the Kashmir issue are not interconnected, but Islamabad parades this narrative, and Washington sometimes plays by the Pakistani playbook.

The Trump administration needs to take a closer look at Pakistani game plans. Islamabad used to take huge amounts of money from the US in the name of fighting terrorists in Afghanistan post 9/11 and then channel some funds to Haqqani outfits who were killing Western forces. It was the Pakistani military that had given shelter to 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in an area not very far from the military headquarters. The present Pakistani establishment has gagged opposition leaders, calling domestic opponents militants or terrorists, while supporting terrorist groups in Kashmir by calling them freedom fighters.

It is unfortunate the Trump administration, instead of backing Indian efforts to counter terrorism backed by Pakistan, is hypnotised by the Pakistani narrative and is bragging that it has engineered a ceasefire to ward off a nuclear danger in South Asia. What is truly dangerous is when a nuclear-weapon power uses terrorism as an instrument of state power. The US did a big mistake by not even recognising Pakistan-backed cross-border terrorism in Kashmir after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 as “international terrorism”, until after the 9/11 terror attacks on its soil.

And now, the Trump administration is ignoring Pakistan’s hand in terrorism. In the backdrop of political instability, law and order problems, an economic crisis and the unpopularity of the army-backed government in Pakistan, the Pahalgam terror attacks took place. The way the Obama administration neutralised Osama bin Laden by using its military deep inside Pakistan is not ancient history.

If India sought to destroy the terror camps inside Pakistan to avenge the merciless killings of innocent civilians by terrorists with support from across the border, President Trump should have stood by India, as per the statement issued in Washington, and not felt gratified by the current ceasefire. It will be beneficial for the Trump administration to keep off the Kashmir issue and focus on terrorism in the subcontinent for the betterment of the India-US strategic partnership and regional peace.

The author is founding chairperson, Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, and editor, India Quarterly. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.