US-Pakistan bonhomie: Why India should not be surprised

Should India be surprised by the latest turn in US-Pakistan relations under the Trump 2.0 administration? Analysts of Indo-American relations have often characterised the Delhi-Washington relationship as the one with “ups and downs” or “peaks and valleys”, particularly during four decades of the Cold War.

But US-Pakistan relations have witnessed more extensive fluctuations in history, and that pattern continues until today. Pakistan is yet to learn lessons from the extreme oscillations of its ties with the United States, and currently Islamabad seems excessively jubilant over the latest turn in its ties with the Trump White House.

President Donald Trump, who had accused Pakistan of offering nothing but “lies and deceits”, is all praise for the Pakistani ‘Field Marshal’ Asim Munir. He truly honoured a terror-sponsoring field marshal by hosting lunch for him in the White House—a rare gesture in US history—and thanked him for ending Pakistan’s war against India that could have gone nuclear.

There is recorded evidence that it was the Pakistani Army’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) who called India’s DGMO requesting “ceasefire”. Field Marshal Munir has openly expressed President Trump’s intervention in ending the armed conflict and even suggested that Trump should be awarded the coveted Nobel Peace Prize. What he has not revealed is Pakistan’s SOS call to Washington to push for a ceasefire with India after the Indian military not only destroyed several terror camps in Pakistan but also severely damaged Pakistani military bases. When advised by Washington to speak to the Indian side and ask for a ceasefire, Pakistan’s DGMO did that.

President Trump is right that he played a role in the India-Pakistan ceasefire, but that role was confined to giving sane advice to Islamabad to seek a ceasefire agreement. India thus is right in repeatedly asserting that the ceasefire agreement was the outcome of conversations between the DGMOs of the two countries and it was not because of any mediation by Washington.

The whole irony of the Trump-Munir luncheon meeting lies in the fact that it took place so soon after the Pahalgam attacks by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists that forced India to punish the terrorists and their sponsors. It was wise on the part of President Trump to advise Pakistan to seek a ceasefire agreement with India, but it was ill-advised on his part to sing praise of Pakistan’s contribution to counterterrorism efforts. First, the CENTCOM head General Michael Kurilla described Pakistan as a “phenomenal” counterterrorism partner in his Congressional testimony. Now the president of the US bestows all praise on the Pakistani field marshal.

Washington is well aware of Pakistani duplicity in counterterrorism operations undertaken by the US in Afghanistan. How Pakistan under General Pervez Musharraf was taking billions of dollars of economic and military assistance from the United States and diverting some of the wealth to strengthen the anti-Western Haqqani network in Afghanistan is not unknown to the policy community in the US.

How a Pakistani nuclear scientist once visited Al Qaeda supremo Osama bin Laden in the caves of Afghanistan is also not a secret. Nor is the place where Osama bin Laden was hiding, and the Obama administration captured him without informing Islamabad and by violating Pakistani sovereignty, also known to the world. That even a few American citizens were killed in the Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai could not have been an unfamiliar event to the Trump advisors.

Why is there then this renewed praise for Pakistan’s contribution to counterterrorism so soon after the Pakistani hand in the brutal and inhuman terror attacks in Pahalgam? It is because the Trump administration may need Pakistan’s endorsement for probable US military intervention in Iran. Pakistan’s memory of its engagements with the US is too short. It willingly joined the US-backed regional collective security groupings, such as CENTO and SEATO, and soon found that these two alliances were of no use in its anti-India misadventures in 1965 or 1971. Pakistan played the key role of being a conduit for America in its anti-Soviet proxy war for 10 years in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989, only to be abandoned after the Soviet withdrawal of troops in 1989.

Pakistan expected the US to quietly look the other way at its clandestine nuclear activities for serving so well the US interests in Afghanistan in the 1980s. But Washington imposed the Pressler Amendment and cut off all assistance to Pakistan after the end of Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. Pakistan went to the extent of offering its troops for US operations during the Kuwaiti crisis of 1990-1991 with the hope that Washington would show leniency on nuclear issues. But it failed in its attempt.

The US used Pakistan as a frontline state as long as its troops remained in Afghanistan until their full withdrawal by the Biden administration. But after the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s strategic relevance ended, and it was almost abandoned by the US. President Joe Biden described Pakistan as the “most dangerous” country in the world. Pakistan has learnt no lesson, and yet again it seems to be offering its help for any probable military operations in Iran by the Trump administration.

It is clear that the Iran-Israel war figured prominently in the conversation between Pakistan’s strongman and President Trump. In Trump’s views, Pakistan knows a lot about Iran. Pakistan’s knowledge about Iran could be useful to any future American intervention in Iran. After all, Pakistan shares about 900 km of border with Iran. Pakistan would prefer to have a monopoly over the “Islamic Bomb”, and that would be possible if Iran’s ability to go nuclear is erased.

In the game of periodic mutual love and hate, friend and foe, and embrace and divorce equations between Pakistan and the United States, India faces the collateral damage, and it should take timely steps to safeguard its national security. There is thus no surprise that Pakistan may yet again become a frontline state for the US strategy in the South and West Asian region.

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.