Trump’s ceasefire claims underscore US’s bipartisan support for Pakistan

 

While the phone call was a bailout plan for Pakistan, the ceasefire announcement was an attempt to embarrass Modi, which Trump continues knowing well how it is playing out in Indian domestic politics

                   Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

 

The least that a mature democracy is expected to offer its men and women in uniform is a bipartisan consensus on military affairs. No cadet, when he signs up, wants a politician to berate a soldier's efforts, while calling another politician names. Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s latest jibe, “narendar-surrender” --- amplified by the Congress party spokesman, who called the PM a coward --- is a debilitating blow to the morale of the polity. Not because the PM has been attacked in the vilest possible terms, but because a successful military operation has been turned into a mean political joke. For, “surrender and cowardice” are terms that shouldn’t even be remotely associated with a military mission.

 

But wasn’t this expected? The BJP scored a domestic political point by trashing all the names offered by the Congress and hijacking the best speakers from the Opposition benches for its outreach to the rest of the world. Asaduddin Owaisi, Shashi Tharoor, Kanimozhi Karunanidhi, Manish Tiwari and Salman Khurshid were simply superb in their articulation of the national cause. The best oner-liner was from Kanimozhi. A mischievous European reporter, who came tutored about her party’s politics of Tamil linguistic pride, asked the prickly query on India’s national language. She nonchalantly replied that it is “unity in diversity”.

 

The embarrassment all this has caused the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi is immense. Three former Congress ministers have violated party’s written diktat (list) and crossed over to join the government’s team, while remaining party’s MPs. It was a body blow to Rahul and he took it badly. Rahul has claimed that US President Donald Trump made a phone call and asked Modi to stop fighting --- “Narendar surrender” is how Rahul fictitiously paraphrased Trump’s conversation. The alliteration is pedestrian and sounds like crass street politics, not statesman-like geopolitics. Then, how else could Rahul have responded to his best speakers (though he does not give them their rightful due) being stolen? He hit back the way he knows best.

 

Therein lies the problem. He did a comparison between his grandmother Indira Gandhi and Modi and claimed that nothing, not even the mighty US Seventh Fleet, could make Indira change her mind. Indira’s foreign minister Swaran Singh had signed the Indo-Soviet treaty of friendship, peace and cooperation on August 9, 1971, four months before the war began. Rahul doesn’t seem to have read Article IX of the Indo-Soviet treaty, which says, “ In the event of either Party being subjected to a threat thereof, the High Contracting Parties shall immediately enter into mutual consultations in order to remove such threat and to take appropriate effective measures to ensure peace and the security of their countries.” If this isn’t a military alliance, what is?

 

In 1971, the Soviet empire spanned across two continents from China’s border in the east to Berlin in the west. And to thwart the threatening presence of the Seventh Fleet in the Indian Ocean, the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear-armed destroyers and a submarine from Vladivostok. Thus, it was not Indira’s resolve but the Soviet missiles that cowed down the US bully. But politicians are wont to be flexible with facts, which is par for the electoral course. 

 

Now, the Russian Federation is a mere shadow of its mighty predecessor, fighting bleeding battles with what was once a part of its civilisational past, just to remain afloat as a major power, not a Super Power. In this geopolitical context, a phone call from Trump can be heeded, particularly when India’s military objectives have already been met. 

 

India was ready for de-escalation soon after hitting the terror infrastructure. There was no point in going up the escalator of escalating damages. Already 11 airbases deep inside Pakistan were targeted, there were no tactical or strategic objectives to be met, it was the right moment to push the ceasefire button. War after all is diplomacy by other means and not an end in itself. Also, Trump’s call underlined in no uncertain terms that India cannot obliterate Pakistan, it cannot bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age”, and that the West will not remain a mute spectator to the humiliation of Pakistan. The West will intervene, discredit India and protect Pakistan and reaffirm the Western solidarity with IMF and World Bank loans.

 

In fact, the biggest takeaway for India from this limited conflict is that the US foreign policy remains bipartisan despite Trumpian eccentricities. All the electoral sloganeering of ab ki bar Trump sarkar and mera dost Donald Trump hasn’t made any difference to the US establishment. It began lecturing India about buying arms from Russia, not long after Trump’s phone call. The timing couldn’t have been just coincidence as Trump keeps on talking about his mediation --- the latest was during his conversation with President Putin on June 4, which was reported by Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov. 

 

Was Trump’s intervention only a quid pro quo for a crypto currency deal that Pakistan has allegedly made with his family-owned company World Liberty Financial Inc or was it also meant to embarrass Modi? His out-of-turn announcement of the ceasefire, sure had the Trump signature, but also the desired destabilising effect on domestic Indian politics. The ceasefire announcement and the repeated reference to it have elements of the long term regime change plan which the previous administrations and the so-called Deep State actors like George Soros had laid down over many years in India.

 

This was a much needed reality check for the Modi government. Something that our national security planners should factor in while wargaming kinetic counter measures against terror strikes by Pakistan’s semi-state actors. If the West continues to treat Pakistan as a military ally for whom it will make calls that would embarrass the Indian leadership, should not the latter rethink its membership of Quad? Is Quad really beneficial for India? If Quad is the only reason and provocation for China’s aggressive standoffs at Doklam and Ladakh, wouldn’t India be better off stepping out of NATO's replica in the Indian Ocean? There are no nuclear-armed destroyers and submarines waiting to sail into Bay of Bengal at India’s call. The West watches India with suspicion. India has to look East.