So the Pakistan Field Marshal had his lunch with the President of the United States. Whether the mercurial US President planned to also get Prime Minister Modi to Washington to ‘share a meal’ with his dangerous neighbour, as he had said earlier, is unclear. But while Pakistan may celebrate the ‘historic’ culinary bonding in Washington, the bottom line is that there are no free lunches, particularly not with a self-proclaimed transactional president. Gen Asim Munir knows that very well, and is expected to use America’s inevitable demands for his own ends, some of which may result in unknown effects on the declared continuance of ‘Operation Sindoor’.
Copy-Pasting From History
First, look at the lessons of history, in terms of how Pakistan has used US presence and vice versa. On December 8, 1959, a soon-to-be Field Marshal awaited the pleasure of a President of the United States. President Ayub Khan, a dictator who had seized power a year earlier, hailed Dwight D. Eisenhower as a leader of the ‘free world’, bringing to his attention the threat from India, the Kashmir question, the yet-to-be-signed Indus Water treaty, its complete dependence on those waters, and the threat from ‘communism’.
Replace the Russian threat with China, and the whole read-out can be almost copy-pasted into current Pakistani files, especially as Eisenhower, who said he was “delighted that President Ayub had taken the initiative ..to improve relations with India”, had got Ayub to agree to set up a military base in Peshawar, to spy on the Russians.
There are free lunches in Washington.
Munir Has The Levers
Munir, however, knows his man in America. He came prepared with a proposal to nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping a nuclear war – which, Trump would know, is a non-starter. A ‘nomination’ can’t even be announced, let alone making it to the top when Trump is cordially disliked by his own treaty partners. But PM Modi was forced to do the opposite – deny the position of ‘peacemaker’ to the President in his telephone conversation, while his Foreign Secretary did so publicly.
Pakistan scored on that one, but that just might be a false score on one level. That Munir was the first serving chief to meet with the US President was hailed back home. More notable was the fact that the meeting took place – unusually so – with just Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Representative for the Middle East, Steve Witcoff, and, on the Pakistani side, the ISI Chief General, Asim Malik. No civilian aides whatsoever.
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