Pak Successfully Woos Trump Administration

The most significant step that Pakistan took to cultivate the Trump administration was to promote itself as a victim of terrorism and as an important partner of the US in counterterrorism.

- CHINTAMANI MAHAPATRA

Much before the Pakistan-backed terrorists brutally killed tourists in Kashmir's Pahalgam in April this year, the Pakistani government had begun to cultivate the Trump Administration. By the time the Pahalgam terror attacks jolted the people and shook the security forces in Kashmir, Pakistan had already succeeded in slowly but systematically wooing the Trump 2.0 Administration.

Indian strategic community had almost ignored Pakistan as a constant security threat to India and the government-to-government relations were nil or negligible for years. While life was inching back to normalcy in Kashmir in the absence of Islamabad-inspired terror attacks, Pakistan was in deep economic crisis, repeatedly seeking a bail-out from the International Monetary Front, was in a state of political turmoil since the removal of the Imran Khan government and his imprisonment in 2022, and was unable to address political violence in Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. It appeared that the Pakistani establishment would now stop exporting terror across the border and would rather focus its attention to keep its house in order. India had little to be concerned over the security threat from the Western border and inattention of the strategic community to factor Pakistan as a security threat was understandable.

Moreover, India's attention was drawn more towards the political upheavals in Bangladesh; with Pakistan and China making the best use of rising anti-India sentiments in that country. With fast developing stories on emerging military to military connect between Pakistan and Bangladesh and the China connection thereof, there was general belief that terror attacks in Kashmir were a remote possibility. India also appeared to have drawn considerable confidence from its responses to Uri and Pulwama terror attacks, which perhaps shaped the Indian thinking that Pakistan would be discouraged from rekindling its cross-border terror enterprise.