The Kashmir conflict has been the longest and most complex geopolitics battle on the earth. It started during the 1947 British partition of India in which Jammu and Kashmir state literally placed themselves right in the middle of Pakistan-India rivalry for dominance. They both claim it but in ratio otherwise.
A war, a run-of-the-mill sequence of wars, and decades of political instability but were insufficient to fall short of below arrest the subject of our concern. Foreign interventions, and American interventions in exceptional circumstances still had at their disposal that Achilles’ heel, and to most of the ordinary one it was held in New Delhi as speculation and actuarial interest in Islamabad.
TRUMP’S SURPRISING OFFER
United States of America President Donald Trump made this announcement at a joint White House press conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on July 22, 2019. In reaction to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s invite from behind Trump’s back to be the mediator of the Kashmir issue by reaching out and calling him over to do it, Trump responded, “If I can help, I would love to be a mediator… if I can do anything to help, let me know.”
This was then followed by a political and diplomatic retreat both, more so in India. This third-party intervention negated India’s previous policy that the Kashmir issue is a bilateral one and can be resolved between India and Pakistan.
INDIA’S STRONG DENIAL
India’s Ministry of External Affairs itself had issued a blanket denial only a few hours back. It said, in its statement, “No such request has been made by Prime Minister Modi to the U.S. President.” The Indian side was only saying the same thing over and over again and playing games. All issues between Pakistan are to be resolved bilaterally under the Simla Agreement (1972) and the Lahore Declaration (1999) which preclude third-party mediation completely.
Indian opposition political parties lost no time in taking advantage of the platform to raise questions about the credibility of the Modi government. Former diplomats, media analysts, and foreign affairs experts also weighed in and warned against Trump’s remark and its resultant implications in the event of exaggeration or a lie.
PAKISTAN’S ENTHUSIASTIC RESPONS
So Pakistan had taken Trump’s proposal with open arms. US President had been hosted by Prime Minister Imran Khan and had pronounced the statement as diplomatic grand success. Pakistan had grieved global pressure on Kashmir hoping extrinsic pressure to break India.
Pakistani response also to be expected with yet another move by the Trump administration in opening the negotiating spigot, or shoving the issue at international platforms. Pakistani response was but an indication of the Indian and Pakistani policy diverging.
It was not the first international intervention that had made Kashmir a peaceful place. The post-partum period when for the first time the process began had itself seen the United Nations stepping in and establishing the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).
Decade by decade, all the leftovers of the U.S. Presidents of the Eisenhower decade through Clinton were all keenly interested in the crisis, particularly every time when it was going out of their hands.
But India never sought to turn the Kashmir issue into a bilateral one and eschewed mediation. Unofficial “good offices” or backchanneling have also operated in secret, so to speak, to the fullest extent possible, in attempting to alleviate political opposition in India.
TRUMP’S DIPLOMATIC STYL
Donald Trump’s suggestion of a summit to solve Kashmir was in the latter’s business culture model of being transactional and mercurial. Trump also had the tendency of saying anything and everything without head in it first and of being in “shoot from the lip” mode, and Trump also had the tendency of blurring state policy lines and himself.
It appears that everyone thinks Trump could have just been bumbling along in some kind of stereotypical scenario where he was trading insults with Modi or boasting about how much India had been able to get done in trying to open arms to the foreigners. The other observers believe that what he had said was part of some larger US strategy to keep him occupied in South Asia because it was ditching an agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s orders. REACTIONS OF THE U.S.
STATE DEPARTMENT
Very little in the way of damage control on the part of the US State Department was witnessed following Trump’s tantrum and diplomatic indignation that it had stirred up.
The officials very clearly indicated that nothing was going to change as much as America’s policy and that India-Pakistan bilateral talks was the way they wanted. Ambassadors endured an clarification by indulging India to a degree where the next day in the diplomatic ranks they could not move from the effects of an alchol-based hangover.
The State Department officials did their best in repeating America wasn’t only looking to give aid but would much more happily step forward if both the countries decided to do so, without bypassing the process by which Pakistan and India had reached the decision of settling the matters between them.
STRATEGIC ASPECTS OF THE PROPOSAL
Trump’s suggestion to act as a US-Taliban intermediary also came with the political risk. America now asked Pakistan to get Pakistan to the negotiating table in Afghanistan. Pakistan had the Taliban in its control, and Washington wanted to outsource the services of Pakistan so that it could withdrawal the Americans.
An arm’s length policy in Kashmir would most probably have been a diplomatically approved measure by Washington against Pakistan. It was an appeasement move to Imran Khan and an attempt to re-assert the cold-blooded America history with Pakistan over the past three decades because these two nations remain bogged down.
It was also extremely likely to remind India that Washington’s friendship never came for granted, particularly if India tilted too much towards China or Russia.
DOMESTIC POLITICS DRIVING FOREIGN POLICY
Trump and Modi have both been labeled bravado strongmen and bombastic populists.
Both would never be Indian nationalist grist for the offer to solve Kashmir through third-party arbitration. At home on their own turf of Jammu and Kashmir under added pressure following the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, Modi would be gambling in the comfort of grabbing the moment of taking the risk of sheer flipping of the coin of unbundling the illusion of sovereignty swap.
Trump’s America diplomacy was nothing short of marketing homegrown agendas on a global stage.
Trump’s policy will be undertaken so that the world becomes a great world or ends war across the whole world. Trump also wants to sign “the deal of the century” on some of the world’s most difficult conflicts, i.e., Israel and Palestinians. Kashmir would also appear to be a front-runner on whom he can show that he is a diplomat.
ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Good world community interested in peace in South Asia and human rights never ever objected to war in Kashmir in their interest. Constraining France, U.K., and Russia’s great power to remain in holding out for bilateral negotiations on terms of the Simla Agreement.
Violations of human rights, mobility constraints, and we-blocking have been the day’s order in the country at all costs. The measures will surely offend India indirectly but not through state action.
AFTERMATH AND LONG-TERM EFFECT
Trump’s move, as justifiably condemned by India, did create an eternity dark blot on all ages to come for future diplomats. It expressed the message of futility of state thinking and triumph of reality in global diplomacy.
It also showed the way surprise leadership erased decades of policy agreement. It seemed to shape morale and global pressure into the near-term in Pakistan. It offered sufficient reasons to be astute, tough diplomacy in India.
No mediation was visible, but the incident put world sensitivities onto the Kashmir dispute and the need to move cautiously with perception, alignments, and strategic communications.
CONCLUSION
Donald Trump’s offer to mediate Kashmir was a cliffhanger otherwise sensitive South Asian diplomacy. While as much as India ridiculed it and US policymakers detested it, it demonstrated that there was subtlety to the Kashmir problem.
Crisis generated world cross-positions that triggered risk to open-ended diplomacy of diplomatic inconsistency, and revealed status attributed leadership style of personal character in world determinations of outcome. Peace settlement terms are a normal state of India and Pakistan, though mediators’ hopes are not dashed while tensions seethe along and on the subcontinent.