By Sushil Kutty
Pakistan Army Chief Gen Asim Munir had lunch with President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. Missing from the menu was the delectable ‘Ambush Modi’, the main course. Gen. Munir must not have known. But not many knew till Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri woke up the Indian media and let the cat out of the bag.
President Trump had called Prime Minister Narendra Modi up in the dead of Tuesday night and invited him to the White House. But Modi must have got a whiff of the Pakistani biryani and excused himself from the Trump bash.
Prime Minister Modi cited “prior engagement”. President Trump and Gen. Asim Munir had to settle for whatever there was on the table. One report said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth were also at the lunch.
First reports said General Syed Asim Munir, who had promoted himself to Field Marshal, had been invited to join in the US Army’s 250th anniversary celebrations. But then, the US army said ‘no’ and Munir got the lunch invitation.
But minus President Trump’s surprise dish ‘Ambush Modi’, the lunch failed to liven up the small-talk in the White House Cabinet Room thanks to Prime Minister Modi, a killjoy! And there wasn’t even a dress-code.
Trump’s lunch for Gen Munir was planned to embarrass Modi and get him into a meeting with President Trump and the Pakistani general with Trump playing “dealmaker”, a Trump forte!
Of late, Trump has taken on the mantle of peacemaker and warmonger, both rolled into one. Witness Trump’s dangerous shenanigans in the Iran-Israel war and the Modi-Munir ambush was planned to land President Trump yet another shot at a Nobel-winning deal.
Trump made the Modi call on Tuesday night. Wednesday morning Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri woke up the Indian media and told them of the devil in the details. Result: Trump’s planned deviltry was out in the open though Trump failed in his “Mission Impossible”.
The little thing Trump didn’t take seriously was that India has never accepted “third-party intervention on Kashmir” and Trump thought he would solve the “1000-year Kashmir problem” in a matter of one lunch meeting, with no indigestion to neither India nor Pakistan!
Trump erred and Modi spelled it out to him during the Tuesday night telephonic conversation. Modi also told Trump that the “ceasefire” Trump kept claiming was an “understanding” worked out by the DGMOs of India and Pakistan and that Trump should stop claiming it as his accomplishment.
Trump won’t be getting the five-stars that Munir gave himself. The “ceasefire worked out by Trump” with trade and tariff as trade-off was bull! And Trump’s lunch for Gen. Asim Munir was not the banquet Trump thought it would turn out to be.
Trump’s friend Modi refused to take the bait and with the ambush thwarted, the message was loud and clear. Pakistan’s move to “internationalize” the Kashmir imbroglio had no takers in India, neither the ruling BJP nor the main opposition Congress were for giving the United States any defining role.
“No ceasefire”, only a “bilateral understanding” between India and Pakistan till as long as Pakistan did not break “new normal” and then it will be an “act of war”. Even Trump could not have said it so straight and forthright to Iran.
Misri’s Wednesday presser made it plain to Trump that Kashmir was India’s “internal matter” and Trump didn’t have to break his head over Kashmir. By now, everybody should know that Trump is not a hard person to read and that Trump is as predictable as a belly dancer’s “jhatkas and matkas”.
For a change, however, Prime Minister Modi read Trump right and the Cabinet Room didn’t serve the relishing lunch Gen. Munir was expecting. Trump’s move to bring Modi and Munir get the Indian and the Pakistani face to face came a cropper.
Gen. Asim Munir might have caved in to Trump talk, but to expect an Indian prime minister, any Indian prime Minister, to succumb to pressure was asking for the distant moon.
President Trump’s problem is he revels in acting the bully. Maybe it has to do with his days with the ‘WWE’, the world of wrestling, and his sojourn in the construction industry, another rough and tumble arena!
Trump is also a survivor of “too clever by half” lot and he truely believes the President of the United States is the emperor of all that he surveys.
But Modi gave President Trump no chance to pursue his late night fantasy and the White House lunch for Gen Munir had nothing of the excitement of the Trump-Zelenskyy White House faceoff nor the crazy talk ladled out for South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In both cases, Trump was having all the fun at the expense of his guests, heads of state in themselves. And with the Press in attendance. Both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Cyril Ramaphosa. President Trump likes to set up ambushes. He is also condescending when he’s not patronizing!
The danger is when he is a megalomaniac. His Iran-Israel statements are a pointer to where Trump is coming from, where Trump is heading for and what are his plans.
Come to think of it, President Trump and Gen. Asim Munir share much in common. Both Trump and Munir have authoritarian airs about them. Both also have military in their resumes. And Trump says Gen. Munir is an “excellent Pakistani”, worth cultivating. In this regard, Trump is following a longstanding tradition, courting Pakistan to do “America’s dirty work”.
And Modi understood the timing of the lunch had its own significance. ‘Operation Sindoor’ hasn’t been wound up and there’s this “escalating high-stakes conflict” between Israel and Iran with Pakistan sharing a land border with Iran. Pakistan is crucial for Trump’s plans.
In fact, Trump’s plans for Pakistan must have crystallized even before Pahalgam and ‘Operation Sindoor’ and India shouldn’t lose sight of Trump being lax about “backing terrorists”, which Modi said at the ‘G7’ in Canada was a crime against “humanity”. Guess Trump’s America and humanity do not go together.
The Trump-Munir lunch should give India pause. As it is, the Trump War Council of three was in full attendance, Trump, Rubio and Hegseth, along with Gen Munir. What the foursome were cooking and how much of it was for India? Seating Trump and a Munir together and what will be served to India is not hard to guess!
And now that Trump has been told that “India never has, never will accept mediation” on the Kashmir issue, there is no saying what Munir and Trump could have cooked up for India at the White House lunch for Munir? (IPA Service)
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