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Trump's ignorance was on full display in his meeting with Imran Khan
Source: Washington Post
Trump’s ignorance was on full display in his meeting with Imran Khan
By Barkha Dutt July 22 at 8:55 PM
Monday’s meeting between President Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was meant to prioritize Afghanistan and the ongoing U.S.-Taliban talks. Instead, Trump’s clumsy handling of the meeting has ended up making it all about relations between India and Pakistan — and left New Delhi with no option but to effectively say what many others have said before: that Trump is a liar.
First, Trump boasted that he could win the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan “in a week,” a comment so absurd and ill-informed that it is unworthy of a rebuttal. Then he waded into the middle of a tenuous relationship between Delhi and Islamabad, governments that are only just emerging from the shadows of heightened tensions. He claimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to play the role of mediator between the two countries and offered to get involved in a bid to resolve the long-standing dispute over the Kashmir issue.
These remarks caused an immediate political furor in India, as they upended India’s long-standing position: that there is no room for a third party in the Kashmir conversation between India and Pakistan.
Yes, the United States has been among global powers that have historically intervened to pull back India and Pakistan from the brink of escalated military conflict. This month, India marked the 20-year anniversary of the 1999 Kargil conflict, which was triggered by Pakistani soldiers occupying Indian territory. Back then, as the Indian military pushed back hard, Nawaz Sharif, then-prime minister of Pakistan, came to Washington knocking on President Bill Clinton’s doors. More recently, when India’s air force struck inside Pakistan in the aftermath of a terror strike in Kashmir and friction mounted at the border, Trump tweeted about the possibility of tensions subsiding.
Yet channeling influence to avert full-scale military conflict between two nuclear-armed nations is hardly the same as claiming India asked for an international negotiating role in Kashmir, which is seen across party lines as a strictly bilateral issue. ...
-snip-
By Barkha Dutt July 22 at 8:55 PM
Monday’s meeting between President Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was meant to prioritize Afghanistan and the ongoing U.S.-Taliban talks. Instead, Trump’s clumsy handling of the meeting has ended up making it all about relations between India and Pakistan — and left New Delhi with no option but to effectively say what many others have said before: that Trump is a liar.
First, Trump boasted that he could win the 18-year-old war in Afghanistan “in a week,” a comment so absurd and ill-informed that it is unworthy of a rebuttal. Then he waded into the middle of a tenuous relationship between Delhi and Islamabad, governments that are only just emerging from the shadows of heightened tensions. He claimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to play the role of mediator between the two countries and offered to get involved in a bid to resolve the long-standing dispute over the Kashmir issue.
These remarks caused an immediate political furor in India, as they upended India’s long-standing position: that there is no room for a third party in the Kashmir conversation between India and Pakistan.
Yes, the United States has been among global powers that have historically intervened to pull back India and Pakistan from the brink of escalated military conflict. This month, India marked the 20-year anniversary of the 1999 Kargil conflict, which was triggered by Pakistani soldiers occupying Indian territory. Back then, as the Indian military pushed back hard, Nawaz Sharif, then-prime minister of Pakistan, came to Washington knocking on President Bill Clinton’s doors. More recently, when India’s air force struck inside Pakistan in the aftermath of a terror strike in Kashmir and friction mounted at the border, Trump tweeted about the possibility of tensions subsiding.
Yet channeling influence to avert full-scale military conflict between two nuclear-armed nations is hardly the same as claiming India asked for an international negotiating role in Kashmir, which is seen across party lines as a strictly bilateral issue. ...
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/23/trumps-ignorance-was-full-display-his-meeting-with-imran-khan/