What He said Was In The Past

Trump’s volte face on Pakistan startles India. But impetuosity apart, harder realities may have forced the presidential tweet.

- Pranay Sharma

US President Donald Trump’s policy pronouncements, often delivered via punchy tweets, are about as predictable as the series of storms battering America this season—one knows when one is coming and the possible areas, but not the damage and confusion it can wreak.

The growing India-US ties notwithstanding, a possible Donald Trump tweet putting India in a spot was never really beyond South Block’s reckoning. The question was, perhaps, its time of arrival.

It came last weekend (October 14-15)—a tweet that jolted many in the Indian est­ablishment: “Starting to develop a much better relationship with Pakistan and its leaders. I want to thank them for their cooperation on many fronts,” Trump wrote.

A flip-flop on a key issue is a Trump hallmark—he has done it many times, emba­rrassing his officials and policy planners and delighting his detractors. Despite that, this 180-degree turn by Trump, who till a few days back had identified Pakistan as the main source of instability in the AfPak region and publicly castigated it for its terror links, shook the confidence of Indians, who were visualising the country’s future closely tied to the US.

What exactly Pakistan had managed to do in this short time remains a matter of speculation. Its foreign minister, Khwaja Asif, had recently been to the US to hold talks with officials in the Trump administration and pledge Pakistan’s loyalty. The only visible move that might have been initiated by Pakistan came in the release of an American-Canadian couple and their three children from a harrowing five-year captivity by the Haqqani network—a terror group active in Af-Pak with alleged links with the ISI.