Was it a free lunch that Field Marshal Asim Munir got from Donald Trump? We in India would like to believe so. Let’s admit it—we’re a spot peeved that a guy who lost a four-day drone-and-missile war to us got into the reckoning of the world’s most powerful man, so much so as to get a lunch coupon.
Narendra Modi, too, got an invite to the White House when he was in Canada for the G7 summit, but no lunch card attached. Modi sent a regret note, saying he had to catch a flight to Croatia. Wise move!
Whether we like it or not, what Munir got wasn’t a free lunch. First of all, as economists say, “There ain’t no free lunches.” The saying originated in 19th century America (where else do you get a double negative?) where saloons offered free lunches to tipplers. They made the food so salty that customers ended up buying more and more beer.
The point is—no one offers anything free in this big bad world hoping to get an entry pass into paradise. There are hidden costs behind any good or service offered free.
A man carrying a poster of Asim Munir in Lahore, Pakistan | Reuters
Secondly, why should the POTUS, even a bit potty one like Trump, host Munir to lunch unless he wanted something that only Munir could deliver? Rarely or never has a visiting military chief got to be hosted by the president in person to even a mug of coffee, let alone a lunch, unless he was a head of state or government. Thus, Ayub, Yahya and Musharraf had been hosted in person, not as military chiefs but as presidents.
What if a prez really wants to meet a visiting lesser mortal, say a vice-prez, a deputy PM, a minister or a military chief of a foreign land? The visitor may get to call on the president, but the more common practice is to get a drop-in by the president. That is, the visiting mortal would be sitting, chatting or even playing cards with his counterpart or host in the latter’s room when the president would ‘drop in’ for a chat with the visitor.
Sounds casual and coincidental?—as if the president was passing by the room when he heard a familiar voice, and dropped in to say hello? Not really. All coincidents in diplomacy are planned well in advance, just as Winston Churchill’s off-the-cuff remarks were, by his own admission. Thus, when L.K. Advani, as deputy PM, was being hosted in her White House room by NSA Condoleezza Rice in 2002, George Bush ‘dropped in’ for a 35-minute chat. Our foreign office tom-tommed it as a great honour.
We don’t know if Munir got a great lunch or a salad-dressing down like the one that poor Volodymyr Zelensky got. The point is that he has got Pakistan back in the west’s and in the White House’s reckoning. Whether we in India like it or not, that was inevitable. For geography has given Pakistan a location in the atlas from where it can command the price it wants. As real estate agents would say, Pakistan has got a ‘corner plot’ in south and central Asia’s geopolitical atlas, and commands the crossroads of the region’s trade and commerce.
We needn’t grudge. On the contrary, it is good for us if the yanks engage India and Pakistan, as long as they don’t call for a table for three to mediate our neighbourly tiffs. Look at this way. Joe Biden’s flight from Kabul in 2021 had left the Pak generals in the cold, and they have since been seeking warmth in China’s embrace. The old Pak-China friendship had been developing into a strategic axis, giving Indian generals nightmares about a two-front war. It’s in India’s interest, too, to ensure that the US keeps Pakistan engaged, at least as a counterweight to the growing Chinese influence in Pakistan.
prasannan@theweek.in