Dr. Shashi Tharoor
Appearances
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We don't want to get bogged down into a meaningless war with a bunch of Islamist fanatics whose lust for our territory is what motivates them. When you're a status quo power, what you want to do is to just continue with the way things are. Next door to us, unfortunately, is a revisionist power, a power that is not happy with the existing state of regional geopolitics and wants to upend it.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And that's what the Pakistanis sadly are. So they couldn't do it by conventional means. They kept losing formal wars against us. So from 1989 onwards, having learned an unfortunate lesson, from the success of the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan from Pakistani soil, the Pakistanis decided to turn that technique against us.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And they started unleashing Mujahideen by various names and various terror organization, front organizations into Indian territory to wreak havoc against innocent Indian civilians. They've been doing that since 1989. This is year 36 of Pakistani terrorism. you can understand that we really have lost patience with this.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Yeah, and there was some slightly confused messaging also coming out of all of this, that the first statements of Mr. Trump were that, oh, these Indians and Pakistanis have been fighting for thousands of years, which is slightly odd because Pakistan has only existed for 77 years as a country, so... They haven't fought anybody for a century, let alone centuries or thousands of years.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Then we had Mr. Vance saying, oh, we have no business in this fight. Let them sort it out themselves. And then suddenly, within a day or two of these remarks, the same two people are taking credit for the ceasefire. I'm at a bit of a loss, frankly. about what they did.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Certainly, there is no independent confirmation from the Indian side of any successful or serious negotiating effort by the US here. It's possible that they did this with the Pakistanis. We might learn more from the US. There's always stories coming out in the US media from reliable sources in Washington as to what exactly America did with Pakistan. I'm sure we'll find out soon enough. But for now,
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I am a bit of a loss to answer your question, David, but the desire for accolades without too much of effort is a human foible, isn't it? It's something which too many people tend to want to do.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Well, I mean, that's the irony of all of this. I mean, it's utter nonsense to imply that there is a thousand year battle between Hindus and Muslims. On the contrary, every great Hindu king had Muslim soldiers and generals on his side. Every great Muslim king had Hindu generals and soldiers on his side. And the two communities have coexisted.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
ever since the advent of Islam on the Indian subcontinent, which was within a century after the birth of the prophets. Indeed, in my own state of Kerala, Islam came peacefully through traders and merchants bringing it as news from the Arab world rather than coming as some sort of foreign conquest. So there's been a long and complicated history, but it's not all been hostile.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
The British during the colonial regime chose a very deliberate and deliberately militant policy of divide and rule where they actively fomented a distinctive Muslim identity as distinct from a separate from a Hindu identity in order to prevent the two uniting against the British. as they had done in the revolt of 1857 when Hindus and Muslims alike rose up in arms against British rule.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It was ruthlessly suppressed. The British butchered 150,000 civilians in Delhi alone in putting down that revolt. And then they adopted a conscious policy of divide and rule. And divide and rule meant that when the Indian National Congress was established,
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
as a representative body of Indian nationalist, in those days, very decorous Indian nationalist agitation for rights and political rights in India against the British, the British actually paid to establish a rival Muslim organization called the Muslim League in order to undermine the Indian National Congress.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Finally, partition happened and Pakistan was carved out of the stooped shoulders of India by the departing British in 1947. And ever since, it has had to justify its existence as a separate country by an increasingly belligerent Islamism.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
This is why Pakistan was not only the source of these horrific attacks, such as the 2611 attack to which you alluded, the butchery of 166 innocent people in Mumbai in 2008, or the earlier attacks on the Indian parliament, the invasion of Kargil and so on. But Pakistan was also the place
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
that sheltered and protected Osama bin Laden for many years until, as you know, he was found living in a safe house right near a Pakistani army encampment. This is Pakistan's history. It is a country that has unfortunately armed, trained, equipped, guided and directed terrorism from its soil for decades as an instrument of state policy.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It is a malcontented state that wants territory that India controls and that it can't have. It is a bigoted state that believes that all Muslims belong to it and that the first loyalty of Muslims even in India should be to Pakistan, which I'm sorry is never going to be the case.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It was very striking that one of the daily briefings that were being done by the Indian military featured an Indian woman colonel who was a Muslim. It was a very powerful message that India stood united. It was not about Hindu-Muslim. It was all about India standing united against terror. Pakistan doesn't understand that because their state is built on a totally different set of premises.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It's also, to paraphrase Voltaire on Prussia, a situation where India is a state that has an army. Pakistan is an army that has a state. And that army really controls the state, runs the state, controls the largest share of that country's GDP and governmental budget, larger than any army of any country in the world controls of its GDP and national budget.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
So for the army to continue its disproportionate dominance of Pakistan, it needs to be able to have enough external demons in addition to the demons it has nurtured in its own backyard, in order to be able to point to the fact that it is the sole savior of its people. It's a very, very sad and pathetic story.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
The Osama bin Laden story was merely the tip of a very, very large mountain, I'm afraid, of this kind of thing. Hillary Clinton rather memorably said, as Secretary of State,
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
When Pakistan has tried to plead victim about its own terrorist problems with a group called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, initially created by Pakistan, but which has deemed Pakistan to be insufficiently Islamist to its taste. And that has turned out to be attacking Pakistan's military and political institutions.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Hillary Clinton said, well, if you nurture vipers in your backyard, some of them would turn around and bite you. And I think that was absolutely the right metaphor. That's what Pakistan has done. Vipers in your backyard is really a case of to mix up the animals, the chickens coming home to roost in Pakistan. Very sad story. But that's the problem we're living with next door to us.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Yeah, but you left out a very important force, unfortunately, in this equation, and that is China. China is sitting on our northern borders, nibbling away at our land. They have a long standing frontier dispute with India. And Pakistan has been reduced to a client state of China over the years. China's single largest project under its Belt and Road Initiative is
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
is a massive highway through Pakistan called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is of inestimable economic value to China because goods coming from the Suez Canal and from the Gulf countries can now be offloaded at the port of Gwadar in the southwestern tip of Pakistan, in Balochistan, Pakistan's Balochistan province, and transported on this Chinese-built highway all the way directly into western China.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Whereas in the past and right up to then, these goods had to go all the way around India through the Straits of Malacca into the South China Sea, be offloaded in ports like Guangzhou in southeastern China, and then transported laboriously overland all the way across to western China. They saved 90 percent of the cost and 95 percent of the time.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
by just being able to use Pakistan as a conduit for their goods into Western China. So China has a huge interest in keeping Pakistan safe and secure and an obedient vassal state, which Pakistan is indeed happy to be. And China also has its own problems with India, which it would dearly like to cut down to size as a potential geopolitical rival in the area.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
So when you talk about the power gap between India and Pakistan, the difficulty we have is we have two fronts we need to be worried about. We have a Pakistan front and a China front. And cumulatively, I'm sorry to say, we are not in a position, most unfortunately, to fight a two-front war. So we have a very complicated mix of diplomatic, military, and geopolitical calculations to make.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
every time Pakistan triggers a problem with us. We've got to make sure we hit Pakistan hard so that they learn a lesson, but we also have to make sure we don't go to such a point that China feels obliged to come directly to Pakistan's rescue. The overwhelming majority of Pakistani weaponry which means, I believe, as high as 90 odd percent of Pakistani weaponry comes from China.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
That includes China's latest 4.5 generation J-10 fighter aircraft, their PL-15 missiles, and various other kinds of ammunition. So India's problem is, that it is essentially having to juggle a number of geopolitical, diplomatic, as well as military considerations when it reacts to Pakistani provocations. We want to send the terrorists a message.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We want to hit back whenever Pakistan hits us, but we don't want to get to a situation where we might end up quite frankly, provoking a more direct Chinese involvement because India is not particularly keen on entering into a two front war with both Pakistan and China. So it's a complication. When you look at the power asymmetry, as you mentioned, you are not just comparing India and Pakistan.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
You're comparing India against both Pakistan and China. And then the comparison doesn't look that good for India.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Well, you know, and even in the first Trump administration, it was going fine.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I mean, I would have said that in many ways, the India-US relationship was above partisan politics, that it certainly transcends the political divide within India and appeared to have transcended the political divide in the US because both Bush and Clinton, both Obama and Trump 1.0, all supported a very close relationship. But everything has become very confused in Trump 2.0.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
There have been the tariffs, which certainly have hurt India quite significantly.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
There have been the very, very stringent policies with regard to immigration, including legal immigration, H-1B visas, spouse reunions and so on, which tends disproportionately to hit Indian techies who provide a lot of IT services in the US and who obviously want their families to join them and so on, who are going to find that challenging.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
But even more, Mr. Trump's statement yesterday and today has been very troubling because it has de facto handed Pakistan a victory that Pakistan has not earned by choosing unnecessarily to imply an equivalence between India and Pakistan. It was equating the victim and the perpetrator.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
By speaking in terms of getting the two to sit down together and talk to end their thousands of years of conflict, apart from the fact that it hasn't been thousands of years, there is a fact that we are certainly not going to give Pakistan the satisfaction of earning negotiating rights at the point of a gun.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We're not going to talk to the Pakistanis after what they have done to us by killing innocent civilians. And I'm sorry if that's what Mr. Trump wants, he's not going to get it. Thirdly, he has given the Pakistanis the victory of re-internationalizing the Kashmir dispute, which had been off the international agenda for quite some time.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And he has done India the grave disservice of re-hyphenating India and Pakistan in the American imagination, which had been de-hyphenated since the days of Clinton. You will notice, David, that since the days of President Clinton, no American president has actually visited both countries on the same trip.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
They have very deliberately sent a signal that India is a country you deal with in its own right. It's not something we twin with Pakistan in the American imagination. Sadly, Mr. Trump's post has done all of these four things. And I think it shows that he has not yet been rather well briefed.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
What's striking is that he has named a proposed assistant secretary of state for South Asia, who's a very knowledgeable scholar about South Asia and about India, and who is himself partly of Indian-American origin, and who would, I believe, know far better than to say the kinds of things that President Trump has said on Truth Social, which are, in that sense, an embarrassment to the last quarter century of American policy.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It has really upended all of these fundamental assumptions of the U.S.-India relationship.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Yeah, not led, it was more complicated. The army was commanded by a Parsi, a Zoroastrian, a tiny minority. The general officer commanding the Eastern Command, the forces that marched into Bangladesh, was a Sikh. The vice chief of the air staff was a Muslim. And the major general who was helicoptered into Dhaka to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani army at the end of that war was Jewish.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Major General J.F.R. Jacob was a friend of mine. Remarkable gentleman, now no longer with us. But that was India, David. That's what India is all about. It's just a country of such immense diversity that it really is a microcosm of all that's fine about pluralism as a social construct.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Okay. So first of all, as far as India is concerned, I mean, this is a battle we fight daily on our own soil. And I have been, I hope I'm acknowledged as being a very strong voice against sectarian tendencies in our politics. I believe strongly and passionately.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
that every Indian has the same rights as every other Indian and that their religion, their language, their ethnicity, their color, the region or the state they come from have absolutely no bearing on their rights as an Indian and their contributions to this great country.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And in many ways, my notion of Indianness is comparable to most Americans' idea of civic nationalism in America, where you all belong and you're sheltered by this collective identity. You can be Jewish, you can be whatever, Californian, you could be Hungarian speaking, whatever, but you are American. who you are because being American makes it possible. And it's the same for us in India.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
You can be a good Muslim, a good Gujarati and a good Indian all at once because that Indian-ness is what protects your ability to be all of that. And I fought for that idea and I will do so till my last breath. But having said that, When it comes to something like a conflict with Pakistan, it's very interesting how quickly some of these divisions in our internal domestic politics disappears.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And as I mentioned to you, the striking sight in the daily briefings of an Indian woman military officer who is a Muslim sent a very powerful message both at home and abroad. This is who we are. That's not who we are. Not the guys across the border with their sectarian bigotry. And to my mind, that was actually a very welcome reminder.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
The second paradox, David, is that this government, despite the fact that it has presided over some of the worst tendencies of bigotry and encouraged intolerance within Indian society, it has actually been a remarkably good government when it comes to strengthening India's relations with with the Arab and Muslim world.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It's quite astonishing to see, for example, the closeness of India's relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Egypt, all of which have never been better. And it's striking that's happening on the watch of a government that domestically has been rightly criticized for some of its statements and actions with regard to the Muslim minority. So there is hope yet.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I do believe that we are going through a certain churn in our politics. You're quite right that it's reminiscent in many ways of what we're seeing around the world. The same degree of xenophobia and rejection of the people not like us kind of thing that you've seen in the U.S., in Brexit in Britain, in Hungary, in Erdogan's Turkey and so on.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Right across the world, there have been a lot of these tendencies and we're seeing it rising in many parts of liberal Western Europe with the rise of AFD in Germany or the equivalent party in Austria. There have been suddenly elements given a free reign to say we are more authentic representatives of the country than these people who worship foreign gods and speak foreign tongues.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And that sort of thing, I'm afraid, is what has also been rising in India. But I do believe that liberal, pluralist, humane values have not been snuffed out. We're going to continue to keep them aloft in my country.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Look, I don't think the US would be better off with one or the other kind of group in India. I think that the US, this particular administration may be equally comfortable with people of that persuasion, whereas arguably someone like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama would not have been comfortable with a more explicitly sectarian Indian government.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
In fact, Obama made a famous speech in Delhi calling for greater religious tolerance at a time when Mr. Modi's government was still pretty new. So there is a difference, yes, in your domestic politics between a more liberal government and a government that considers itself more conservative.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
But ultimately, I still would like to believe, David, that this relationship is above and beyond that, that if tomorrow a more liberal Indian dispensation came to power, that there would still be enough forces in America that would want to preserve a good relationship with it. One factor, undoubtedly, is the extraordinary influence of the Indian American diaspora.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
It's now 3.4 million strong, which is a good 1% of your population, heading a little above 1%. And these are people with a tremendous contribution being made to America. They have the largest single median income of any ethnic group, higher than Japanese Americans, higher than white Americans. They're making significant contributions in a number of cutting-edge sectors.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
They're technologists, they're computer geeks, they're doctors and medical people, they're biotechnologists. They do all sorts of things in fields that America values. They've not only done all of that, they've also got involved in your politics. There are Indian Americans amongst top fundraisers, going back to George Bush Sr., whose leading fundraiser was an Indian-American dentist in Florida.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
You've had Indian-Americans on the campaign trail. You've had Indian-Americans getting elected to office. Nikki Haley is an Indian-American. Bobby Jindal is an Indian-American. And of course, there will be more. There are half a dozen of people of Indian origin in the U.S. Congress right now, today, six of them.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
So you're looking at a community that's not only made a valuable contribution to America, but that is visible, is active, is engaged in your social and political life and therefore cannot be ignored. By extension, the country they came from and still in many cases care about cannot be ignored.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Just as Jewish Americans have an impact on America's policy towards Israel, I expect Indian Americans to continue to have an impact on America's policy towards India. And I believe that will be the case whoever forms a government in India. I may be wrong, David. We'll find out the hard way. But as of now, the changing complexion
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
of Indian politics may not make such a difference to the US attitude to India, because there are now more and more sort of permanent structural factors sustaining that relationship, including the presence and role of the Indian diaspora in America.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I think so, yes. I don't really think that Pakistan has much to gain from starting a new misadventure because India has been able to demonstrate that they can hit very hard.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
They've destroyed the runway in a major air base called the Rahim Yar Khan Air Base and have severely damaged another air base, the Air Marshal Noor Khan Air Base, which is right next to Pakistani military headquarters at GHQ Rawalpindi, not far from the capital of the country. So I think it's been a sobering wake up to the Pakistanis that this is not an adversary you want to monkey around with.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Now, did they achieve their goals? Partially, yes. And Mr. Trump's statement would be cause of rejoicing in Islamabad that, look, we're back on the map with the US. They're treating us as the equal of the Indians. So they might feel that, look, we pulled off something very good by doing what we did.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
So I don't think they would see a reason now to get back again to the battlefield and possibly risk further defeat and further opprobrium. They would actually feel they've actually pulled off something here. So I think not.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And as far as India is concerned, India has never been the belligerent, has no interest whatever in initiating conflict, and ideally wants to be left alone by Pakistan to get on with its own business and focus on its economy. So for all these reasons, I believe the ceasefire could hold, can hold, should be holding. But it's not even 24 hours yet.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And in fact, on the first day of the ceasefire, which in our time zone is yesterday evening, I'm afraid the Pakistanis violated it in three places by sending missiles across to Indian cities, hitting civilian targets, homes and cars. We were able to stop many of those missiles, but we did take a few blows and we hit back as well in retaliation. So the message is very clear, David.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
If the Pakistanis can't curb their hotheads and if they fire at us, we will fire back and we will fire back very hard. But if they are able to curb their worst instincts and behave and actually hold their fire, we have no intention whatsoever of initiating any action. We would like the peace to hold and we'd like to get on with our lives.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
Thank you, David. Really good speaking to you.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I must say we were all a bit puzzled by President Trump's posts on Truth Social and on X because India has historically been allergic to mediation, doesn't believe it needs it. And it's unlikely to have invited mediation in a formal sense. On the other hand, it's true that the U.S.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
administration, in particular, Secretary of State, now also NSA, National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, and to some degree, Vice President Vance, have been speaking to Indian officials, as indeed Indian officials have acknowledged. The foreign minister's tweets will tell us about these calls.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
But it's one thing for the Indian foreign minister to say to the Americans, look, if the Pakistanis do this, we will do that. Or if they hit us, we're going to hit them harder back. And quite another for the foreign minister to say, would you mind relaying this message to the Pakistanis? India would never do the latter. They would do the former.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And I think what happened then, perhaps, is that Rubio then called the Pakistanis and said, look, I've been talking to the Indians and this is what they're saying. So you might want to take this into account. And would you not like to move in a different direction? That kind of thing.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
The initial Trump announcement gave the impression that the Americans and Indians and Pakistanis have been pulling an all-nighter discussing everything jointly. That simply hasn't happened. And I think that's a misrepresentation of what role the U.S. played.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
But I certainly don't want to sound ungrateful for anybody who was willing to pull the Pakistanis down off the escalatory ladder that they had climbed onto. There was a terrorist outrage in India.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
India chose to react in a very careful, calculated, calibrated and precise way only against terrorist infrastructure, didn't strike any Pakistani military installations or any civilian or governmental installations and basically signaled, look, We're only after terrorists and we did the strike at 1.30 in the morning so there wouldn't be too many civilians about.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We want to avoid all collateral damage. It was a very responsible strike that the Indians conducted. The Pakistanis chose to react with unnecessary escalation. They shelled very heavily civilian and occupied civilian inhabited areas of India. killing 22 civilians and hospitalizing a further 59 in the district of Pooch in Kashmir. And frankly, India had to respond and did very, very strongly.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
And when India responded, it also attacked places it had so far kept off limits. It hit Pakistani air bases, for example, very hard. Pakistan has, because there is no terrorist infrastructure in India to aim at, Pakistan was assaulting Indian cities where ordinary human beings live. And that was simply unacceptable.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We were able to use our air defense shield to stop that, but we hit the Pakistanis hard where it hurt. Now, this escalation was leading nowhere for nobody. As far as India was concerned, they delivered their message to the terrorists. They were willing to stop. As far as Pakistan was concerned, They didn't know when to say that their honor was satisfied. And if the U.S.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
helped them to step off that ladder, the U.S. gave them an excuse to climb down off it, so much the better, because India had no interest in a prolonged war. What was very clear from the manner of the Indian strike to begin with, David, was that India was trying to signal from the very start, this is not the opening salvo in a long conflict.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
This is just a one-off retaliation to a terror attack, period, nothing else. It's Pakistan that was taking it in the wrong direction. And I'm glad that stopped right now.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
You said it, David, I didn't, and I probably would be unwise to say very much along those lines myself. I will say that mediation is possibly the wrong word. Mediation implies a request by both parties to be involved in the two examples you gave and a third example, the 1999 Cargill conflict, when President Clinton summoned the Prime Minister of Pakistan to Washington.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
and told him to lay off, which he did. All those three cases were essentially the U.S. putting pressure on the Pakistanis, who in every case were in the wrong. They were the perpetrators of terror. They were the perpetrators of violence. In the case of Kargil, they were the ones who had led an invasion of Indian territory. So in all those cases, the US was telling one side.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
I would say that in this particular instance, in as much as there was any strong American messaging coming, it was almost certainly directed principally to the Pakistanis because India at no stage wanted to prolong a war. See, India, David, is a status quo power. It is a country that basically would be very happy to be left alone. There's nothing Pakistan has that we want.
The David Frum Show
A Jet, a Lie, a Tariff: The Trump Grift Machine
We'd be very happy to focus on our own growth, our own development, the well-being and prosperity of our own people. We are a high tech economy moving in that direction. We are trying to find a way forward in the 21st century. We are already the world's fifth largest economy in dollar terms, and in purchasing power parity terms, the third largest. So that's where our ambitions and aspirations are.