A lot has changed around the world in the one year since the horrific massacre of 26 innocent tourists at Baisaran valley of Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.
First and foremost, the Indo-US relationship, for no advertent reason, has taken a huge hit for the extremely ‘fickle’ behaviour of President Donald Trump and, by extension, his administration.
In a social media post last week, Trump virtually endorsed a racial and venomous diatribe against India by posting a transcript of ultra-right-wing commentator Michael Savage’s on-air opinion that stated, “A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet.”
Unfortunately, the only response that the ministry of external affairs spokesperson could articulate was anodyne: “We have seen some reports. That is where I will leave it.” How does one characterise such a response—timid or mature for not dignifying a rant? The jury will remain out on that.
As Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s former chief of staff and a Democratic hopeful for the 2028 presidential elections, pithily stated at the Harvard Kennedy School, “America has literally spit in India's face under the Trump administration. Bringing India closer to the US orbit has been a 30-year project for every Democratic or Republican administration.”
This episode is, however, symptomatic of something far deeper. A fundamental fracture in the relationship between the US and its erstwhile allies who, while avoiding a he-said-she-said, are casting around for new relationships, fresh allies and, if possible, more dependable friends around the world.
The biggest fissure has been in the trans-Atlantic relationship between the US and its European allies. A relationship that was born out of World War II and cemented in the crucible of the Cold War on April 4, 1949 as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After US Vice President J D Vance publicly eviscerated the gathered delegates at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025 with the most excoriating language, it became fairly evident to the Europeans that while paddling along for the four years of Trump’s second term, they must try and construct a European security architecture. However, it is easier said than done when you have outsourced your security for over six-and-a-half decades to the prevailing hegemon of the Western alliance.
In June 2025, Trump, in conjunction with Benjamin Netanyahu, decided to bomb Iran. It happened in the midst of an active negotiation moderated by Oman. In fact, June 15 was the date set for the sixth round of nuclear negotiations. Yet, the duo bombed Iran on June 13.
There is an interesting context to the American behaviour. After the 9/11 attacks by Saudi, Emirati, Egyptian and Lebanese nationals, it was Iran that provided intelligence support to the lead elements of the Central Intelligence Agency as they marshalled and mobilised, through inducement and other means, the demoralised elements of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, who were in disarray following the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood on September 9, 2001—two days before the terror outrage in New York. Incidentally, none of the 9/11 terrorists was either from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Iran.
For all their efforts in helping the Americans to oust their common foe—the Taliban—the Iranians were rewarded by being disparaged by President George Bush as a card-carrying member of the “Axis of Evil” in his State of the Union address in January 2002.
Again, when Iran was relentlessly bombed by the Israel-US axis on February 28, 2026, both the countries were in active negotiations in Geneva.
The difference between the 2001-03 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the kinetic actions against Iran now is that while US’s Nato allies were full-throated in expressing solidarity and did not demur in participating in coalitions against both the Afghan and Iraq regimes. This time, they were not only diffident in their verbalisation, but effectively told the US to take a walk when called upon to participate in operations to open the Strait of Hormuz. They, in fact, are planning their own freedom of navigation operations in the Persian Gulf.
This feeds into the question as to why Israel has successfully run the US’s West Asia policy from all the way back in 1948? The US has 19 active military relationships in West Asia, including six humongous permanent bases—18 of them in Islamic states and one in Israel.
While most of the heavy hitters in the region—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE—are not favourably disposed towards Iran because of theocratic and regime-change anxieties, they have been found seriously wanting in prevailing over the US to lean on Israel and stop the genocide in Gaza. Most of them have borne the brunt of Iranian retaliation as a consequence of Israel’s unilateral actions over the past 50-odd days.
Even American allies like Japan and Australia—where the US has longstanding hub-and-spoke treaty arrangements—are queasy and increasingly concerned about the efficacy of these historical arrangements when push comes to shove.
Where does Pakistan fit into all these shifting and moving parts of rapidly mutating geopolitics? Undoubtedly, post the kinetic actions of May 2025, the Pakistani military leadership has been feted by Trump while being completely amnesiac about how Pakistan played the US in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation in 1980-89 and again between 2001 and 2021.
Pakistan, as the interlocutor of choice to mediate between Iran, the US and, by extension, Israel—has given its leadership a false sense of hubris. Its suitors should never lose sight of the fact that Pakistan is a chameleon State owned by the military that has elevated strategic opportunism to an absolute fine art.
It would be instructive for Pakistan’s newfound old friends to bear in mind Hillary Clinton’s 2011 caution about the country: “You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbour.”
Manish Tewari | MP, lawyer, former Union I&B minister and author of A World Adrift
(Views are personal)
(manishtewari01@gmail.com)
