As a conflict between India and Pakistan, Vice President JD Vance escaped Fox News on Thursday that it is not “fundamentally none of our business”. The United States could advise both parties to retreat, suggested, but it was not an American fight.
Nevertheless, within 24 hours Mr. Vance and Marco Rubio in the first week in a double role as a consultant for national security and Foreign Minister found themselves in detail. The reason was the same that had forced every president since Bill Clinton dealt with another main conflict between two long -time enemies in 1999: the fear that it could quickly go nuclear.
What brought Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio into action was evidence that Pakistani and Indian air forces began to engage in serious fights and that Pakistan sent 300 to 400 drones to Indian territory to explore his air defense. The most important causes of concern, however, came late on Friday, when the explosions hit the air base Noor Khan in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Garrison City adjacent to Islamabad.
The base is a key installation, one of the central transport nodes for the Army of Pakistan and the home of the ability to replenish air that would maintain Pakistani fighters above. However, it is also just a short distance from the headquarters of the Pakistan Strategic Plans Division, which oversees the nuclear arsenal of the country, now believes it includes about 170 or more heads. It is assumed that the head itself spreads across the country.
Intensive struggles broke out between India and Pakistan after 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed in a terrorist attack on April 22 in Kashmir, the border areas that both nations demanded. On Saturday morning, President Trump announced that both countries agreed to a ceasefire.
One former American official, who is familiar with the nuclear program of Pakistan on Saturday, noted on Saturday that the deepest fear of Pakistan is his office for nuclear command. A missile blow to Noor Khan could have been interpreted, said a former official, as a warning that India could do that.
It is unclear whether American intelligence has occurred, which pointed to a fast and perhaps nuclear escalation of the conflict. At least in public, the only piece of apparent nuclear signaling came from Pakistan. The local media said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif summoned a meeting of the National Command – a small group that decides how and when to use nuclear weapons.
The body founded in 2000 is nominally chairman of the government and includes higher civilian ministers and military chiefs. In fact, the driving force of the group is the head of the army, gen. Syed Asim Munir.
However, Pakistani Defense Minister, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, denied that the group had ever met. When he talked about Pakistani television on Saturday before the ceasefire announcement, he acknowledged the existence of a nuclear possibility, but he said, “We should treat her as a very distant option; we should not even discuss it.”
The Pentagon was discussed and the White House clearly decided on Friday morning that several public statements and some calls to Islamabad and Delhi officials were not enough. The intervention of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did not have a small effect.
According to one person familiar with developing events that were not authorized to talk about them publicly, after Mr. Vance suggested that foreign conflict was not an American problem, serious concerns developed that the conflict was endangered by a spiral.
The pace of blows and counters rose. While India initially focused on what is called “known terrorist camps” associated with Lashkar-E-Taba, a militant group accused of April attack, has now focused on Pakistani military bases.
Trump’s administration also feared that the reports for de-escallate did not reach the highest officials on both sides.
So American officials decided that Mr. Vance, who returned a few weeks earlier from his way to India with his wife Usha, whose parents are Indian immigrants, should directly call Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His message was that the United States assessed that there was a high probability of dramatic escalation of violence, which could lean into a full scale.
Mr. Modi, Mr. Modi, made Mr. Modi to consider alternatives to continuing strikes, including a potential off-ramp that American officials would consider to be acceptable to Pakistani. Mr. Modi listened, but he did not follow any of these ideas.
Mr. Rubio, according to the Foreign Ministry, spoke with General Munir, and the conversation made it easier for his new role as an advisor to national security. Over the last quarter of a century, the White House often served, albeit quietly, as a direct channel to the Pakistani army, the strongest institution of the country.
Mr. Rubio also called Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Indian Nationalist Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, who met on January 22 in Washington.
It is not clear how convincing he was, at least initially.
On Saturday, the Foreign Ministry did not give a press briefing about the content of these calls, instead of the descriptions of bare bones of interviews that made no sense of dynamics between Mr. Rubius and South Asian leaders. However, it seemed that the constant current of calls from Friday in the evening to the beginning of Saturday laid the foundation for a ceasefire.
Senior Pakistani intelligence clerk who was not entitled to publicly comment on negotiations, has credited the involvement of Americans in the last 48 hours, and in particular Mr. Rubio’s intervention, for the bay of the agreement. But there were messages on Saturday evening Cross -border fire continued.
Mr. Sharif, Prime Minister, focused on the role of the US President. “We thank President Trump for his leadership and a proactive role in the region,” he wrote at X. “Pakistan appreciates the United States for facilitating this result, which we accepted in the interest of regional level and stability.”
India, on the other hand, said the United States was not involved.
It is far from clear that the ceasefire will hold, or that the damage caused may not run more retribution. Pakistan reduced five Indian aircraft based on some accounts.
Pakistan’s intelligence service, said, said a higher official, assessed that India was trying to hire Islamabad to exceed the defensive reaction. India wanted Pakistan to use his own F-16 fighter aircraft in a retaliatory attack to try to shoot down one down, the official said. These were sold by the United States because Pakistan is still officially considered “the main ally outside NATO”, the President of Status George W. Bush, who thrives the country in the months after the attacks of September 11th.
Senior Pakistani intelligence officer said that US intervention is necessary to pull both sides out of the war.
“The last step came from the president,” the clerk said.
