India, Pakistan, And The Worst Possible President in the White House

What could go wrong?

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – I won’t sit here and claim to be an expert on the decades of tensions between India and Pakistan. But I know enough to understand how frighteningly volatile it is and, therefore, why we desperately need sane, rational, functioning diplomacy in Washington, DC.

There are two things that are always front-of-mind whenever the issue comes up. 1) Both nations possess nuclear weapons, and 2) Pakistan’s stockpiles are under constant threat of being nabbed by extremists. In fact, Barack Obama once told George Clooney that the one thing that keeps him awake at night is Pakistan’s nukes. Neither country is a signatory to the UN’s non-proliferation treaty and there’s another nuclear-armed nation, China, right next door.

Since nukes were first developed, it’s been exceedingly rare that two nuclear-armed nations have directly engaged in armed conflict. Sure, there have been proxy wars between the U.S. and Russia, and there was the Cold War, but seldom an all-out shooting war – except for a brief conflict between India and Pakistan in 1999 known as the Kargil Conflict. (Kargil is a district in India-administered Kashmir.) In fact, as that war entered its final month, U.S. intelligence officials received word that Pakistan was getting ready to deploy its nukes.

However, one of the major distinctions between Kargil in 1999 and today’s crisis is, of course, the then-existence of expert leadership in Washington. Had it not been for the intervention of President Clinton and his national security team, including Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the war may have spiraled into mass destruction. Fortunately, Clinton managed to convince Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw his troops from Kargil.

Today, there’s no way Donald could point to Kashmir on a world map, much less successfully negotiate a tacit end to a war between any two nuclear states. If he were even able to name the current prime minister of either India or Pakistan, I’ll eat my hat. By the way, if Kamala Harris were president, Donald would’ve screamed that the war never would’ve started if he were president.

When asked about the crisis on Wednesday, this is what your current president said about it:

“My position is I get along with both. I know both very well, and I want to see them work it out. I want to see them stop, and hopefully they can stop now. They’ve gone tit-for-tat, so hopefully they can stop now; but I know both. We get along with both the countries very well — good relationships with both — and I want to see it stop. And if I can do anything to help, I will be there.”

He can’t do anything to help. He’s simply not capable. Being there would only make matters worse. There’s zero indication from this quote that he even knows what’s happening, much less the history, leaders, or geography of the region. His answer reminds me of when Terry Moran from ABC News asked him about the copy of the Declaration of Independence that hangs on the wall of Donald’s Oval Office: "Well it means exactly what it says, it's a declaration, it's a declaration of unity and love and respect and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country."

Yeah, he has no idea what the Declaration says – except that it’s a declaration. But he doesn’t get credit for that because duh. Oh and “unity” is the polar opposite of what the document did.

Nevertheless, we find ourselves in a world where two nations, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, are engaged in a conventional war – for now – while the leader of the free world is a clown dictator who’s preoccupied with bullying Canada and banning paper straws. His former national security adviser accidentally invited a reporter into a chat about a bombing raid in Yemen, and routinely used a janky texting app that was recently hacked. His amateurish defense secretary is an alleged drunk whose operational security regimen is about as secure as a paper condom. His director of national intelligence used the same weak password on her personal accounts while serving on both the Armed Services Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee.

And these are the doofuses in charge while two south Asian nations aim nuclear weapons at each other across a battlefield.

It’s obvious but still important to note that this massive leadership deficit is largely due to a multi-billion-dollar infotainment complex that convinced too many American voters to de-prioritize competence, sanity, and stability because these qualities are boring and don't generate profitable clicks. But the incompetent, insane, unstable weirdo does. And we’re all paying the price, including the people who voted for him.

Donald’s world is one that’s becoming rapidly unglued, with nuclear weapons on the table in Asia and elsewhere. If we make it out of this alive and with democracy intact – a big if – I hope the ongoing tragedy will, at the very least, convince voters to stop effing around with the presidency and, instead, begin to prioritize leadership qualities that would de-escalate the chaos rather than intentionally manufacturing it.

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