Washington:
A former Pentagon official, Michael Rubin has said that India targeted terror infrastructure with precision, and it was able to blunt Pakistan’s response following the recent strikes. He said that “Pakistan went running to try to achieve a ceasefire like a scared dog with its tail between its legs” after India put their airfields out of commission.
In an interview with ANI, Mr Rubin who is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute stated that the Pakistani military cannot shield itself from the full reality of the fact that it “lost very, very badly.” He said India has emerged victorious both diplomatically and militarily and mentioned that all attention is now on Pakistan’s terrorist sponsorship.
On how he sees strikes conducted by India on May 7 and whether India was able to achieve what it wanted to convey, Mr Rubin said, “India won this both diplomatically and militarily. The reason why India won diplomatically is all attention is now on Pakistan’s terrorist sponsorship.”
“The fact that Pakistani officers in uniform attended the funeral of terrorists shows that there is no differentiation between a terrorist and a member of the ISI or the Pakistani armed forces. Basically, the world is going to demand that Pakistan extract the rot from its own system. So, diplomatically, India changed the conversation, militarily, Pakistan is shocked. Look, I’m a historian by training and that means I get paid to predict the past. And one thing that we can say with certainty is that Pakistan has started every single war with India and yet convinced itself that somehow it has won. It’s going to be very different…to convince themselves that they won this 4-day war. The reason is. India was able to, with precision, decimate the terror headquarters and training camps.”
“When Pakistan responded, India was able to blunt their response and then when Pakistan continued to try to retaliate, India was able to put their airfields out of commission. Pakistan went running to try to achieve a ceasefire like a scared dog with its tail between its legs. And the fact of the matter is there is absolutely no spin that the Pakistani military can put on what occurred to shield themselves from the full reality of the fact that they not only lost but they lost very, very badly. The question now, however, is what Pakistan will do next. Clearly, there’s a problem within the Pakistani military, both because it’s a cancer on Pakistani society and because as a military, it’s incompetent and so is Asim Munir going to keep his job? Is the ego of Pakistani generals going to trump the future strength and well-being of all of Pakistani society? Basically, Pakistan needs to clean house, but it’s an open question whether they are too far gone to do that,” he added.
As many as 26 people were killed and several others were injured in the terrorist attack that took place in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.
In response to the Pahalgam attack, Indian Armed Forces launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 and targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, leading to the death of over 100 terrorists affiliated with terror outfits like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizbul Mujahideen (HM).
After the attack, Pakistan retaliated with cross-border shelling across the Line of Control and Jammu and Kashmir as well as attempted drone attacks along the border regions, following which India launched a coordinated attack and damaged radar infrastructure, communication centres and airfields across airbases in Pakistan. On May 10, India and Pakistan reached an understanding on the cessation of hostilities.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
