"India won diplomatically, militarily...": Former Pentagon official on India's response to Pak aggression after Op Sindoor

Washington, DC [US], May 15 : Former Pentagon official and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Rubin has said that India has emerged victorious both diplomatically and militarily in its response to the aggression that Pakistan launched after New Delhi's precision strikes on terror infrastructure and that Islamabad is "shocked militarily".
In an interview with ANI, he said the global attention is on Pakistan's terrorist sponsorship and noted how Pakistani officers in uniform attended the funeral of terrorists after they were killed in India's precision strikes under Operation Sindoor.
India launched Operation Sindoor in response to last month's Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. India's precision strikes in Pakistan and PoJK on May 7 killed over 100 terrorists.
India responded effectively to the subsequent Pakistani aggression and also pounded its airbases.
Michael Rubin said the world is going to demand that Pakistan extract the rot from its own system.
"India won this both diplomatically and militarily. The reason why India won diplomatically is that 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. The world is going to demand that Pakistan extract the rot from its own system. So diplomatically, India changed the conversation," Michael Rubin told ANI.
"Militarily, Pakistan is shocked...Pakistan has started every single war with India and yet convinced itself that somehow it has won. It's going to be very difficult for Pakistan to convince itself that it won this 4-day war," he added.
Michael Rubin said the Pakistan military lost very badly and Islamabad "went running to try to achieve a ceasefire like a scared dog with its tail between its legs".
"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. 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. Is Asim Munir going to keep his job?... Basically, Pakistan needs to clean house, but it's an open question whether they are too far gone to do that," he said.
Michael Rubin said it was not a conflict was foisted on India and New Delhi did what was absolutely necessary.
"This wasn't a conflict which India wanted. This was a conflict that was foisted upon India. Every country has the right to defend its citizens. It doesn't differentiate between whether a formal army attacks the country or whether a terrorist army attacks the country. But ultimately, it's the job of India to draw a red line and say no, we will never tolerate terrorist attacks coming across our border, so India did what was absolutely necessary," he said.
Answering a query, he said whenever Pakistan and India come into conflict, the United States tries to mediate behind the scenes, and this is reasonable because the United States "is trying diplomatically to provide an off-ramp to prevent unrestricted warfare and also, in a worst case scenario, prevent an escalation to any sort of nuclear exchange".
"So the fact that the United States would be in touch with both New Delhi and Islamabad is obvious, and the fact that both New Delhi and Islamabad would use Washington to pass messages is also obvious," he said.
Answering queries about US President Donald Trump's statements on India-Pakistan understanding, Michael Rubin said the US President likes to take credit for everything.
"...Donald Trump likes to claim credit for everything. If you ask Donald Trump, he single-handedly won the World Cup. He invented the Internet. He cured cancer. Indians should be more like Americans in this regard and not take Donald Trump literally...," he said.
India on Tuesday firmly reiterated that any issues relating to Jammu and Kashmir must be addressed bilaterally with Pakistan and noted that the outstanding issue is the vacation of Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a press conference that India's policy that issues pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir have to be addressed bilaterally with Pakistan has not changed."We have a long-standing national position that any issues pertaining to the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir have to be addressed by India and Pakistan bilaterally. That stated policy has not changed. The outstanding matter is the vacation of illegally occupied Indian territory by Pakistan," Jaiswal said.
Answering a query, he said there were conversations between Indian and US leaders on the evolving military situation from the time Operation Sindoor commenced but trade did not come up in any of these discussions.
"From the time Operation Sindoor commenced on May 7 till the understanding on cessation of firing and military action on 10th May, there were conversations between Indian and US leaders on the evolving military situation. The issue of trade did not come up in any of these discussions," he said.
Jaiswal was responding to question about US President Donald Trump's remarks in which he had mentioned trade in the context of US efforts to sort out tensions between India and Pakistan.US President Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration played a crucial role in brokering an immediate cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, following escalating tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
"We stopped a nuclear conflict. I think it could have been a bad nuclear war. Millions of people could have been killed. I also want to thank VP JD Vance and Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, for their work. On Saturday, my administration helped broker an immediate cessation of hostilities, I think a permanent one between India and Pakistan the countries having a lot of nuclear weapons," Trump had told the media.
"I'm very proud to let you know that the leadership of India and Pakistan was unwavering and powerful... And we helped a lot, and we also helped with trade. I said, 'Come on, we're going to do a lot of trade with you guys. Let's stop it, let's stop it. If you stop it, we're doing trade. If you don't stop it, we're not going to do any trade," he added.
India and Pakistan have now reached an understanding to stop firing and military action after Pakistan DGMO reached out to his Indian counterpart.