A two card trick: How Pakistan's crypto gambit and Nobel ploy turned Trump

The TOI correspondent from Washington: The ploy was plain and didn't cost Pakistan a cent. By the simple expedient of massaging Donald Trump's ego and playing on the US President's long-stated desire for a Nobel Peace Prize as a "peace-maker," Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir has manoevered his country back into the US calculus.

In the process, he has trumped both his domestic rivals and Pakistan's civilian leadership -- by gaining recognition as the country's de facto ruler -- and New Delhi, which holds him responsible for triggering war with India by initiating the Pahalgam terrorist attack following an incendiary speech.

“I was honored to meet him today,” Trump gushed after a private lunch he hosted for Munir in the White House. “The reason I had him here was I wanted to thank him for not going into the war (with India) and ending it.”

Of course, Trump also praised Prime Minister Modi for the de-escalation, saying, “Two very smart people decided not to keep going with the war. Those are two big nuclear powers.” But considering New Delhi had just repudiated a mediatory US role, Munir took the plaudits.

Shortly before the lunch, the White House itself candidly revealed the basis for the invitation: Munir's advocacy for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize -- ostensibly for his efforts in de-escalating the India-Pakistan military standoff. This played into the US President's long-standing grouse that he has been denied a Nobel despite his record as a peace-maker.

"They gave one to Obama immediately upon his ascent to the presidency, and he had no idea why he got it. You know what? I got us out of wars. I made deals that nobody thought were possible," Trump complained in one of his numerous public gripes on the Nobel issue.

Even before playing the Nobel card, Munir had laid the foundation for his Trump outreach with a crypto gambit that fit well with the prevailing culture of grift and greed in Washington DC.

In April, a privately-owned US cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial (WLF), signed a Letter of Intent with Pakistan's nascent Crypto Council (PCC). The agreement grants WLF the authority "to integrate blockchain technology across Pakistan's financial institutions, paving the way for asset tokenization, stablecoin development, and the establishment of regulatory sandboxes for decentralized finance (DeFi) pilot projects," all aimed at transforming Islamabad into the "crypto capital of South Asia" and a "global leader in the digital finance revolution."

WLF is notably connected to the Trump family, with President Trump's sons Eric and Donald Junior, as well as his son-in-law Jared Kushner, collectively holding a 60 percent stake in the company. WLF delegation that traveled to Islamabad was led by Zachary Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, a long-time business associate of Donald Trump and currently the US Special Envoy to the Middle East.

Munir personally welcomed the delegation and also participated in a closed-door meeting alongside Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, paving way for a White House invitation that was kept under wraps for several weeks to forestall protests by Pakistani expats allied with former Prime Minister Imran Khan, incarcerated by the Pakistani military.