World
‘Don’t see a major war with India, but have to be ready’: Pakistan ex-NSA
Islamabad, Pakistan – Eleven days after gunmen shot 26 people dead in the scenic valley of Baisaran in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam, India and Pakistan stand on the brink of a military standoff.
The nuclear-armed neighbours have each announced a series of tit-for-tat steps against the other since the attack on April 22, which India has implicitly blamed Pakistan for, even as Islamabad has denied any role in the killings.
India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty that enforces a water-sharing mechanism Pakistan depends on. Pakistan has threatened to walk away from the 1972 Simla Agreement that committed both nations to recognising a previous ceasefire line as a Line of Control (LoC) – a de-facto border – between them in Kashmir, a disputed region that they each partly control but that they both claim in its entirety. Both nations have also expelled each other’s citizens and scaled back their diplomatic missions.
Despite a ceasefire agreement being in place since 2021, the current escalation is the most serious since 2019, when India launched air strikes on Pakistani soil following an attack on Indian soldiers in Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, that killed 40 troops. In recent days, they have traded fire across the LoC.
And the region is now on edge, amid growing expectations that India might launch a military operation against Pakistan this time too.
Yet, both countries have also engaged their diplomatic partners. On Wednesday, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, urging both sides to find a path to de-escalation. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, on Thursday to condemn the attack and offered “strong support” to India.
Sharif met envoys from China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three of Pakistan’s closest allies, to seek their support, and urged the ambassadors of the two Gulf nations to “impress upon India to de-escalate and defuse tensions”.
To understand how Pakistani strategists who have worked on ties with India view what might happen next, Al Jazeera spoke with Moeed Yusuf, who served as Pakistan’s national security adviser (NSA) between May 2021 and April 2022 under former Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Prior to his role as NSA, Yusuf also worked as a special adviser to Khan on matters related to national security starting in December 2019, four months after the Indian government, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, revoked the special status of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Based in Lahore, Yusuf is currently the vice chancellor of a private university and has authored and edited several books on South Asia and regional security. His most recent book, Brokering Peace in Nuclear Environments: US Crisis Management in South Asia, was published in 2018.
Al Jazeera: How do you assess moves made by both sides so far in the crisis?
Moeed Yusuf: India and Pakistan have for long struggled in terms of crisis management. They don’t have a bilateral crisis management mechanism, which is the fundamental concern.
The number one crisis management tool used by both sides has been the reliance on third parties, with the idea being that they would try and restrain them both and help de-escalate the crisis.
This time, I feel the problem India has run into is that they followed the old playbook, but the leader of the most important third party, the United States, didn’t show up to support India.
It appears that they have so far taken a neutral and a hands-off position, as indicated by President Donald Trump few days ago. (Trump said that he knew the leaders of both India and Pakistan, and believed that they could resolve the crisis on their own.)
Pakistan’s response is directly linked to the Indian response, and that is historically how it has been, with both countries going tit-for-tat with each other. This time too, a number of punitive steps have been announced.
The problem is that these are easy to set into motion but very difficult to reverse, even when things get better, and they may wish to do so.
Unfortunately, in every crisis between them, the retaliatory steps are becoming more and more substantive, as in this case, India has decided to hold Indus Water Treaty in abeyance, which is illegal as the treaty provides no such provision.
Al Jazeera: Do you believe a strike is imminent and if both sides are indicating preparedness for a showdown?
Yusuf: In such moments, it is impossible to say. Action from India remains plausible and possible, but the window where imminence was a real concern has passed.
What usually happens in crises is that countries pick up troop or logistics movements, or their allies inform them, or they rely on ground intelligence to determine what might happen. Sometimes, these can be misread and can lead the offensive side to see an opportunity to act where none exists or the defensive side to believe an attack may be coming when it isn’t the case.
Pakistan naturally has to show commitment to prepare for any eventuality. You don’t know what will come next, so you have to be ready.
Having said that, I don’t think we are going to see a major war, but in these circumstances, you can never predict, and one little misunderstanding or miscalculation can lead to something major.
Al Jazeera: How do you see the role of third parties such as the US, China and Gulf States in this crisis, and how would you compare it with previous instances?
Yusuf: My last book, Brokering Peace (2018) was on the third-party management in Pakistan-India context, and this is such a vital element for both as they have internalised and built it into their calculus that a third-party country will inevitably come in.
The idea is that a third-party mediator will step in, and the two nations will agree to stop because that is what they really want, instead of escalating further.
And the leader of the pack of third-party countries is the United States since the Kargil war of 1999. (Pakistani forces crossed the LoC to try to take control of strategic heights in Ladakh’s Kargil, but India eventually managed to take back the territory. Then-US President Bill Clinton is credited with helping end that conflict.)
Everybody else, including China, ultimately backs the US position, which prioritises immediate de-escalation above all else during the crisis.
This changed somewhat in the 2016 surgical strikes and 2019 Pulwama crisis when the US leaned heavily on India’s side, perhaps unwittingly even emboldening them to act in 2019.
(In 2016, Indian troops launched a cross-border “surgical strike” that New Delhi said targeted armed fighters planning to attack India, after gunmen killed 19 Indian soldiers in an attack on an army base in Uri, Indian-administered Kashmir. Three years later, Indian fighter jets bombed what New Delhi said were bases of “terrorists” in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, after the attack on the Indian military convoy in which 40 soldiers were killed. India and Pakistan then engaged in an aerial dogfight, and an Indian pilot was captured and subsequently returned.)
However, this time, you have a president in the White House who turned around and told both Pakistan and India to figure it out themselves.
This, I think, has hurt India more than Pakistan, because for Pakistan, they had discounted the possibility of significant US support in recent years, thinking they have gotten too close to India due to their strategic relationship.
But India would have been hoping for the Americans to put their foot down and pressure Pakistan, which did not exactly materialise. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s phone call again is playing down the middle, where they are telling both the countries to get out of war.
So, what they have done has, oddly enough, still played a role in holding India back so far, since India didn’t (so far) feel as emboldened to take action as they may have during Pulwama in 2019.
Gulf countries have played a more active role than before. China, too, has made a statement of restraint.
Al Jazeera: How has Pakistan’s relationship with India evolved in recent years?
Yusuf: There has been a sea change in the relationship between the two countries. When I was in office, despite serious problems and India’s unilateral moves in Kashmir in 2019, we saw a ceasefire agreement on the Line of Control as well as back-channel talks.
We have tried to move ahead and reduce India’s incentive to destabilise Pakistan, but I think India has lost that opportunity due to its own intransigence, hubris and an ideological bent that continues to force them to demean and threaten Pakistan.
That has led to a change in Pakistan as well, where the leadership is now convinced that the policy of restraint did not deliver, and India has misused and abused Pakistan’s offers for dialogue.
The view now is that if India doesn’t want to talk, Pakistan shouldn’t be pleading either. If India does reach out, we will likely respond, but there isn’t any desperation in Pakistan at all.
This is not a good place to be for either country. I have long believed and argued that ultimately for Pakistan to get to where we want to go economically, and for India to get to where it says it wants to go regionally, it cannot happen unless both improve their relationship. For now, though, with the current Indian attitude, unfortunately, I see little hope.
Al Jazeera: Do you anticipate any direct India-Pakistan talks at any level during or after this crisis?
Yes – I don’t know when it will be, or who will it be through or with, but I think one of the key lessons Indians could probably walk away with once all this is over is that attempting to isolate Pakistan isn’t working.
Indus Water Treaty in abeyance? Simla Agreement’s potential suspension? These are major decisions, and the two countries will need to talk to sort these out, and I think at some point in future they will engage.
But I also don’t think that Pakistan will make a move towards rapprochement, as we have offered opportunities for dialogues so many times recently to no avail. As I said, the mood in Pakistan has also firmed up on this question.
Ultimately, the Indians need to basically decide if they want to talk or not. If they come forth, I think Pakistan will still respond positively to it.
*This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
new video loaded: How Venezuelans Worldwide Reacted to Overthrow of Maduro
By McKinnon de Kuyper
January 4, 2026
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
President Donald Trump late Sunday predicted Cuba was “ready to fall” after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, warning that Havana can no longer rely on Caracas for security and oil.
Trump said Cuba’s fate is now directly tied to Maduro’s ouster and the collapse of Venezuela’s ability to bankroll allies in the region.
Asked if he was considering U.S. action in Cuba, Trump replied: “I think it’s just going to fall. I don’t think we need any action. Looks like it’s going down. It’s going down for the count.”
The president’s comments during a press gaggle with reporters aboard Air Force One come after Saturday’s capture of Maduro and his wife on charges tied to a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The audacious operation has sent shockwaves through allied governments in the region, with Cuban officials calling for rallies in support of Venezuela and accusing the U.S. of violating sovereignty.
MADURO AND ‘LADY MACBETH’ CILIA FLORES MARRIAGE SPELLS ‘WORST CASE’ CUSTODY SCENARIO
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
U.S. officials say Cuban security forces played a central role in keeping Maduro in power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Cuban operatives effectively ran Venezuela’s internal intelligence and security operations – including personally guarding Maduro and monitoring loyalty inside his government.
Protestors rally outside the White House, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Washington, after the U.S. captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a military operation. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.”
Cuba’s government acknowledged Sunday that 32 Cuban military and police officers were killed during the American operation in Venezuela, marking the first official death toll released by Havana. Cuban state media said the officers had been deployed at the request of Caracas and announced two days of national mourning.
US CAPTURE OF MADURO THROWS SPOTLIGHT ON VENEZUELA’S MASSIVE OIL RESERVES
Trump confirmed Cuban casualties while traveling back to Washington.
“A lot of Cubans were killed yesterday,” he said. “There was a lot of death on the other side. No death on our side.”
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores face ‘worst case scenario’ in U.S. custody, according to expert, with federal indictments on drug and weapons charges. ( Juan BARRETO / AFP via Getty Images)
Trump also took aim at neighboring Colombia, accusing its leadership of fueling drug trafficking into the U.S.
UN AMBASSADOR WALTZ DEFENDS US CAPTURE OF MADURO AHEAD OF SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING
“Colombia is very sick, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said, adding that the country, “is not going to be doing it for a very long time.”
President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro speaks during a military ceremony commemorating the 200th anniversary of the presentation of the ‘Sword of Peru’ to Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar on November 25, 2025, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
He suggested the U.S. was prepared to act against narco-trafficking networks operating by land and sea, citing recent interdictions.
Trump also revived his long-standing focus on Greenland, arguing the Arctic territory is critical to U.S. security amid growing Russian and Chinese activity.
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“We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” Trump said. “Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.”
Trump has framed Saturday’s operation as part of a broader effort to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, invoking the Monroe Doctrine and warning that hostile regimes can no longer rely on one another for survival.
Maduro is set to be arraigned in federal court in New York on Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Washington, DC – Hours after the United States announced the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Israeli politician Yair Lapid issued a warning to Tehran: “The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela.”
The forcible removal of Maduro from power came less than a week after US President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and threatened to launch new strikes against Iran.
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Although Washington’s tensions with Caracas and Tehran have different roots and dynamics, analysts say Trump’s move against Maduro raises the prospects of war with Iran.
“A new lawlessness makes everything less stable and war more likely,” said Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).
“Whether Trump becomes enamoured with ‘surgical’ regime change, or gives Netanyahu a US imprimatur for similar actions, it’s hard not to see how this gives momentum for the many actors pushing for renewed war with Iran.”
He added that Maduro’s abduction could prompt Iran “to do something that triggers military action”, including developing its own military deterrence or preempting US or Israeli strikes.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, also said the US actions in Venezuela show Trump’s maximalist aims, further dimming the chances of diplomacy.
“What I see and hear from Tehran is that they are not interested in negotiating with the Trump administration the way this administration signals that they want total surrender,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
“So, not much chance for diplomacy at the moment, which then opens the path to the opposite road, that is conflict. Right now, Israel, Iran and the US are on a path to potential conflict.”
Abdi echoed that assessment. “This action reinforces every doubt and suspicion about US intentions, and gives more credence to those in Iran who say engaging the US is useless and [that] developing a nuclear deterrent is vital,” he told Al Jazeera.
Iran-Venezuela alliance
The US raid that abducted Maduro and brought him to the US came after months of intensifying rhetoric from Trump against the Venezuelan government.
US officials have accused Maduro of leading a drug organisation, and Trump and his aides have been increasingly arguing that Washington is entitled to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also been emphasising Maduro’s ties to Iran, accusing Caracas, without evidence, of providing the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
Maduro is a close ally of Iran, and the two heavily sanctioned countries have been pushing to deepen their trade ties, which are estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
So, with Maduro gone, Iran’s small network of allies may shrink further, after the fall of leader Bashar al-Assad in Syria and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Iranian government was quick to condemn the US attack on Venezuela, calling on the United Nations to intervene and halt the “unlawful aggression”.
“The US military aggression against an independent state that is a member of the UN represents a grave breach of regional and international peace and security,” the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
“Its consequences affect the entire international system and will further expose the UN Charter-based order to erosion and destruction.”
On Saturday, Rubio suggested that Maduro’s abduction carried a message to all of Washington’s rivals in the Trump era.
“When he tells you that he’s going to do something, when he tells you he’s going to address a problem, he means it,” the top US diplomat told reporters.
But Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei doubled down on his defiant rhetoric after the US raid in Caracas.
“We will not give in to the enemy,” Khamenei wrote in a social media post. “We will bring the enemy to its knees.”
Trump’s threats
Last week, Trump hosted Netanyahu in Florida and threatened to bomb Iran again if the country rebuilds its missile or nuclear programmes.
“Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down,” Trump said. “We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them.”
Israel launched a war against Iran in June, killing the country’s top military commanders, several nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians.
The US joined in the attack, bombing Iran’s three main nuclear sites.
While Trump has often reiterated that the US strikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme and celebrated the war as a success, the Iranian governing system survived the assault.
Tehran responded with barrages of hundreds of rockets against Israel, dozens of which penetrated the country’s multi-layered air defences, and Iranian forces were able to keep firing until the final moments of the war, before the ceasefire came into effect.
Some critics argue that regime change was and remains Israel’s goal in Iran, and Trump appears to be increasingly buying into that objective.
On Friday, Trump warned that the US is “locked and loaded” and ready to attack Iran if the Iranian government kills protesters amid the ongoing but sporadic antigovernment demonstrations across the country.
He renewed the same threat late on Sunday. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” the US president said.
So, could the US carry out a Venezuela-style government decapitation in Iran?
NIAC’s Abdi noted that Israel has already tried to kill the country’s top leaders, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, in June.
Trump also repeatedly threatened Khamenei with assassination, and Israeli officials confirmed that they sought to “eliminate” the supreme leader during the war.
“Iranian officials have said they accordingly have plans in place so that killing or removing senior leaders does not paralyse or topple the regime,” Abdi said.
“It would be far messier to run a ‘snatch and grab’ operation on Iran, given their ability to retaliate against US interests and personnel.”
Venezuela without Maduro
Even in Venezuela, removing Maduro has not translated into a regime collapse, at least for now.
On Sunday, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, now Venezuela’s acting president, stressed that Maduro remains the country’s only leader and condemned the US attack.
She also suggested that Israel was involved in the abduction of Maduro, a vocal critic of the US ally.
“Governments around the world are shocked that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has become the victim and target of an attack of this nature, which undoubtedly has Zionist undertones,” Rodriguez said.
Trump responded by threatening the acting Venezuelan president, telling The Atlantic magazine that she would pay a “very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she did not acquiesce to US demands.
So, the US president’s plans for “running” Venezuela and taking its oil are not complete yet, and will likely require more military action.
“I doubt Venezuela can be a ‘one and done’ or a quick ‘in and out’ situation, which is Trump’s favourite model. His brand is that he engages in quick shows of force, not forever wars,” Mortazavi said.
She cited swift operations that Trump has ordered, including the killing of ISIL (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019, the assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and the attack on Iran’s nuclear sites in June.
“Most Americans are tired of forever wars, especially in the Middle East, so the Trump administration knows they can’t sell more forever wars to Americans,” Mortazavi said.
But Trump has already floated the prospect of a ground invasion of Venezuela.
“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” he said. “We don’t mind saying it, but we’re going to make sure that that country is run properly. We’re not doing this in vain.”
Abdi said that a long-term US involvement in Venezuela could indirectly stave off war with Iran.
“There is also the possibility that the US gets bogged down in ‘running’ Venezuela and doesn’t have the bandwidth to wage, or to support Israel launching, the next Iran war,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Iran was next on the menu after the US invaded Iraq in 2003, and we know what happened there, and Trump may not want to pronounce ‘mission accomplished’ just yet.”
The oil question
Still, some critics – including Republican US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene – have argued that if the US succeeds in controlling Venezuela’s oil resources, it will be able to offset energy market disruptions from a possible war with Iran.
“The next obvious observation is that, by removing Maduro, this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran,” Greene wrote on X on Saturday.
About 20 percent of the world’s oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran may push to shut down in the case of an all-out war.
Abdi said that Venezuelan oil “could theoretically provide some cushion” to the loss of exports from the Gulf region.
“But this would mean a lot of things going right for the US in Venezuela, and it is probably far too soon to make that judgement,” he said.
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