ED MORRISSEY: New: US Brokers Cease-Fire Between India, Pakistan.

Donald Trump hailed the agreement, while also noting the US role in bringing the brief war to a conclusion:

After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE. Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

This gives Marco Rubio his first major diplomatic victory as Secretary of State, and it is a doozy. India and Pakistan have fought a number of skirmishes over the disputed Kashmir region, and terrorists often attack with Kashmir as its premise. The most well-known of these groups is Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani radical-Islamist group that got some of its funding from Osama bin Laden. They have wanted a war of conquest to integrate Kashmir and Jammu into Pakistan. The government in Islamabad claim that L-e-T has disbanded, but that claim isn’t exactly credible, especially considering the Pakistani footsie-playing with radical Islamists in the region.

As Ed concludes:

Of course, this is only a cease-fire. Pakistan and India have secular hostility and disputes going all the way back to the British partition and independence, and religious disputes going back a millennia or more. Perhaps stepping this close to the brink will have sobered both governments up enough to at least settle the secular issues and remind Pakistan especially of the necessity to deal with its radical-Islamist problems. In the meantime, though, Rubio’s credibility and the leverage from American trade will both be on the rise.

Still though as Churchill apparently never said, jaw jaw is better than war war.