Asim Munir’s Peace Drama Hits a Dead End. Now He Faces Desperation; India Must Prepare for a Swift Response
After months of mediation drama and so-called shuttle diplomacy by Field Marshal Asim Munir, there was a desperate attempt to secure some depth in the Middle East and rebuild ties with the US. However, Pakistan did nothing at the diplomatic stage except act as a messenger, a role deliberately used for propaganda to attract the diplomatic spotlight. Despite all the diplomatic drama, Asim Munir’s shortsightedness ultimately failed Pakistan on all fronts. At the domestic front, Pakistan is crumbling in energy and the economy. Its inflation has shot up to 300 per cent, and there is almost a complete shutdown of Pakistan’s energy sector.
At the external level, Pakistan’s limited diplomatic bandwidth during this Iran-US mediation has taken another hit after recent US strikes, which have put ceasefire and mediation talks in a fragile position, and from US diplomatic manoeuvring by calling Arab and Muslim-majority countries to sign the Abraham Accords.
Now the question is whether not only glaring failures but also visible frustration are emerging in Pakistan against the military establishment, as Pakistan’s military is flanked at its western border by the Balochistan problem, radical elements, and its own backed terror outfits, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is now issuing assassination threats against Asim Munir if Munir decides to recognise Israel through the Abraham Accords. Amidst all the heat, Munir is now in a desperate situation, with all fronts seemingly on the brink of collapse. Therefore, given Munir’s hardline, radical mindset, a strategic shift is likely to be needed to manage crises at both external and internal levels.
The General’s Game of Deflection
When Pakistan’s Generals are flanked on both fronts, they prefer to turn towards India. When Parvez Musharaff faced US heat after 9/11 in 2001, it led to an abrupt diplomatic roadblock in the US-Pakistan relationship, where the US pressured Pakistan to cooperate against the Afghan Taliban, a proxy that Pakistan’s ISI long nurtured and strengthened through the Haqani network. Even during the Cold War, the proxy game formed the strategic bedrock of the US-Pakistan relationship. Still, in the early 2000s, everything went south for Pakistan in terms of security and economy. At this point, Musharaff saw himself locked in traditional intertwined crises. The decision to abandon the Afghan Taliban, which Musharaff did half-heartedly later on, didn’t go well on the domestic front, as he faced immediate blowback from Jaish-e-Mohamad and LeT.
Both Pakistan-backed terrorist organisations and the Afghan Taliban shared a strict Deobandi ideological worldview. Going against the Afghan Taliban and aligning with the US’s war on terror campaign was seen as a betrayal by radicals and terror outfits, and hence, Pakistan saw a steep rise in terror at home. Musharaff survived two major assassination attempts in Rawalpindi, which were traced back to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). With waning strategic bandwidth in the US-Pakistan relationship and battling crises at home, Musharaff used strategic deflection twice. First, the Parliament attacks in 2001, and second, a series of terror attacks of varied intensity in India. The second deflection phase was crucial, as after the Parliament attacks and the US invasion of Afghanistan, Musharaff was under severe global pressure. To manage the crises, he banned LeT and JeM and ordered crackdowns against pro-Afghan outfits. As a result, from 2002 onwards, Pakistan not only faced diplomatic challenges but also saw a steep rise in terror at home. In that particular phase, India saw a series of attacks. May 2002 (Kaluchak Army Camp): Three LeT suicide militants disguised as soldiers attacked a tourist bus and an army family housing area in Jammu. They killed around 31 people. September 2002 (Akshardham Temple): Two armed terrorists attacked the prominent Swaminarayan Akshardham temple complex in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, killing around 33 people. November 2002 (Raghunath Temple): Suicide squads stormed the historic Raghunath Temple in Jammu for the second time that year, killing 14 people. Three terror attacks within the span of months in a year.
Later in the year, August 2003 (Mumbai Twin Car Bombings): Two simultaneous car bombs exploded at the Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar, killing around 52 people. All these terror attacks of varied intensity happened after the Parliament attacks, and most importantly, it was a crucial phase in which Pakistan was in a nosedive in terms of its security, diplomatic, and economic fronts. It was almost a polycrisis at home, but Musharaff’s Pakistan still opted for a deflection strategy, keeping the threshold at a manageable level and staying below the level of a war situation, unlike the post-Parliament attack standoff in 2001-2002. The only difference was in strategy; the intent remained the same. The 2001 Parliament attacks were an immediate response in desperation to seek an immediate strategic diversion or deflection from growing US pressure on Pakistan and to respond to the Kargil war humiliation.
The second attempt at deflection was calculated, given the 2001 stand-off tensions and 2002 crises in Pakistan. Musharaff had his own plans that helped him steer away from internal pressure in the ISI and Pakistan army, which was almost on the brink of mutiny, where hardliner generals were infuriated by Musharaff’s plans to ban terror outfits.
Further, Musharaff ensured that attacks of varying intensity in India would keep his options for survival open by shifting attention and seeking diplomatic support from the US, while expressing his inability to cooperate due to the risk of India’s response, especially during the stand-off scenario.
The Kayani Year
A similar attempt was made by Pakistan under General Parvez Kayani in 2008. Even then, Pakistan was diplomatically isolated by the US, which was seeking greater cooperation on the Afghan Taliban as it increased its troop levels in Afghanistan and feared the Taliban’s expansion. General Kayani, too, was locked in strategic complexities on two fronts. At one end, Pakistan was in a severe economic crisis due to the 2008 financial crisis, and at the other, domestic security pressures were mounting from terror strikes by the TTP. The most notable was the Marriott Hotel bombing in 2008 in Islamabad, which killed more than 50 people, wounded hundreds, and devastated the capital’s high-security zone. At the same time, US pressure on Afghanistan was mounting.
Kayani used strategic deflection. The 26/11 terror attacks in India led to a standoff between the two countries, and he shifted all the attention towards the eastern frontier to deal with India. General Kayani activated the political front by reducing the military establishment’s involvement, letting the political sphere shape itself and bear the brunt of failed negotiations with the TTP and the US’s continued drone strikes at the Af-Pak border.
The Munir Game of Deflection
Both Generals Musharaff and Kayani were locked into strategic dilemmas and tensions on dual fronts – external and internal, and both resorted to strategic deflection to varying degrees. The first strategic deflection by Munir was evident last year, when Pakistan was flanked at its western frontier and the military establishment’s waning reputation hit a low ebb. Pakistan-backed terror group TRF carried out the Pahalgam attacks. In response, a short war of 88 hours took place between India and Pakistan, during which the will of Pakistan’s military establishment was severely crushed and humiliated. Now Munir again appears to be on the brink of polycrises on both the internal and external fronts, putting Munir’s leadership in Pakistan’s Army in serious question, along with the mediation drama that ended in more humiliation than in serious diplomatic work. Therefore, Asim Munir will most likely go Musharaff’s way, betting on a second round of strategic deflection by launching low-intensity attacks to stay below the war threshold, gradually opening up the front against India to deflect attention, and launching propaganda to maintain the diplomatic spotlight, especially on its US-Pakistan relationship.
The recent incidents of gangster terror network, especially the Shahzad Bhatti’s gang-backed terror activities of recruiting youth and carrying out low-intensity terror strikes like grenade attacks and shooting incidents, have witnessed a slight upsurge. As Asim Munir is running out of options, India must be prepared to not only pre-empt but also take swift preventive action to squeeze Asim Munir’s nefarious deflection strategy and his diplomatic elbow room.
