Trump’s backing has made Asim Munir more dangerous, India must play its cards well

India remembers Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir for what he did a year back in Pahalgam when innocent Indians were slaughtered in a Kashmir vale by his men. For what he is doing now in the third Gulf War. He was bad news then. He is worse news now.

What makes this man so dangerous, and why should we be taking him very seriously? The world is on the edge because of the war; economies are flagging, and somehow this man has managed to immerse himself right in the middle of this conflict as a facilitator and mediator. It is not a case of subcontinental jealousy how this man has managed to get this role for himself. It is much more than that.

Munir’s dual role as delivery boy for Washington and mediator might bear fruit or not in the US-Iran war. That is an irrelevant outcome. The fact of the matter is he is firmly in the US camp and in the good graces of American President Donald Trump. His role is set. He will continue to carry out curated geopolitical tasks for Washington. Iran could just be a beginning. Next stop could be Afghanistan. Trump has been particularly aggrieved that Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is under Taliban control. He wants it back. Both Trump and the general would want to teach the Taliban government in Kabul a lesson. And it would not stop there.

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Washington is clear that it wants to retain its petrodollar supremacy at any cost. It wants its authoritative presence in all the troubled spots in the world. In its worldview, it is not only the Middle East and Iran that need fixing. Potential repair and fixing jobs can come up in Balochistan to extract the so-called vein of critical minerals and oil reserves. And then, moving towards Central Asia, Washington plans to open new energy supply chains to bolster Caspian oil and gas routes that bypass Russia and Iran. Which means you fix the Chinese in the Strait of Hormuz by blocking their oil, and in Central Asia you go after Russian interests.

Now somebody must interact with the republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to realise this strategic vision. Indeed, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are President Trump’s perennial troubleshooters, but they are more effective in the western theatre of action and Israel. Notice how Jared Kushner looked completely out of place in Islamabad a few days back.

The reason for their discomfiture is quite simple. Both are of Jewish origin, and that is a big no-no in Muslim Ummah lands. And that is where Asim Munir comes in. He has positioned himself as an indispensable asset in the new Trumpian vision of reordering the world. Munir is a Sunni Muslim; he commands a large army, of which he makes no bones about the fact that it is always ready for hire, no questions asked. Well, so is he. Why would a man rendering such services not be appealing to President Trump?

Munir, of course, when the time comes, will ask for monies, IMF loans, and even handouts to shore up Pakistan’s comatose economy. But he will ask for more. Munir will then definitely ask Washington to cut India down to size, both economically and militarily. He would be working very hard to persuade Washington to re-open the Kashmir issue with New Delhi.

Munir could already be slithering in the grass, making such moves. New Delhi would at its peril treat him as a lightweight, a man of no consequence. Keeping that in mind, it is important to understand how the general wormed his way into this pole position.

Look at the man’s background. He was both intelligence chief and army chief of Pakistan. In both capacities, he masterminded two of the most heinous terrorist attacks inflicted on India. Munir was Director General of the ISI when a suicide bomber killed more than 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama.

He became army chief in November 2022. From that point onwards, he pitchforked himself into the public limelight by rabid anti-India rhetoric. In a sense, he discarded his earlier image as a man plotting and planning in the shadows. He emerged full frontal in the Pakistani public consciousness as the man and the general who was prepared to give India grief and wage battle against the forces of Hinduism.

When Munir staged the Pahalgam massacre, he knew the attack would create the same outrageous impact as General Musharraf's stealthy takeover of the Kargil peaks in 1998–1999. In fact, from the Pakistani point of view, Asim Munir emerged as the only other general besides Musharraf who had the guts to take on mighty India.

Munir’s strategy in plotting the Pahalgam attack was twofold. He wanted to emerge as the omnipresent satrap of Pakistan who would stand apart and, in a sense, be untouchable from the flanks of squabbling politicians of Pakistan. Shehbaz Sharif very early on read the writing on the wall and attached his fortunes to the rise of this Pakistani general as a willing subordinate. But this was not all. Munir desperately wanted to catch Washington’s eye. He got his opportunity in the immediate aftermath of Operation Sindoor.

To be honest, Munir gauged President Trump’s reaction to the conflict much better than the foreign policy mandarins in New Delhi. India decisively scalped Pakistan in that short, intense war, but Munir skilfully masterminded the narrative war to present himself as a victor and President Trump as a saviour of the conflict.

New Delhi miscalculated that Trump, especially in the aftermath of Vice President JD Vance’s successful New Delhi trip, would support India and pull up Pakistan. Munir understood the psychological impulses of the new occupant of the White House much better. He went to work cutting the ground under India’s feet.

President Trump wanted to leverage the conflict between India and Pakistan to project himself as the ultimate peacemaker who had stopped a potential ‘nuclear’ conflict. India, after a decisive victory, was in no mood to give President Trump that advantage. Munir, through his past intelligence contacts, made sure that his supporters in Western media newsrooms only peddled the spurious narrative that four to seven Indian jets were downed in the conflict. That narrative, like Chinese whispers, gained ground. Even Trump sold the narrative. At the same time, Munir extolled Trump’s imaginary role in the conflict to the skies. In a very short time, Munir caught Washington’s eye. He was greeted and feted by Trump as my 'favourite Field Marshal’!

In hindsight, Munir played on Trump’s proclivity for theatre and a good show. Remember the time the general and his country’s prime minister landed at the White House like two snake oil salesmen selling their wares. They literally opened a presentation box and showed Trump a sampling of critical minerals obtained from Balochistan.

The role of an outsider emerging as a kind of ‘hatchet man’ to further the US administration’s interests is not a new one. Then British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped into that same role in the 2003 Gulf War in Iraq with the same enthusiasm as Munir is exhibiting in the present. Blair was later accused of falsifying the narrative. Today nobody wants to touch him with a barge pole. Asim Munir in all probability is headed for that same fate. But that factoid of history should not lull New Delhi. India must actively mount efforts to discredit Munir and pull him down and at the same time convey its complete disdain and contempt for the man.

(Juggi Bhasin is a veteran TV journalist, author and geopolitical commentator. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)