Trump-Munir bonhomie a result of 'London Plan' that began with ousting Imran Khan: Leaked cable

The current bonhomie between US President Donald Trump and Pakistan’s de facto ruler, Field Marshal Asim Munir, is the direct result of a ‘London Plan’ first set in motion in 2019, according to Drop Site News.

The outlet has published the 2022 cable that Asad Majeed Khan, the Pakistani envoy to the United States at the time, sent to Islamabad after a meeting with Donald Lu, the US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.

The London Plan, which began taking shape with the military-backed ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2022, has laid the groundwork for a dramatic reset in US-Pakistan relations.

During the Joe Biden administration, US-Pakistan ties were sporadically functional at best and overtly frozen at worst. For comparison, Biden did not hold any phone calls or meetings with either Imran or his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, whereas Shehbaz has met Trump twice in just 16 months.

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For the United States, Pakistan has not been this important in decades. It is mediating in the war involving Iran, acting as an American outpost in South Asia, and emerging as an economic partner. Former Pakistani diplomat Masood Khan told The Sunday Times that “we are in seventh heaven and on cloud nine and it’s intoxicating”, adding that “I’ve had a long diplomatic career and I have never seen Pakistan on such a high pedestal”.

“When I went to Washington as ambassador in 2022, it was an uphill task. Yet now Pakistan is playing the role the UN should have been — it’s a very delicate task and we are doing it well,” Khan further told The Times of London.

Such a relationship is the result of a yearslong campaign involving Munir, the Sharif family, Pakistan’s bureaucratic elite, and the US intelligence community.

The article is based on Drop Site's report and the cable it has published.

Munir's ‘London Plan’ with Sharif and US govt

Imran has previously alleged that Munir hatched the ‘London Plan’ to oust him and acquire power.

Imran claimed that after he sacked Munir as the chief of the spy agency ISI in 2019, Munir travelled to London to meet former PM Nawaz Sharif, who was living there in self-exile at the time. He has alleged that they hatched the ‘London Plan’ there, a conspiracy involving Munir, the Sharif family, and Pakistan’s judges.

Munir roped the US intelligence community into the plan during the Biden administration.

Notably, Imran had overtly accused the Biden administration of plotting his ouster through a trust vote in 2022.

The ouster in the trust vote was indeed initiated, or at least supported, by the Biden administration.

But even that did not bring Pakistan into Biden’s good books, as he remained convinced that the country posed a security threat — more on this later.

In June 2021, then CIA Director William Burns travelled to Islamabad to meet Imran, but Imran did not grant him a meeting. The purpose was to secure bases in Pakistan for American drone operations in Afghanistan after the withdrawal from the country.

In July, the Pakistani military hired a former CIA Islamabad station chief as a lobbyist to improve relations without the government’s involvement.

Then, in March 2022, the infamous meeting between Ambassador Asad and Lu took place.

As per the cable published by Drop Site, Lu told Asad that the Biden administration’s grievances with Pakistan could be set aside and “all will be forgiven” if Imran were ousted in a no-confidence vote.

“I think if the no confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead,” the cable quoted Lu as telling Asad.

The following month, Imran was indeed ousted in a trust vote and Shehbaz eventually took over as prime minister.

After Imran’s ouster, then Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa further sought to mend ties with the Biden administration.

Bajwa travelled to Washington in October 2022 and met then Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and then National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. He told them that Pakistan would limit the range of its missiles to fall short of Israel and assured them that Pakistan wanted to rein in its military, limit its nuclear programme, and move away from China.

Upon his return, Bajwa called the head of the Strategic Plans Division (SPD), the organisation in charge of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and ordered him to allow an American delegation to inspect sensitive nuclear sites in the country. The SPD chief, who did not technically report to him, refused. The US-Pakistan relationship remained tense.

Later that month, Biden said that “Pakistan may be one of the most dangerous nations in the world” because the country has “nuclear weapons without any cohesion”. While the statement took many by surprise, it was rooted in Bajwa’s failure to arrange the inspection.

By this time, even as Munir and his allies had managed to topple Imran with at least indirect assistance from the Biden administration, they were nowhere near mending ties with Washington. That would happen only after Trump’s election.

The sea change under Trump

Upon Trump’s election, there were hopes that he would crack down on the military establishment in Pakistan and engage with Imran. However, the opposite happened.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth represented two competing approaches to Pakistan, with Hegseth prevailing in the end.

The report said that the Pakistan relationship has since been managed by the Pentagon and the CIA.

The rest is well known: Pakistan signed minerals and crypto deals and pledged troops to a Gaza peacekeeping force. In turn, the United States sold Nato-grade military communications equipment to Pakistan and took its side in the military clash with India.