In the dusty streets of Rawalakot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir this June, security forces opened fire on demonstrators demanding basic rights and an end to elite privileges. At least 11 people were killed in the clashes, with eyewitnesses and local leaders describing heavy, indiscriminate firing on what began as a largely peaceful protest. Families mourned as authorities claimed “miscreants” had provoked the violence. A year earlier, in March 2025, Pakistan security forces arrested prominent Baloch human rights defender Dr. Mahrang Baloch during a sit-in in Quetta, Balochistan, who was protesting enforced disappearances and police excesses. She now faces life imprisonment on terrorism-related charges widely viewed by rights groups as politically motivated reprisal for her activism against the military’s heavy-handed tactics in Balochistan. These scenes of repression unfold against a backdrop of deepening militarisation in Pakistan. Meanwhile, in Washington, President Trump has repeatedly hosted and publicly praised Pakistan’s Army Chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir—calling him his “favorite” and crediting Pakistan with special insight into Iran.
President Donald Trump’s courtship of Munir may look like transactional statecraft, but it is also dangerously short-sighted. Trump’s administration has leaned on Munir as a key interlocutor in US-Iran diplomacy, hosting him at the White House and highlighting Pakistan’s role in passing messages and facilitating talks during periods of heightened tensions. However, it ignores fundamental divergences in strategic interests. It rewards a military establishment whose consolidation of power at home is actively destabilizing the very region the United States claims to want stabilized.
A Dubious Mediator
Trump has publicly credited Pakistan with special insight into Iran, noting that Pakistanis “know Iran very well, better than most.” Munir has been positioned as a back-channel messenger and facilitator during periods of US-Iran tension. In reality, however, Munir’s role in the negotiations deserves scrutiny, not applause. It appeared to align with Tehran’s demand that Washington ease pressure before talks could proceed. Munir reportedly told Trump that the US blockade of Iranian ports was a major obstacle to negotiations, reinforcing Iran’s position rather than balancing between both sides.
Pakistan’s mediation appeared to endorse Tehran’s preferred sequence: de-escalation by Washington first, negotiations only afterward. Pakistan may have been useful as a messenger, but usefulness is not the same as strategic alignment. A state that presses Washington to relieve pressure on Iran while presenting itself as an American partner is not acting from shared security priorities. It is managing its own regional equities—border stability with Iran, domestic pro-Iran sentiment, Gulf diplomacy, and its need to remain relevant to multiple camps at once. Trump’s personal comfort with Munir risks mistaking tactical access for strategic convergence. Naturally, Washington has made this mistake before, because the ghosts of US-Pakistan policy apparently enjoy repeat performances.
The “Hard State” Washington Is Normalizing
The problem with Washington’s engagement lies not only in Pakistan’s foreign policy but in the domestic system Field Marshal Asim Munir now represents. The 27th Constitutional Amendment significantly expanded the Army Chief’s authority, creating a new overarching military command, placing the navy and Air Force under his control, and granting him direct oversight of the nuclear arsenal. It also curtailed the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction through a parallel judicial structure.
The 27th Amendment is not an abstract doctrine, as it also manifests in the military’s expanding economic empire. The Fauji Foundation, the army’s flagship conglomerate, controls assets estimated at $5.9–6 billion according to the Wealth Perception Index 2025—making it one of Pakistan’s largest business groups. Its engineering arm, the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), has secured major infrastructure projects, including the Machike–Thallian–Taru Jabba White Oil Pipeline, routed through the military-dominated Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC). Marketed as a single-window facilitator, the SIFC bypasses standard public procurement, parliamentary oversight, and regulatory scrutiny—effectively funneling strategic contracts to military-linked entities.
The critical minerals angle is especially revealing. A US company signed a $500 million agreement with Pakistan’s FWO to develop critical minerals and establish a poly-metallic refinery, with initial exports including antimony, copper, gold, tungsten, and rare earth elements. Diversifying US supply chains away from China is a legitimate strategic priority. But doing so through Pakistan’s expanding military-commercial ecosystem risks rewarding the very institution hollowing out civilian oversight, weakening democratic checks, and converting foreign investment into military power. That is not strategic diversification, but dependence dressed up as realism.
Repression at Home, Bombs Abroad
Munir’s Pakistan is not just authoritarian in structure but also coercive in practice. In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, mass protests over governance, elite privileges, and political representation have repeatedly turned deadly. Last month’s clashes in Pakistan-administered Kashmir have left more than 30 people killed as police and paramilitary forces remain deployed against protesters.
Balochistan tells an even darker story. Amnesty International has reported that prominent Baloch activist Mahrag Baloch had been charged in more than two dozen anti-terrorism cases after a prolonged period of unlawful detention. Baloch was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2026, in a case that is politically motivated and procedurally flawed. And then there is Afghanistan, where Pakistan’s military operations across the border have been reckless and devastating. Human Rights Watch called a March 2026 Pakistani airstrike on a Kabul drug treatment center unlawful and a possible war crime, in which at least 143 people were killed and more than 250 injured, most of them patients. Most recently, following an attack targeting Pakistani paramilitary personnel in Karachi, the Air Force carried out strikes that killed at least 28 civilians and injured 49 along the Afghan border.
Conclusion
This is the regime Trump is courting: one that crushes protest in Kashmir, jails Baloch activists, militarizes the economy, weakens courts, and bombs Afghanistan while marketing itself as a regional peacemaker.
The United States does not need to cut off Pakistan. That would be lazy policy masquerading as moral clarity. Pakistan remains geopolitically relevant because it borders Iran, Afghanistan, India, and China; it has nuclear weapons; and it can be useful in limited diplomatic channels. But Washington must stop confusing utility with trust. Trump’s courtship of Munir risks repeating the oldest mistake in US-Pakistan relations, which is rewarding the Pakistani military for short-term access while ignoring long-term divergence. Pakistan’s regional aspirations do not align cleanly with US priorities. It hedges with Iran, deepens ties with China, antagonizes India, suppresses democratic dissent, and uses its military-commercial complex to convert foreign engagement into domestic power.
Munir may offer Washington a convenient channel, but channels can also become traps. If the United States elevates Munir without demanding accountability, it will not stabilize South Asia or the Middle East. It will legitimize a military regime that has learned to monetize crisis, repression, and geography. That is not strategic realism, but “short-termism” dressed up as diplomacy.
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