Zia-Musharraf-Munir: Why the US needs Pakistan's dictators

India Today

19-06-2025

"The area of Pakistan is strategically the most important on the continent of India and the majority of our strategic requirements could be metby an agreement with Pakistan alone. We do not therefore consider that failure to obtain an agreement with India (Hindustan) would cause us to modify any of our requirements... We have the use of strategic airfields, primarily in Pakistan, in the event of a major war".advertisementThis extract from a Top Secret assessment prepared on 7 July 1947 by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee in Whitehall clinically stated why Pakistan and not India suited British imperial interests. The creation of Pakistan was a geopolitical coup for the departing British.A pliant state with a 909 km border with Iran, a 2,640 km border with Afghanistan, which was on the southern flank of the Soviet Union, and a short hop away from the oil-rich Arabian Peninsula, which the British called "wells of power".
India's access to Afghanistan and Central Asia was severed when a British sleight of hand saw Gilgit-Baltistan, part of the kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, go over to Pakistan in 1948. The occupation of Gilgit-Baltistan led to the creation of a 596 km border with China.advertisementWhen the 1947 assessment was prepared in the afterglow of World War 2, the US had already displaced Great Britain as the head of the informal Anglosphere — white majority Anglo-Saxon-ruled countries, the 'Five Eyes'.It also inherited British global interests, including those that created Pakistan. In 2025, US President Donald Trump, the head of his informal alliance, sits down for lunch with the most powerful man in Pakistan, Field Marshal Asim Munir. Pakistan's strategic location matters more than ever. The Israel-Iran war has been on for nearly five days now with Israeli jets overflying Iran with impunity, bombing targets including its nuclear facilities.Meanwhile, US bombers, carrier strike groups and fighter jets are moving in for what many believe will be decisive action to destroy Iran's underground nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow. The Trump-Munir lunch menu is not known, but the main course will undoubtedly be a long list of demands by both sides-assistance for the US-Israel war, the use of airfields and bases and most importantly, steering clear of a fellow Muslim country, Iran.Munir in return could ask for advanced weapons and for US intervention in mediating Jammu & Kashmir.THE BELOVED DICTATORSThe US is the world's oldest democracy, but it loves doing business with dictators. 'He's a b*****d, but he's our b*****d,' President Franklin D Roosevelt is believed to have said of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.advertisementIt was the military factor in Pakistan that brought it closer to the US. India and the US were in opposite camps during the Cold War. But Pakistan has been a willing accomplice ever since Field Marshal Ayub Khan's 1958 coup.Since then, the Army, Allah and America are the three As which it is said that have guided the destiny of a rentier state which has historically rented itself out to the US. What transpires over the Munir-Trump lunch could help answer the puzzle of how bankrupt Pakistan bounced back into favour in the White House in the first six months of the Trump administration.What followed was assistance from the western-dominated IMF and World Bank and the de-listing of the FATF. For New Delhi, the US's pro-Pakistan tilt possibly explains the West's reluctance to condemn Pakistan's state-sponsored terror, the direct cause of the May 22 massacre of Indian tourists in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir.New Delhi will recall how Pakistani dictators have always leveraged global crises to their advantage. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan's dictator, General Zia ul Haq, turned his country into a frontline state in the West's proxy war against the Soviets. When Al-Qaeda struck the US on September 11, 2001, General Musharraf speedily became a major non-NATO ally against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, ironically, organisations his army actively created and supported.advertisementHamas's murderous attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023 has now culminated with Israel's direct attack on Iran. This is where Field Marshal Munir and his rentier state enter the picture. The past two engagements resulted in short-term gains for the Pakistan Army but long-term devastation for their country. General Headquarters Rawalpindi, which runs Pakistan, sees these as acceptable risks because they help in their long war against India.In 1979, the West turned a blind eye to Zia's nuclear weapons programme because of the dictator's strategic utility. Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons in the mid-1980s when it was a Western ally. When the US withdrew after the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, the Pakistan Army redirected the massive weapons stockpiles from the CIA's Operation Cyclone into Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.Under Musharraf, it welded terrorists and strategic weapons to craft a unique strategy of nuclear blackmail — bleeding India through terror attacks and threatening nuclear weapons use if India retaliated militarily. When Pakistan's dictators are mollycoddled by the White House, they begin to develop an over-inflated view of themselves, just like the Aesop's Fable where a frog, deeply envious of an ox, begins to fill himself with air.advertisementThis could explain the startling turnaround in Gen Munir's behaviour this year, beginning with his infamous and blatantly communal 'Two Nations' speech on April 16, which led to the slaughter of Indian tourists in Pahalgam six days later, on April 22. Aesop's fable ends with the frog exploding. Munir reached that point when India unleashed a storm of missiles shattering Pakistani military bases on May 12. India put the 65-year-old Indus water treaty in abeyance, with Prime Minister Modi calling out Pakistan's nuclear blackmail and ending the distinction between state and non-state actors.The Pakistan Army called for a ceasefire on May 12, which India acceded to. Munir's salve was a Lazarus-like resurrection, anointing himself Field Marshal and declaring victory. Now in Washington, the Field Marshal is preparing himself for his big day with Trump, the star of another fairy tale — the Grimm's story of a nasty frog that turns into a handsome Prince after being kissed by a princess. Will President Trump play ball?advertisement(Sandeep Unnithan is an author and senior journalist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Chakra Newz, a digital media platform)(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)Must Watch