A closer look at Asim Munir’s West Asia diplomacy

To give the devil its due, Pakistan’s Chief of Defence Forces Field Marshal Asim Munir’s recent diplomatic avatar has shown a sense of anticipation of the incipient conflict and hyperactivity in its wake. He was everywhere: soothsaying Trump 2.0, at the signing of Pakistan’s Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SDMA) with Saudi Arabia, and selling weapons to the Libyan warlord and the Sudanese Army Chief.

But his most ambitious rainbow chase has been the self-proclaimed role of an indispensable mediator in Iran’s war with the United States/Israel. So, if he eventually fails to ford the Strait of Hormuz, it would not be for lack of trying.

The gaze of detractors

However, his detractors — there are many in India — are themselves guilty of a transactional approach in judging his diplomatic hyperactivity. In their opinion, the energetic Field Marshal’s regional diplomatic overreach is doomed to fail for reasons ranging from the intrinsic weaknesses and preoccupations of Pakistan, the constant shapeshifting in the West Asian conundrum, to a propensity for glib talk. They are itching to see it fail and then claim the proprietary rights to the outcome.

Such predictions are overblown on two grounds. First it is the process and not the product. The entire exercise is aimed at exorcising the ghosts of Islamabad’s pattern of shortchanging its gullible partners. Whether the Pakistani leopard can change its spots is a separate question. Second, they half expect Field Marshal Munir’s wading into Trump-kissed regional diplomacy would, at one stroke, solve many of Pakistan’s current troubles — from a sclerotic economy and diplomatic doghouse to internal political disorder. This may be an unrealistic outcome.

Pakistani diplomacy has left no stone unturned in wooing Trump 2.0, flipping a decade-long mutual antipathy with the U.S. that followed the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Indeed, this multi-pronged charm offensive has been handsomely rewarded, and Asim Munir has become Mr. Trump’s favourite Field Marshal. Then moving on to being a messenger-cum-mediator between Washington and Tehran, seamlessly replacing Oman and Qatar, as the latter faced Iran’s retaliation for hosting the U.S. military bases.

An overreach

In Asim Munir’s scheme of things, all this greater realpolitik is to set off a perpetual motion machine meant for multiple ends. In the short run, he hopes to monetise its “peace-making” role to curry favour with both Washington and Beijing, becoming a useful conduit for their planned first Summit next month. He would also attempt a reset with the post-war dispensation in Iran. Islamabad has already leveraged its putative links with Iran to host a brainstorming meeting with the Foreign Ministers of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Egypt on March 30, which may lead to an Islamic NATO. In a less noticed, but significant move, Asim Munir recently paid a low-key fence-mending visit to Abu Dhabi, miffed by Islamabad’s growing proximity with rival Saudi Arabia.

At a different level, Islamabad also hopes that its overreach would fulfil its long-standing ambition to be counted in the senior league of the Islamic world. Last, but not least, Pakistan also hopes that being the paw of various fat cats would earn it cash rewards and bail it out of perennial penury. If all that happens, Asim Munir would have transformed himself from being an ambitious top-gun to surpass the iconic Ayub Khan, the only other Field Marshal and President of Pakistan.

There are reasons to believe that Asim Munir’s diplomatic activism may not get sustainable tailwinds to fully realise its goals. It is mainly because too many factors are beyond his control. Well-informed U.S. media reported last evening that Iran has stopped engaging in talks to halt the fighting. It may turn out later that sceptics in Tehran were cynically “blowing hot, blowing cold” about the “Islamabad talks”, to keep Mr. Trump off-balance and expose his unreliability as a regional security provider. This could take the wind out of Pakistan’s self-image as the only country with cordial ties with both Iran and the U.S.

There are multiple ethnic, geopolitical and orientational differences between Tehran and Islamabad. Second, the portents do not point to any possible de-escalation in the conflict, which currently seems headed in the opposite direction. The current prognosis is for either a war of attrition or for Mr. Trump to declare a fictional victory and quit the arena.

The broader view

Either way, Iran may use the leverage of the selective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to serve its own multiple goals, from revenue accretion to keeping the littoral states under pressure and forcing the U.S. to relent on the sanctions. In either of the two scenarios, the stakeholders would have little use for Asim Munir’s diplomacy. Pakistan’s long restive land border with Iran and a significant Shia minority have forced its hand in being more kinetic in response to Saudi Arabian calls for mutual defence. In case Mr. Trump averts his eyes to the Gulf and looks for more manageable targets, his ardour for his favourite Field Marshal may cool further. This would then allow the redoubtable Pakistani Field Marshal an opportunity to rue the verity of a century-old aphorism: “War is too important to be left to the generals”.

Mahesh Sachdev is a former Indian Ambassador with an interest in West Asia