Pakistan\u2019s all-powerful military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has flown to Tehran with a reported mission from US President Donald Trump to try and coax Tehran back to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
The visit thrusts Islamabad once more into the centre of efforts to end the Iran war and underlines the extraordinary diplomatic elevation of Pakistan, a country Washington routinely branded a terrorist safe-haven.<\/p>\n
But while Munir occupies the international stage, political, military and economic tensions are piling up back home.<\/p>\n
In a sign of unusual nervousness, the government on August 21 ordered three companies of Pakistani Army troops to be deployed in Rawalpindi for six months for what it called \u201csensitive security duties\u201d. <\/p>\n
The deployment was authorised under Article 245 of Pakistan\u2019s Constitution, which allows the armed forces to help civilian authorities. The troops were told to be available to prevent an \u201cundesirable situation\u201d or respond to unforeseen events, though the government did not identify what those might be.<\/p>\n
Rawalpindi is no ordinary Pakistani city. The giant garrison town adjoining Islamabad is home to the army\u2019s General Headquarters. A lengthy additional military deployment there inevitably raises eyebrows, particularly with Imran Khan\u2019s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf planning another protest march next month to demand his release.<\/p>\n
The deployment also comes at an exceptionally sensitive moment inside the armed forces, with Munir having accumulated power on a scale unusual even in a country where generals have regularly overshadowed elected governments. He is now a field marshal and commands Pakistan\u2019s army, navy and air force.<\/p>\n
Pakistan\u2019s generals normally operate within a fiercely competitive promotion system in which the timing of retirements and appointments can determine the careers of senior officers. Munir\u2019s role disrupts calculations down the command chain and has drawn intense scrutiny.<\/p>\n
General Syed Aamer Raza has emerged as an especially important figure after being elevated to four-star rank and placed in command of the newly created National Strategic Command, which sits at the heart of Pakistan\u2019s strategic military establishment. However he has no troops directly under his command. <\/p>\n
None of this proves that Munir faces an organised challenge from within the army. But in Pakistan, where coups, forced resignations and internal military manoeuvring are all a feature of the country\u2019s history, unexplained troop movements around Rawalpindi and changes at the top of the army hierarchy inevitably attract attention.<\/p>\n
The Imran Khan challenge <\/p>\n
Then there is Imran Khan. The former prime minister and cricketing superstar has been in prison since August 2023 and remains by far the most potent political adversary of the establishment. His relationship with the army, which was once accused of helping propel him into office, has turned bitterly confrontational.<\/p>\n
After months of appeals by Khan\u2019s lawyers and family, Pakistan\u2019s Supreme Court ordered that he be taken to the leading private Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad and examined by a medical board that included specialists and his own doctor. It also ordered weekly family visits and telephone conversations with his sons.<\/p>\n
Instead, Khan was briefly taken to the government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, examined and returned to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi because of what the government said were security concerns. The authorities insist Khan is receiving adequate medical care. His supporters have reacted furiously, accusing the government of defying the country\u2019s highest court.<\/p>\n
At the same time, another potentially incendiary row is brewing over proposals to break Pakistan\u2019s four provinces into a larger number of administrative units. Critics see the plan as an attempt to alter the country\u2019s balance of political power.<\/p>\n
Maleeha Lodhi, the former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, London and the United Nations, was scathing in Dawn this week. She accused what she called the country\u2019s \u201chybrid government\u201d of being fixated on restructuring the provinces.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo sell the idea, establishment apologists have rolled out some disingenuous arguments,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThey claim this will improve governance and miraculously solve the country\u2019s problems overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lodhi drew a parallel with Pakistan\u2019s disastrous \u201cOne Unit\u201d experiment of the 1950s, when the provinces of West Pakistan were merged to help counterbalance the more populous eastern wing. The arrangement amplified regional grievances and was eventually abandoned. East Pakistan broke away to become Bangladesh in 1971.<\/p>\n
Pakistan economy still in ICU<\/p>\n
Behind all these political pressures sits an economy that remains in intensive care.<\/p>\n
Pakistan came close to running out of foreign exchange in 2023 and has since been kept afloat by repeated international support. Its current programme is a $7 billion, 37-month IMF deal agreed in 2024, part of its decades-long dependence on IMF rescues and money from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
The immediate threat of default has receded, but the recovery remains fragile. The State Bank\u2019s benchmark interest rate is a hefty 11.5 per cent. Inflation is running at 9.5 per cent, double the rate a year ago, while imports are more than twice exports. The tax base remains vastly inadequate, and investment is anaemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan\u2019s all-powerful military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has flown to Tehran with a reported mission from US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[34,72552,69],"class_list":["post-263710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tehran","tag-iran","tag-pakistan-situation","tag-tehran"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117155235319215076","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}