The rise of the general, who has been following in the footsteps of Gen. Pervez Musharaff who went on to become President has been phenomenal, almost magical since the word on the ground is that Pakistan’s armed forces came off second best against India in the military operations of last summer
The phrase “Every country has an army, but Pakistan’s army has a country” may have never rung truer than now what with Field Marshal Asim Munir, already promoted to chief of defence forces, being anointed the “supremo” with additional powers and lifelong legal immunity. He is also being vested with across-the-board authority over all branches of the military even as, parallelly, the independence of the country’s top court is being severely limited while a new and more powerful court is being set up that will be supreme.
The rise of the general, who has been following in the footsteps of Gen. Pervez Musharaff who went on to become President has been phenomenal, almost magical since the word on the ground is that Pakistan’s armed forces came off second best against India in the military operations of last summer. Considering that he has also shown himself to be a general who is guided by religious ideology, he could well be the most powerful man ever known to have headed Pakistan’s forces which controls the country and influences its policies and its economy.
Credit may be due to him for wheedling his way into becoming the US President Donald Trump’s most favourite general, moving smartly as he did in massaging his ego with a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize and, going further, creating a cryptocurrency fund with a billion dollars to attract the business mogul’s instinct for profit. As his fiercest critic, the Opposition leader Imran Khan has been jailed indefinitely, it is on the cards that Munir is all set to lord it over Pakistan, with a constitutional amendment, passed by Parliament with token dissent, investing him with an unprecedented carte blanche.
Pakistan may be grappling with a problem on its western border too and in its own couple of restive provinces, but it is on the side of the border with India that the biggest anxieties will be nursed as Munir’s career graph has been climbing in an exceptionally short timeframe. Formally, his country will not be under martial law, rather it will be under a more direct military rule with Munir helming it. Having tilted the geopolitics with his overtures to the US and China, Pakistan’s supremo will now be India’s biggest bugbear now that a field marshal has a country.
