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Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The writer is a senior member in King’s College, London
On May 7, Indian airplanes attacked several sites at the bottom of Pakistan, killing 31 people according to Islamabad. The attack was expected, especially given that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, promised to punish the perpetrators of the April assault that killed 26 civilians within Kashmir administered by India. Now, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif has authorized his army chief to retaliate.
However, an additional response runs the risk of increasing tension to a boiling point between the two neighbors with nuclear weapons. This is happening at a time when geopolitical alliances are in flow. Unlike the past wars of India-Pakistan when they are great powers content The parties at war, no one seeks to stop them now.
The United States is not acting strongly to reduce the temperature between New Delhi and Islamabad. Although Donald Trump has offered his mediation services, there is no avalanche of senior US officials to the region. The noisy boys have been left to fight alone without the present director to march to their respective corners. Other actors such as Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom can urge decline, but that will not have the same effect as Washington’s pressure.
In Pakistan, the public, without realizing the militant training fields in the middle and conditioned to see Pakistan as the victim, cry out for reprisals. Whatever happens next will depend on a man: the leader of the country’s army, also Munir. Munir controls the strategic decision making of Pakistan much more than the elected government led by Sharif. And he is not a figure known for his moderation.
One of the reasons that New Delhi believes That the militants based in Pakistan were behind the April attack is due to a speech that Munir delivered a week earlier. In him, he referred to Kashmiro as the “jugular vein” of Pakistan and promised not to leave Cashmiris alone in his struggle for the independence of India.
He also expressed the polarizing opinion that Pakistan emerged in 1947 because the Hindus and Muslims of the subcontinent could not live together. In doing so, Munir has gone dramatically from the perspective of his predecessor, Qamar Javed Bajwa, who in 2021 spoke about burying the ax with India, mainly because in his estimate, Pakistan could not afford the struggle to fight against a war.
Munir was once Bajwa’s Chief of Intelligence between Services (ISI), the main intelligence agency of the Army. At that time, he did not contradict his boss. Now that he is in charge, he seems intention to take the military back to his former position of competing for back control and treating India as the main enemy.
Munir has the reputation of being to his religious and ideological beliefs and dislikes that are challenged. In fact, some of his older colleagues remember him leaving the room when they contradict themselves, even during informal conversations between the officers.
He is now trying to play Strongman’s role in a country that has been divided by political divisions in recent years. Many Pakistani voters Munir’s suspicious The 2024 elections and helping to force the Crick player turned into a politician Imran Khan out of power. The continuous conflict with India may have rehabilitated its image temporarily, but, given the mastery of the establishment of defense of the institutions of the country, it will also press it to demonstrate the power of the military, in a real conflict against a larger neighbor at a time when the country is under great economic pressure.
Controlling everything, from politics to the economy, makes Munir a powerful man, but he is not a magician who can rescue Pakistan from his economic problems. A war that faces Narendra Modi, another strong nationalist man, will further complicate things. The decision that Munir must now take is whether to look for a dialogue with India to end the conflict, or be absorbed by a larger strategic abyss.