The Two Hands of Pakistan's Military

Field Marshal Asim Munir spent May 21 addressing a military ceremony and May 22 opening Pakistan's mediation of peace talks between the United States and Iran. The span between them was twenty-four hours.

Kashmir is our jugular vein, it will be out jugular vein and we will not forget it. — Asim Munir

The two events were not separate tracks that happened to coincide. They were performed by the same security institutions — Munir's military and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi's ministry — and the distance between them is not a contradiction Pakistan is trying to resolve. It is the arrangement. Munir has described the brokerage as a role the US sought out.

India expressed the desire for mediation through the American leadership, which Pakistan accepted in the interest of wider regional peace. — Asim Munir

The vocabulary split runs through the same office. On April 14, addressing the US-Iran conflict, Munir struck one register.

dialogue, de-escalation, and peaceful resolution of outstanding issues through sustained diplomatic engagements — Asim Munir

By July 8, addressing threats from across the border, he had switched to another.

Terrorism emanating from across the borders will be crushed with the full might of the state. — Asim Munir

The same commander speaks the language of peace abroad and the language of force at home, and the two registers coexist because no actor with leverage has forced them apart. The pattern extends beyond Munir. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi served as Pakistan's envoy to Tehran, facilitating the US-Iran dialogue, then arrived in Riyadh on June 30 for counterterrorism and intelligence talks with Saudi Arabia ^[1]. His ministry simultaneously runs the Kashmir crackdown: 26,000 military personnel deployed with live ammunition and snipers, a 12-day internet blackout, over 500 arrests including journalists, and food and medicine blockades that rights groups describe as collective punishment ^[2]. The same institution that blockades Kashmiri hospitals is the one Washington and Riyadh treat as a diplomatic partner. The crackdown has killed more than 70 civilians since early June. On June 7 and 8, Punjab Rangers opened fire on protesters in Rawalakot under Munir's direct orders to use maximum force, killing 30 ^[3]. Amnesty International condemned the internet cuts, and the International Human Rights Foundation called the proscription of a civil society body as terrorist a violation of the right to freedom of association ^[2].

Branding a civil society body as 'terrorist' on vague grounds, while simultaneously sealing the region from outside scrutiny, constitutes a disproportionate and unlawful violation of the right to freedom of association. — International Human Rights Foundation

Further, there are reports of a physical blockade, also imposed in response to the call for protest, of key entry points into the region that have disrupted the delivery of essential goods, including food supplies and medicine. Such restrictions are disproportionate and severely impact people’s rights to life, access to healthcare, and freedom of movement — Amnesty International

The international response has been loud everywhere except where it would cost Pakistan something. Amnesty, British MP Bob Blackman, the Kashmiri diaspora protesting outside Pakistani consulates in London and Bradford — all condemned the crackdown ^[4][5]. India's foreign ministry urged the international community to hold Pakistan fully accountable on July 14 ^[6]. But the US State Department, which was actively praising Pakistan's military leadership for the Iran mediation during the same period, said nothing about Kashmir ^[2][7]. The silence is not an oversight. It is selective engagement, and the selection maps cleanly onto American interests. On July 2, the State Department explicitly endorsed Pakistan's cross-border counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan ^[8].

The Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists. — United States Department of State

Those strikes — Operation Ghazab lil-Haq — killed at least 28 civilians including women and children, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan ^[8]. The US endorsed them anyway, because the operation targeted the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, a group that threatens both Pakistani and American interests. Kashmir, where the violence serves no American interest, got silence. The pattern is the policy: Washington engages where its needs align and looks away where they do not. Trump made the dependency explicit in April, praising Prime Minister Sharif and Munir as extraordinary leaders and floating the possibility of visiting Islamabad if a deal were signed ^[7].

If a deal is signed in Islamabad I may go. — Donald Trump

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi expressed gratitude for both men's efforts to end the war ^[7].

I express gratitude and appreciation for my dear brothers Prime Minister of Pakistan Sharif and Field Marshal Munir for their tireless efforts to end the war in the region. — Abbas Araghci

Both sides of the conflict elevated the same men who were, in the same weeks, ordering brute force against Kashmiri civilians. Munir was reportedly instructing security forces to use brute force and pressuring the government to reject protesters' demands even as Araghchi called him a dear brother ^[6].

Rather than addressing the legitimate grievances of the local populace, the Pakistani state has responded with extreme police brutality, including against helpless women and children, blocking essential supplies, including food and medicine, enforcing internet blackouts, and deploying lethal force against unarmed civilians that has resulted in tragic fatalities. — Ministry of External Affairs of India

The arrangement is already fraying at three seams, each a place where the internal conduct leaks into the external role. First, Pakistan's domestic operations have directly constrained its military commitments abroad. In March, Munir told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the military could not deploy troops due to ongoing operations against militant groups in Afghanistan ^[9]. Saudi Arabia, which had signed a secret Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement with Pakistan in September 2025, began reassessing the partnership.

unquestioned solidarity — Shehbaz Sharif

The 8,000 to 13,000 troops Pakistan had deployed to Saudi Arabia under the pact were suddenly a question mark, and the reason was the same internal instability the US was ignoring ^[10]. Second, India is collecting video evidence to push the Financial Action Task Force to return Pakistan to its grey list, arguing that Pakistan uses political fronts and charities to legitimize designated terrorists ^[11]. A successful grey-listing would restrict Pakistan's access to global financial institutions — the very institutions it needs for the bailout money that sustains its economy and, by extension, its diplomatic bandwidth. Third, a Counterpoint research report published in late May argues explicitly that Pakistan lacks the necessary neutrality and credibility for its diplomatic broker role, citing its domestic human rights record, the historical pattern of violating international agreements, and illicit nuclear technology sales ^[12]. The report concludes that any diplomatic process involving Pakistan should be approached with deep skepticism, hard verification, and strict limits ^[12]. A Secretariat report offers a narrower reading of Pakistan's role, characterizing it as a messenger rather than a mediator and alleging it exploits the diplomatic position to secure economic bailouts while serving Chinese strategic interests ^[13]. If Pakistan is merely a messenger, the argument goes, its internal conduct does not undermine the brokerage — a channel requires only a connection, not credibility. But the messenger argument misses what the arrangement actually costs. The brokerage is not a phone line; it is a relationship of trust between governments, and that trust runs through individuals — Munir, Naqvi, the same commanders who order food blockades and internet blackouts. When India's National Anti-Terrorism Front criticized the United Nations for its silence regarding the humanitarian crisis in Kashmir, it was naming the same gap the US has chosen to inhabit ^[14].

Those responsible for deploying excessive force against peaceful demonstrators and committing crimes against humanity must be brought to justice. — United Kashmir People's National Party

The brokerage runs through institutions whose domestic conduct is the thing most likely to unwind it. Washington looks away from what the channel is made of. That is the arrangement.