‘Pakistan Has Been Betraying Everyone’
If Trump wants peace with Iran, Pakistan will offer to help.
If Trump seeks Pakistan's aid to spy on Iran, then too Munir will not hesitate to chip in.
At the same time, the ISI will not hesitate to tip off Iran now and then, points out M R Narayan Swamy.
IMAGE: Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf meets with Pakistan army chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir in Tehran, April 16, 2026. Photograph: Iranian Parliament Speaker Office/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout/Reuters Key Points Munir will carry out whatever Trump wants done as long as Islamabad's long-term requests are met. Munir is part of an army which teaches its rank and file undying hatred for India, distrust of the US and contempt for the Pakistani political class, all underpinned by heightened religiosity. With a failed economy and widespread unrest at home, the military needs more and more money for Pakistan, for itself and for the wars it wages against India, Afghanistan and others.
"Trust anyone in the world but not America! They will use and dump you!"
I was among a group of Indian journalists who got this unsolicited advice from a young Pakistani betel seller near the Holiday Inn in Islamabad. As he spoke, he spit out the paan he was chewing to express his disgust.
America, he told us in Urdu, could never be any country's genuine friend. Pakistan, he added, had learnt this the hard way. "Hindustan must never fall for America."
Westerners often wonder how there can be such intense anti-American sentiments in Pakistan since it has been an ally of the US since the 1950s, and official Islamabad always desires to be in Washington's good books.
This dichotomy, when understood, will explain why the US, despite its democratic roots, forged such close strategic relations with Pakistan where democracy had lost to the military a long time ago — and why President Donald Trump is now so enamoured of Pakistan's Field Marshal and de facto ruler Asim Munir.
Of course, one should welcome mediation by Pakistan, or any country for that matter, if it really helps to end the devastating war unleashed by the US and Israel on Iran.
That Islamabad offered to play this role shows the calculating nature of the Pakistani military which is adept at running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.
Pakistan's decision to play the go-between would have had no takers if Trump and the Iranian regime had not decided — for different reasons — that they needed to end the hostilities.
Also, the world desperately wants the unprecedented global economic turmoil caused by the war to end as early as possible. Naturally, Pakistan's role, as of now, has been widely welcomed.
This is why Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's contemptuous dismissal of Pakistan's role as a dalal (broker or fixer) sounded churlish.
US-Pakistan ties shaped by war
When conflicts rage and two warring sides do not feel like facing each other, a third party is needed to bring them together.
Would an Indian leader have used this dismissive expression had Oman or Qatar enacted the role Pakistan is playing now?
In the current scenario, conciliation will only come about if Washington and Tehran agree to make peace, not because of the Pakistan field marshal's skills.
What needs to be understood is the nature of the Pakistani military, an institution which effectively rules the country even when it does not officially hold the reigns of governance as is the case now.
Right from 1954, just seven years after its birth as a new country, Pakistan became a frontline bastion for the US during the Cold War after receiving huge military and economic assistance from Washington.
Once the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan obligingly became the staging ground for a massive jihad whose thousands of Islamist warriors were armed to the teeth by the US and funded by both Washington and Riyadh.
Both the US and Pakistan needed one another. This is why Washington looked the other way when the Pakistani military expanded its nuclear arsenal, diverted a part of weapons provided by the US to extremists in Punjab and Kashmir, and trained and armed thousands of terrorists to fight in Jammu and Kashmir.
IMAGE: A street at Tajrish Square in Tehran, April 15, 2026 with banners showing portraits of students killed in an American strike on a girls' school. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which enjoys intimate ties with various agencies in the US, built and strengthened the Taliban and used al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan to train Kashmiri terrorists even while pretending to be on the side of the US vis-a-vis the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
There existed a sinister motive too. Senior ISI officers made huge amounts of wealth from clandestine trade involving heroin emanating from Afghanistan and diverting American weapons for various other causes. The slush money was used to buy property abroad. All this went in the name of glory to Islam!
Naturally, US President Ronald Reagan turned a blind eye when military dictator Zia-ul Haq became a hated despot because the Afghan war — which required Islamabad's full backing — was a priority, not democracy in Pakistan.
This is also why President George W Bush kept mum while a later military dictator, Pervez Musharraf, stifled democracy at home because Islamabad's help was desperately needed to avenge 9/11.
Musharraf and the ISI were so brazen that they broke every promise given to the US on Benazir Bhutto's return and soon had her eliminated — and paid no price for the assassination. This is because they enjoyed the patronage of America's deep state.
Trump backs Munir
It is no surprise that President Trump prefers to prop up Field Marshal Munir, who oversaw the farce of a parliamentary election in Pakistan that catapulted to power Shehbaz Sharif at the cost of the now jailed Imran Khan, who without doubt is the more popular and charismatic politician in that country. Munir will carry out whatever Trump wants done as long as Islamabad's long-term requests are met.
The more Washington backs the corrupt Pakistani military, the more anti-American sentiments get generated among the country's general public. Most Pakistanis believe the US has cheated Pakistan, not the other way round.
Munir is part of an army which teaches its rank and file undying hatred for India, distrust of the US (overt friendship notwithstanding) and contempt for the Pakistani political class, all underpinned by heightened religiosity.
Pakistan's decision to publicly placate Trump — to the point of nominating him for a Nobel Peace Prize he doesn't deserve — and leading up to the current role in the Iran war cannot be without a larger purpose.
IMAGE: Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif greets US Vice President J D Vance in Islamabad, April 11, 2026. Photograph: Pakistan's Prime Minister Office/Handout via Reuters
With a failed economy and widespread unrest at home, the military needs more and more money for Pakistan, for itself and for the wars it wages against India, Afghanistan and others. The military also needs legitimacy that will accrue from Trump courting Munir.
So, if Trump wants peace with Iran, Pakistan will offer to help. If Trump seeks Pakistan's aid to spy on Iran, then too Munir will not hesitate to chip in. At the same time, the ISI will not hesitate to tip off Iran now and then to be in Tehran's good books too.
If all this sounds unbelievable, you have to read what Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former envoy in Islamabad, said after being betrayed by the ISI and the Pakistani State.
'Pakistan… is so famous for treachery that it is said they can get milk from a bull. They have two tongues in the mouth, and two faces on the head so they can speak everyone's language; they use everybody, deceive everybody.
'They deceive the Arabs under the guise of Islamic nuclear power, saying they are defending Islam and Islamic countries. They milk America and Europe in the alliance against terrorism, and they have been deceiving Pakistani and other Muslims around the world in the name of the Kashmir jihad. But behind the curtain, they have been betraying everyone.'
This clearly explains why the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has turned against Pakistan.
Unfortunately, by the time Trump wakes up (if he does at all), his White House stint will be over as it happened with his predecessors. The ISI and the Pakistani military would remain — ready and waiting for the next US president.
THE MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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