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We are watching the institutional Zionisation of Pakistan’s military posture—where policy is crafted to satisfy an Israeli worldview, where dissent is criminalised, and where occupation is mimicked at home.
By JUNAID S AHMAD
In the imperial puppet theatre of Washington, where strings are pulled by donors and dreams are drawn in Tel Aviv, there’s a new darling of the Zionist national security establishment: Field Marshal (in ego if not in title) Asim Munir, the Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan.
For a general whose name barely registers with the average American, Munir has curiously climbed to the top of every intelligence and military guest list in Washington. Why? Because in a world where loyalty to empire is prized above sovereignty, and complicity in colonialism earns you medals, Munir has proven himself a five-star servant to the Zionist architects behind America’s foreign policy.
The story doesn’t begin with Munir. It begins with a White House more occupied by Jared Kushner’s WhatsApp than the US Constitution, and with a President who could barely spell ‘Palestine’, much less pronounce ‘Pakistan’, yet somehow finds time to bless authoritarian generals as long as they pledge fealty to Tel Aviv and buy weapons from Lockheed Martin.
But in today’s iteration of this playbook, according to an investigation by The Grayzone as well as other reports, it is CIA Director John Ratcliffe and CENTCOM commander General Michael Kurilla who are calling the shots—not on behalf of the United States per se, but on behalf of an ideological alignment that sees Israel not as a regional partner, but as the moral and strategic epicentre of global security policy. And into this orbit has spun Munir, who has spent less time thinking about Pakistan’s democratic collapse than about impressing his new handlers in Washington and Tel Aviv.
A general’s rise to relevance — by bending the knee
Munir’s rise within the Pakistani military hierarchy has been paved with carefully calculated silences, conspicuous obedience, and a studied allergy to democratic accountability. He presents himself as a moralist—after all, he’s a Hafidh of the Qur’an—but apparently believes that memorising scripture excuses trampling the very ethics it espouses.
According to a Trump Administration official and leaks from high-level Pakistani military sources, Munir has enthusiastically aligned himself with the most hawkish and Zionist corners of the American national security state.
According to a Trump Administration official and leaks from high-level Pakistani military sources, Munir has enthusiastically aligned himself with the most hawkish and Zionist corners of the American national security state. In doing so, he has reportedly earned the approval of both Ratcliffe and Kurilla, the latter having praised Munir’s ‘stability’ and ‘vision’ in recent closed-door briefings. Of course, in the coded language of American foreign policy, ‘stability’ is shorthand for ‘willingness to crush dissent,’ and ‘vision’ means ‘alignment with Israeli geopolitical interests’.
Let’s be clear: Kurilla is not a diplomat; he’s a forward commander for America’s endless war machine. If he says you’re a ‘reliable partner’ it likely means you’re ready to imprison your own people, keep your boots on the neck of journalists, and sell off your country’s independence one base at a time. And Munir, it seems, passed the audition with flying colours—if not for Pakistan, then certainly for Zionabad, the imaginary capital of a world order built on occupation and obedience.
From ‘Free Khan’ to ‘Forget Khan’
The cruel irony for Pakistani-American elites is that many of them backed Donald Trump in 2024 with the naïve hope that he would, in his second coming, push for the release of former Prime Minister Imran Khan. ‘We were assured,’ they say. ‘We were told by insiders.’ What they weren’t told is that the insiders in question were mostly interested in golf course deals and backchannel business opportunities in Riyadh—not political prisoners in Adiala (Pakistan’s most notorious prison).
In lavish banquets and sterile policy dinners in Virginia suburbs, these elites whispered to themselves that Trump would be the saviour of Pakistan’s democracy. What they failed to notice was that Trump couldn’t even save his own country’s democracy, let alone understand the difference between the ISI and ISIS. What little information Trump receives about Pakistan comes not from the State Department or scholars, but from the likes of Kurilla—who, unsurprisingly, told him that the new guy in Rawalpindi was a ‘better friend’. Better, of course, because Munir doesn’t talk back, doesn’t ask questions, and doesn’t mind Israeli drone bases being plotted just across Iran’s border.
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And so, Imran Khan remains locked away in a prison cell—tortured, isolated, and buried beneath fabricated legal charges—while Trump smiles for selfies with the very men responsible for the crackdown. Some ‘friend’ indeed.
Ratcliffe, Kurilla, and the Zionist firewall
Let us not pretend that Ratcliffe or Kurilla are neutral bureaucrats administering sober foreign policy. They are high priests in a secular theocracy built on militarism and manifest destiny. Their approach to the world is simple: if Israel likes it, fund it; if Israel fears it, bomb it; and if Israel wants it, then surely it’s a democracy.
They have created a firewall around Trump—no dissenting voices, no complexity, no nuance. No scholars of Pakistan’s political economy. No analysts warning of blowback from drone bases in Balochistan. Just sanitised memos stamped with the Star of David, masquerading as national security briefings.
This explains why Trump, whose foreign policy knowledge is one tweet deep, now believes that Munir is the future of ‘stability’ in South Asia. Not because Trump has studied the situation, but because Kurilla told him that Munir would protect American (read: Israeli) interests better than Khan ever could. Khan, after all, had the gall to criticise Israel and speak up for Gaza. In Washington’s corridors of Zionist power, that alone is a capital offense.
The Diaspora’s delusion
It’s tempting to laugh—but only bitterly—at the expensive foolishness of Pakistani-American lobbyists who believed politics could be done over lamb chops and business cards. They thought the game was access. It isn’t. The game is leverage. And they have none.
These elites have mistaken assimilation for influence and dinner invites for power. They have forgotten that the US doesn’t change policy because someone brown showed up to a fundraiser. It changes when people organise, disrupt, resist, and demand justice – something what the more elite sections of the Pakistani diaspora have yet to learn.
Compare this to the rising grassroots momentum behind Zohran Mamdani’s campaign in New York, or the electrifying student-led movement for Palestinian liberation spreading across American campuses. These are people who understand that politics is not about proximity to power, but pressure on it. They don’t seek a seat at the table—they flip the table.
Zionabad beckons
What we’re witnessing is not simply a betrayal of Imran Khan or a cynical alliance between a corrupt military and a foreign empire. We are watching the institutional Zionisation of Pakistan’s military posture—where policy is crafted to satisfy an Israeli worldview, where dissent is criminalised, and where occupation is mimicked at home.
Make no mistake: Zionism is not merely an Israeli issue. It is a global ideology of ethno-supremacy, settler-colonial arrogance, and militant dehumanisation. When Pakistan’s generals align with it, they are not just betraying Palestine—they are rehearsing its methods in Balochistan, in Waziristan, and in the prisons holding the remnants of a once-democratic polity.
Munir is not an anomaly. He is the symptom of a system that rewards obedience to empire over fidelity to people. He is the Viceroy of Zionabad, a man entrusted by the colonisers to keep the colony in line. And as long as he continues to serve Tel Aviv’s interests in the region, he will be blessed, funded, and defended—no matter what he does to his own people.
Conclusion: Time to get real
If there is a lesson here for the Pakistani diaspora, it is this: politics is not about polished resumes or expensive suits. It is about power. And power does not come from appeasing empire. It comes from confronting it.
It is time to abandon the delusion that the road to Pakistani liberation runs through Mar-a-Lago. It doesn’t. It runs through protest, through organising, through solidarity with every movement that challenges the machinery of empire—from Palestine to Kashmir, from Ferguson to Faisalabad.
Munir may enjoy his brief reign as America’s favourite servant. He may collect his compliments from Kurilla and his Qur’anic quotes for press releases. But history does not remember those who bowed. It remembers those who dared to stand.
And when the page turns, it will not be Trump or Munir who define Pakistan’s future. It will be the people they tried to silence. And they are getting louder.
Professor Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Decolonisation (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a member of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST – https://just-international.org), Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN – https://nakbaliberation.com), and Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE –https://www.theshapeproject.com/)
