General Asim’s absolute power

It was in 2024 that General Asim Munir placed himself at the helm of all strategic affairs and became the center of all policy attention.

In Pakistan, who has had the most spectacular 2024?

In the realm of power politics, one name stands out: General Asim Munir, the army chief. For a general who was chucked out as DG ISI by then PM Imran Khan for accurately reporting on his wife Bushra’s financial buccaneering, and whose appointment as army chief was almost toppled by the outgoing chief, General Bajwa and his collaborator-in-all-crimes, General Faiz, the man has come a long way.

Although appointed in 2022, he travelled the longest in 2024. The year saw him consolidate his team through appointments, transfers, retirements and promotions. The same year he moved further away from the compulsions of careening through carefully-planted and long-nurtured vested interests of his predecessors and speeded up his ascent to the full commanding height of his office.

The strategic gain of the year was extension in the army chief’s office term from three to five years; the master-stroke was the simultaneous change in the tenures for the naval and the air chiefs. This preempted any jarring inter-institutional debate and talk about “personal agendas”. If it weren’t for the extended tenure, 2025 would have been either his year of retirement or his year of extension. The first would have been descent into a tragically controversial post-retirement life; the second a step onto a slippery slope that never straightens and inevitably leads to sorry endings. General Ayub, General Zia, General Musharraf, General Kiani, General Bajwa—all discovered that an army chief on extension is an over-extended commander, whose moral authority dwindles faster than the speed at which borrowed years in power pass. General Asim has skirted around this steep turn and, at least legally, has secured himself a long tenure.

It was also in 2024 that the General placed himself at the helm of all strategic affairs and became the center of all policy attention. A video released at the end of the year from official sources shows a General on the march, leaving policy footprints everywhere—economy, defence, foreign policy, law and order and mega development projects. From hosting successful sports persons to lecturing young students, from reciting holy verses to audiences to directing business community, the General took to applied power like duck to water. Braving vicious trolling, side-stepping damning international censure and hitting hard at political opponents, he sunk deep roots in decision making.

Now it is clear that unlike his two predecessors, General Bajwa and General Raheel, he is not a showman, but he sure runs the show in Pakistan. Moreover, if you look at the fate of General Faiz Hameed and Imran Khan, you would know that the General means what he says, says what he means, and does what he says.

Therefore, by the logic of the strengths that General Asim Munir has assembled in 2024, the new year, 2025, has to be a year of expansion of his influence and implementation of what he believes is recipe for making Pakistan great again—controlled and stable politics, foreign investment and economic growth. With the Shehbaz government happily miniaturizing itself under the lengthening shadow of his expansive command, and with his opponents reeling on the ropes, General Asim can correctly look at the unfolding calendar of the new year and believe he is the master of all that he surveys.

But as we know life is not always how it seems, especially life in power. Absolute power may or may not corrupt absolutely but it sure misleads the wielder absolutely. The weakest link in General Asim’s power is ironically also what appears to be his strongest point: that he is in a place where everything looks doable. This opens the doors to wild temptations, the worst of which is to get involved in everything. Over-reach drains focus and drowns power in multiple crises. But you are too powerful to realize the need wind down lofty agendas to realistic goals, to tamper the stick and take the finger off the trigger. The mind gets closed to un-appetizing advice and all criticism is taken as personal insults to be dealt with utter disdain.

With this in mind, it is obvious what the key challenge for the General in 2025 is: calibrate the use of his formidable power and divorce it from the illusion of being unassailable. Regardless of the bowing, bending, fawning and sucking-up that surrounds him at present, he ought to be acutely aware that he has some serious issues that hobble his seat of authority. The country is witnessing a surge of organized terrorism. Last year’s figures and stats are harrowing.

2024-Terrorism Incidents

• 444 terrorist attacks - 1,612 civilians & 685 security personnel martyred

• The death toll in 2024 reached a 9-year high, marking a 66% increase compared to 2023

• 89% of the incidents and 94% of the deaths occurred in KP & Balochistan

• More than 63% deaths in KP and 31% deaths in Balochistan

While Afghanistan’s territory remains the hotbed of most of this deadly intrigue, the physical presence of these groups and their territorial ingress in some key districts in the KP shows partial relapse of the situation that had been dealt decisively with great sacrifice under General Kiani, and finally, and belatedly, under General Raheel.

The farce of Radul Fasad that General Bajwa enacted allowed almost all of those hard-won results to slip away. But that is all in the past. General Asim has been in command for two years. The terrorism figures have multiplied on his watch. He has to roll back this wave of terror in 2025. The limit to which blame for resurfacing of the banned groups on Pakistan territory can be put on Imran Khan’s last government or deviousness of the Taliban is close to exhaustion point. Terrorism is rising, and tackling it immediately is a clear and present test of the present army command’s planning. Even the local variants of the deteriorating law and order such as in Kurram is a frightening testament to the fragility of the writ of the state. Some of Balochistan’s districts are becoming hubs of another form of terrorism as well.

Ofcourse a whole-of-nation support is required to make decisive headway against terrorism, but supposedly the whole nation already stands behind the Establishment so a consensus should be easy to pull off. But if consensus isn’t being arrived at or the process is too slow, then a course correction in policies that hinder a united front against terrorism is needed. And this means dealing with Imran Khan, by the far the biggest challenge that the General faces even at the peak of his power. From Wana to Washington and from Lahore to London, Imran continues to fester beneath the layers of band-aids that he is wrapped in. His international network has successfully nourished, promoted and propagated his tale of woes and victimhood. And let’s admit it: for all his documented assaults on the state and his repeated violation of redlines of national interest, Imran today is what Nawaz Sharif was in 2018 or 2000. Or what Benazir was under Musharraf. Or what Bhutto was under Zia. The state apparatus has defined Imran the same way it had defined earlier leaders: thoroughly-corrupt, anti-Pakistan, nation-wreckers. It would have been an acceptable narrative if a) the Establishment did not have such a terrible record of changing its designated chief villains every decade, erecting new ones in their place; and b) if Imran was moving to oblivion.

It has not happened yet. He remains an expanding headache from behind the bars. And let’s not pretend that Imran is a political problem and therefore the Shehbaz government can handle him politically. The Shehbaz government isn’t handling Imran Khan. The Establishment is. Saying otherwise is a lie; it fools no one.

So what can General Asim Munir do with Imran Khan? Court cases, even the strongest ones, and their verdicts will not make Imran go away. He is already in jail; more convictions will not change his situation. In fact, each new sentence will be seen as another proof of political persecution. The world focus will increase on the country’s already unenviable democracy ratings and more international pressure will mount. Repeated political protests can shake the markets and disturb economic growth momentum. Domestically, you might hear increasing unease even from within the ruling parties about the uncertain state of political affairs. Politicians have been under the Establishment’s bus so many times that they are all wary of becoming part of the same treatment being meted out even to their worst political opponents. So far the PML-N and the PPP have played along with the “hit Immi hard” tune but, in the end, they know that each woe wished upon an enemy eventually boomerangs. They would dance with the Establishment on dealing with Imran up to a point and then leave it to the generals to deal with him in the final step. This means that it would be for General Asim Munir to make the last call on Imran because politicians won’t do it.

The last call however is the hardest part of the problem. A negotiated settlement with the PTI excluding Imran won't walk. The PTI’s internal strife aside, it remains an Imran-centered party. Nothing will move forward if does not carry relief for the man. But what sort of relief can the General offer Imran? The Asim-led Establishment has already painted him in black. The official narrative against him sees no redeeming feature in him. He is the anti-Christ. And from what the nation has been told since 9th May, General Asim Munir’s Establishment will neither sit nor sup with the devil incarnate. So negotiations are out as far as the Army’s public stance is concerned. From this standpoint, any concession that General Asim Munir could even theoretically make to Imran would cause his entire case against him to explode, exposing him to the falling debris.

The crux of the matter is that the Establishment has burnt its boats with Imran and by doing so an Either-Or situation has been created between the PTI chairman and the chief of army staff. For now, this works out fine for the General as he is the man of the moment. But here is a reality check: generals retire; politicians don’t. Imran’s politics is alive; it is not kicking because its space is truncated and chained. This can’t remain like this forever. Given the slightest opportunity, he would bounce back, Trump-like. The idea that there can be short-term solutions to long-term political challenges has been defeated repeatedly in Pakistan’s history and each time the loser has been the Establishment. The war against the PTI like the war on terror has to culminate in 2025 for General Asim Munir to make use of 2026 and 2027 as per his plans. Wrong choices made, bad strategies adopted and plans poorly executed could smash the present system against the rocks. Dealing with terror firmly and handling Imran wisely should be an obvious course of sane action. Unfortunately, sanity and absolute power seldom agree. So lets see which way General Asim is going to go in 2025.