Isaac Chotiner interviews the professor Aqil Shah about how the Pakistani military has wooed Donald Trump as it looks to wield more influence in the region.
I recently spoke by phone with Aqil Shah, the author of the book “The Army and Democracy: Military Politics In Pakistan ,” a professor of political science at McDaniel College, and a visiting faculty member in the security-studies program at Georgetown University.
During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Pakistan’s military won over Trump, how the military consolidated so much power in Pakistani politics, and what the collapse in relations between the Taliban and Pakistan’s military says about the country’s foreign policy. How has the Pakistani military establishment been so successful at wooing the Trump Administration, and how has it inserted itself into negotiations to potentially end the war in Iran? Historically, the Pakistani Army has been a fulcrum of U.S.-Pakistan relations. But the Pakistani-American relationship has waxed and waned over time. During the Biden Administration, Pakistan had become a virtual pariah in Washington, or had been reduced to a nonentity, as the United States left Afghanistan and saw India as a means of countering China. But I think it was really the Pakistan-India crisis in May of 2025, when Pakistan and India engaged in limited armed conflict, that changed things, because Pakistan openly embraced Trump’s mediation of the fight, whereas Narendra Modi and company bristled at it. India said there was no role for outside mediation because the Indian approach to the Pakistan-India conflict was that it was a bilateral issue. Whereas Pakistan, under Munir, cleverly tapped into Trump’s need for adulation and praise, and the Pakistanis called him a global peacemaker, and publicly nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump has brought this up several times. He likes to say that Munir is the best field marshal, and he says that Munir told him that he saved millions of lives. So they basically, at the expense of India, have achieved something unexpected. In terms of the conflict with Iran, Pakistan has always seen itself as a sort of leader of the Muslim world. And so it has used this opportunity, because of its relationship with Trump or privileged access to Trump, and the fact that it borders Iran and is also fifteen to twenty per-cent Shia, to try this balancing act. It has been done with deft diplomacy of some sort, but it’s really flattery as foreign policy. The military has been the central power in Pakistan since the country was founded in 1947, but over the past few years it has imprisoned the former Prime Minister Imran Khan and taken an even more central and autocratic role. To what degree has that allowed the military to seize the initiative with Trump? At the time of the India-Pakistan crisis, the military’s public reputation and legitimacy was quite low. There was an economic crisis, and there was naked repression. There had been a rigged election before that, and they had jailed Khan, Pakistan’s most popular leader. But the conflict last year was where Munir pitched himself or projected himself as the victor of that war. And that revived the Army’s, or at least Munir’s, legitimacy as the solid leader and national hero who had saved Pakistan. The vast majority of Pakistanis think Pakistan won that war. So in that sense the crisis helped Munir consolidate his power. They were able to curb some of the dissent around Khan. They’d already crushed his party, but the criticism faded away, somewhat. And I think the military has used that confidence that it gained from the war, both domestically, to further consolidate its power, and externally. After the crisis, Munir was promoted to field marshal, and he was then elevated to the new office of the Chief of Defense Forces, which basically gives him control over the entire military. And it was also that crisis in which they were able to really effectively endear themselves to Trump by anointing him as the global peacemaker. Is there any danger for the Pakistani military in being seen as too close to a leader whose dealings with the Muslim world are probably not that popular in Pakistan, or has the distaste that Trump’s shown recently for India and Modi outweighed that? I would say that, as far as domestic dissent is concerned, or the unpopularity of Trump is concerned, it seems like the military’s been able to mute much of the dissent. The India angle likely trumps that card, as does the idea of Pakistan as this indispensable power that is trying to help solve this U.S.-Iran war. The P.T.I., Khan’s party, has criticized Munir for cozying up to Trump, but at the end of the day foreign policy is the exclusive preserve of the military. And I think the military has really successfully pitched itself to the Pakistani public as this leader of the Muslim world—that it’s really Pakistan that’s the pivotal player in the region with the capacity, the willingness, and the power to punch above its weight at the expense of India. One interesting aspect here is Pakistan’s relationship to Saudi Arabia. Despite the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and Saudi Arabia does not, Pakistan is a much poorer country and has, for a long time, looked to Saudi Arabia for financial assistance. How much do you think Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia dictates what Pakistan is trying to do here in terms of negotiations with Iran? It’s crucial because, as you know, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a defense agreement or defense pact, which, at least from what we know, establishes that if Saudi Arabia were attacked, primarily by Israel, Pakistan would defend it. And Pakistan has extended or will extend its nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia. So Pakistan is already in an awkward position because the Saudis are being attacked. And I think the worst nightmare would be for Pakistan to have to do something militarily for Saudi Arabia against Iran. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I think they want to avoid that and keep this relationship with the United States, but also try to make sure that this region is not unstable. They also don’t want to have to take sides in the Saudi-Iran conflict, in part, because of the population of Shia Muslims domestically. Still, Pakistan is completely or largely dependent on Saudi largesse, and has been for the longest time. And so they are really trying to hedge and balance, to make sure that the economic benefits from Saudi Arabia continue. But I imagine the economic costs of the war continuing are only going to get more dire for Pakistan, right? Oh, yeah. Pakistan is almost entirely dependent on oil and gas from the Persian Gulf. So that’s obviously an economic choke point. And Pakistan almost defaulted on its international debt obligations a few years ago. So they’re not out of the woods economically. And the war is obviously going to make, or has already made, things worse because they had to raise fuel prices, which obviously hurts the people on the street, the daily-wage earners, and much of Pakistan’s informal service economy. So Pakistan’s role in negotiations is strategic geopolitically, but also clearly economic. One thing that you did not mention about Trump’s relationship with the Pakistani government is the degree to which the Pakistanis are paying off Trump or people close to him. This is a situation where the Pakistani military—because of its control over the country—can do things for Trump that the government of Sweden or even India probably cannot. How much is this a part of what’s going on? I think in addition to the charm and flattery angle, Munir and the Army have tried to pitch Trump on having a partnership between the Pakistani state’s crypto venture, and the Trump family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial. Munir also literally had a case full of minerals that he showed to Trump at the White House. So Pakistan is pitching itself as a reservoir for all these critical minerals or rare-earth deposits, and even for oil and petroleum. And they have invested heavily in lobbying firms that are very close to Trump and his allies and partners. Steve Witkoff was actually able to negotiate a deal to redevelop the Roosevelt, a shuttered hotel in New York owned by Pakistan. So obviously there is the angle of them trying to exploit the pay-to-play nature of the Trump Administration as much as they can. I don’t know how much this critical minerals stuff is actually going to pan out, but Trump has mentioned this, and there’s been some movement with the Pakistani military’s so-called Frontier Works Organization, which does engineering and construction work. And Pakistan has joined the Board of Peace, which has a fee of a billion dollars. So I think it’s both the charm of Munir and the military, but also, if there is anything Trump likes, it’s enriching himself and his buddies and his family. And, aside from the economic angle or financial angle, Pakistan also quietly handed over an ISIS leader who was involved in an attack when the Americans were leaving Afghanistan and was detained by the Pakistani military last Spring. Trump mentioned that in an address to Congress. And Trump likes wins. Can you talk about the role Pakistan’s military plays in the economy? The Pakistani military has always had a commercial empire, but a few years ago it established what’s known as the Special Investment Facilitation Council. The idea behind it is that foreign investment in Pakistan is subject to too much red tape, and this allows the Army to take the front seat and say, “If you want to invest in Pakistan, we are your one-window operation.” So all foreign investments, whatever trickles into Pakistan, are in the hands of the military, and the military’s also taken over mining operations in Waziristan. So in addition to its own commercial ventures, the Army has recently institutionalized its role in how Pakistan conducts economic relations and investment, meaning the Army’s really in the position to make these decisions. And the civilian government is just completely dependent on the military for its legitimacy after the rigged election. It no longer pretends that it’s actually a civilian government. It’s very happy with the fact that the military’s been able to suppress Imran Khan, who was a threat to the ruling party, the P.M.L.N. And the P.M.L.N. Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, has always been a pragmatic, let’s-work-with-the-Army guy. He’s happy to be in the back seat and let Munir drive foreign policy, but also economic management. You mentioned that the Biden Administration had lost interest in Pakistan. The main reason the U.S. was able to ignore Pakistan during that period was because America pulled out of Afghanistan, in 2021. For twenty years, up until that point, America had been working together with Pakistan, in a flawed way, to combat the Taliban. Can you talk a little bit about what’s happened with Pakistan-Afghanistan relations since then? Once the Americans left, if you recall, Pakistan really became the global cheerleader for the Taliban, going around the world saying, “You must accept this regime. It’s going to be inclusive. It’s going to blah, blah, blah, blah.” The fundamental problem here is that the Pakistani Taliban , which launched attacks against Pakistan, and the Afghan Taliban, which Pakistan supported, are primarily two sides of the same coin. They have the same ideology. Yes, they have different structures and leadership, but the T.T.P. is now firmly ensconced in Afghanistan, and the Afghan Taliban is doing to Pakistan what Pakistan did to the Americans by giving the T.T.P. sanctuary. So the relationship has gone from “the Taliban have liberated Afghanistan” to “Taliban are terrorists and this is an open war,” and even talk of regime change in Afghanistan. And the T.T.P. has now used this safe haven in Afghanistan to launch massive attacks on Pakistan, and not just in the north but also in major cities like Islamabad. This is a nightmare scenario for Pakistan. Pakistan’s previous policy, which was called “strategic depth,” was the idea that having Afghanistan with a friendly Islamist government in Pakistan’s back yard would dampen the influence of India, and it has backfired majorly. Yes, although domestic terrorist attacks against Pakistanis have been going on for a very long time. Yeah. And Pakistan would always say that it was the Pakistani Taliban that was doing this, and this branch of the Taliban was bad, while their Afghan Taliban allies were not bad, which annoyed the Americans. It is incredible that now they’ve flipped and recognized that the two branches of the Taliban are allied. The good/bad thing Pakistan was doing with the Taliban has completely collapsed, and now they’re saying that the Afghan Taliban regime, which they had supported, is a terrorist regime, and of course they have to say, “Well, it’s supported by India.” And India has cozied up to Afghanistan. But this is a mess made by Pakistan. You can’t burn your neighbor’s house or bomb your neighbor’s house and think nothing will happen to you. The T.T.P. has been fighting for some kind of Islamic Emirate in Pakistan and against the Pakistani Army for a long time, but after a school attack in Peshawar in 2014 things calmed down after the military cracked down. The real comeback for the T.T.P. came after the Americans left Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban came to power. That is when you saw a real spike in the level of terrorist attacks on civilians and soldiers within Pakistan. This recent spike, which is, I think, Pakistan’s main national-security threat right now, in addition to India, and is really about this relationship Pakistan cultivated with the Afghan Taliban that has basically backfired, with the Afghan Taliban now in no mood to give up its strategic allies for several reasons. The Afghan Taliban says to Pakistan, “Well, that’s your problem. We can facilitate the talks, but the T.T.P.’s not here. We don’t harbor them.” Again, it is the same thing that Pakistan used to say to the Americans. This has also had a horrific human cost, correct? How many Afghan immigrants has Pakistan deported in the last couple of years? About two million since 2023. Some of them don’t even know Afghanistan. They’ve been in Pakistan for almost two generations. Their children were born here, they had lives here, and you just tell them tomorrow morning you have to pack up and leave. So, yeah, the humanitarian cost is horrendous. The Pakistani government says that all these terrorist attacks are happening because of these refugees, like they are some sort of Trojan horse, and they’re Afghans, not real Pakistanis. So it’s punishing the refugees, the people who have been here for over two decades or three decades, to put pressure on the Taliban. Do you sense anything in Pakistan’s current posture toward the United States or Afghanistan that suggests they’ve changed their mind about what Pakistan’s role should be in the world, or does this seem like just more of the same? I don’t think this is a serious rethink of anything. Pakistan’s turn on the Afghan Taliban is a reckoning that didn’t come because of some deep internal strategic reassessment or something like that. The policies have been completely disastrous, and, because the Pakistan military is never held accountable for taking the country down the drain, it keeps repeating itself, right? It has really, really ruined Pakistan over the long haul in terms of its economy, in terms of its internal political stability, in terms of radicalizing parts of the population. And in terms of Trump they are smart enough to see the opportunity and grab it, but I don’t think this is really some sort of strategic pivot from what Pakistan is. ♦
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