US set up a chessboard with Munir as a pawn years ago. It's playing out now

Pakistan is where anything can happen. It's also a place where everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens in isolation. Governments fall, generals rise, prime ministers turn into prisoners and prisoners into symbols of resistance. Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan's rise to power, his anti-American posturing, his "absolutely not" doctrine, his Moscow visit on the very day Russia invaded Ukraine, the all-out war between him and the military establishment, his fall from grace, imprisonment, and now the rise of Field Marshal Asim Munir as arguably the most powerful man Pakistan has seen are all connected.

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The chain of events in Pakistan since the early 2022s led to the outcome which was planned. It all seemed orchestrated by a king and his pawn, according to a report by American outlet Drop Site News on May 18.

The Drop Site News report now appears to fit all the events mentioned above together like a jigsaw puzzle.

The chessboard had been laid much earlier. The game had already begun long before Imran Khan realised it. And in the game reminiscent of the "Great" one from the Cold War-era, Asim Munir was not the king, but the pawn being moved across the board. Washington watched, nudged and orchestrated events in Pakistan from a distance.

The headlines on the report's revelations focused largely on Imran Khan's removal from the prime minister's post through an internationally-backed plot. But another angle, perhaps even more intriguing, is that the man who today sits at the pinnacle of Pakistan's power structure, Asim Munir, was central to the bigger rouge geopolitical rearrangement. The report also noted that Pakistan, in pursuit of its "strategic depth", continues to oscillate between dependence and bargaining at high tables in Washington, Beijing, Riyadh and Rawalpindi, while behaving like a sovereign nation.

At the heart of it all is the cipher case. It is a classified diplomatic cable sent in March 2022, by Pakistan's then ambassador to Washington, Assad Majeed Khan, to Islamabad's Foreign Ministry. The cable quoted senior US official Donald Lu as allegedly saying that "all will be forgiven in Washington" if the no-confidence vote against Imran Khan succeeded. That single line would go on to become the political nuclear weapon around which Imran Khan would base his anti-American narrative, much to the displeasure of the establishment in Rawalpindi.

Imran called it proof of a "foreign conspiracy". He also referred to what he described as the "London Plan", which experts said was a nexus involving former PM and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) patriarch Nawaz Sharif, his Pakistan People's Party (PPP) counterpart and present Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani establishment and, of course, the man in khaki with Quranic verses on his lips, Asim Munir.

WHAT WAS PAKISTAN'S CIPHER CASE?

The cipher case, which since 2022 took the centre-stage of Pakistani politics, also played a role in Imran's downfall. In diplomatic language, a cipher is a coded communication. The cable sent from Washington to Islamabad was classified and highly sensitive.

According to the cable, Pakistan's ambassador complained to Donald Lu about US criticism of Imran Khan's Russia visit and Pakistan's position on Ukraine. Lu allegedly responded that relations could improve if the no-confidence motion against Imran, then the PM, succeeded.

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For Imran, the cable became evidence that Washington wanted him gone. This was the same "letter" he repeatedly referred to in the spring of 2022. He held it as the "proof of a foreign conspiracy" and even dared his critics to deny or question it.

As the situation escalated, Imran threatened to publicly release the cable. The Pakistani establishment panicked. Even the Islamabad High Court restrained Imran from releasing the document.

DID THE US NOT LIKE IMRAN KHAN?

Years into office, Imran Khan's foreign policy increasingly began resembling what he called "strategic autonomy". He publicly rejected American requests for military bases after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, famously telling American outlet Axios, "Absolutely not".

The biggest rupture, however, came over Russia.

Despite warnings from Washington, Imran proceeded with his Moscow visit. On February 24, 2022, the day Russia started its "special military operation" on Ukraine, Imran met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin and photos of a cordial handshake between the two leaders were released. That became one of the defining images, leaving a particularly bad taste in Washington's mouth.

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Pakistan's custodian, the military establishment, grew increasingly uncomfortable with Imran's approach. The army feared that trying to remain equidistant from the US could isolate Pakistan strategically. That was where the rupture began.

HOW DID ASIM MUNIR EMERGE AS THE CENTRAL FIGURE?

One of the most controversial claims in the Drop Site report concerns Asim Munir's role years before he became Army Chief.

According to the report, during Imran Khan's 2019 Iran visit, Munir, who was then serving as the chief of Pakistan's spy agency ISI, used unusually abrasive language with Iranian officials. This was even as Imran was attempting to improve ties with Tehran.

Munir "used undiplomatic language in Iran and deviated from the strategy the Pakistani government had discussed internally prior to the trip," a former PTI official told Drop Site News.

The report interpreted this as early evidence that Munir might already have been aligned with American strategic thinking, which did not favour deeper Pakistan-Iran relations at the time.

"Munir, whether on orders from the US or by instinct, by disrupting that relationship, was doing a strong favour to the Americans," the report noted.

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Soon afterwards, Munir, who was appointed by Imran himself, was removed as ISI chief. That was the shortest anyone had served as the ISI chief, the second most powerful position in Pakistan after the army chief's.

Imran also refused to meet then CIA Director William J Burns in 2021. According to Drop Site News report, Imran insisted he would only engage with US President Joe Biden, who himself had declined repeated requests for a call with the Pakistani PM. Imran was seeking parity.

Years later, while Imran Khan remains Qaidi Number 804 in Rawalpindi's Adiala Jail, Munir returned stronger than ever.

First he was appointed Army Chief by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in November 2022, then elevated to Field Marshal, later as the Chief of Defence Forces with immunity and a tenure that could go on forever. He eventually became the undisputed centre of Pakistan's military establishment and the hybrid Islamabad-Rawalpindi regime, which some experts call a US vassal.

WAS IMRAN KHAN'S REMOVAL A REGIME CHANGE?

Factually, Imran Khan lost power through a constitutional no-confidence vote in Parliament in April 2022. However, the cipher from Washington that Imar Khan called a "proof" resulted in his downfall.

For Khan's supporters, Imran's noise in the cipher made him a nationalist, challenging both Washington and Rawalpindi simultaneously. But the military establishment and the US had other plans.

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Khan's supporters and PTI leaders argued that the vote was a broader alignment between Pakistan's military establishment and Washington. Anyway, the no-confidence motion in Pakistan's Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) eventually went through, regardless of what Khan alleged. Lawmakers sat through the night, even past midnight, to ensure that the PTI government no longer enjoyed the confidence of the House.

The vote, while constitutional, was widely seen as rigged in the broader sense, according to reports. It was engineered by the military establishment, which Imran referred to as the "London Conspiracy".

After the fall of the government, the PTI was banned. A coalition of Nawaz Sharif's PML-N and Zardari's PPP, led by the former's brother, Shahbaz Sharif, came to power. Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi, over whose concerns the former had warned Munir, were jailed.

Some PTI members were jailed. Others defected. The remaining ones still raise slogans demanding the release of their "Kaptaan", even as Imran Khan's family is allegedly denied meetings with him in the jail.

HOW DID UKRAINE WAR CHANGE PAKISTAN'S POSITION?

The report also alleged that after Imran Khan's removal, Pakistan quietly shifted closer to the American position on Ukraine, and away from Russia.

According to the report, Pakistani artillery shells and ammunition were supplied to Ukraine through intermediaries, while Pakistan secured financial relief, including an IMF stabilisation package to fix its bedridden economy.

In July 2023, Pakistan received a crucial IMF bailout at a time when the country was facing severe foreign exchange shortages. Some interpreted it as part of a geopolitical bargain.

THE RISE AND RISE OF ASIM MUNIR

By now, many in India have realised that Asim Munir isn't just another Pakistani Army Chief. He is probably placed first among the others. His rise, consolidation of power, and the pandering of US President Donald Trump, attest to that.

Munir was made Pakistan Army Chief in November 2022 with the standard three-year tenure. A 2024 amendment stretched it to five years till 2027. But the real power shift came after India's Operation Sindoor in May 2025. Even as Indian forces struck Pakistani military positions, dismantled sections of its air defence network and dominated the four-day confrontation, the fact that modern wars rarely end conclusively allowed Rawalpindi to spin its own victory narrative. And riding on the narrative, with Washington's backing, Asim Munir emerged as the ultimate power centre in Pakistan.

Days after the ceasefire, Munir was elevated to Field Marshal (second in Pakistan) and projected domestically as the Islamic republic's "protector".

Then in November 2025, through a constitutional amendment, Munir was elevated to a newly created post of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF). This effectively cemented his control over Pakistan's military. Pakistan's army, navy, air force, even the nuclear command structure and the strategic decision-making are now under Munir's control. With a fresh concurrent five-year CDF term kicking in, Munir is now positioned to remain Pakistan's supreme authority till at least November 2030.

Now in 2026, while Asim Munir sits at the helm of power in Pakistan, Imran Khan has spent years behind bars, even as he continues to retain a decent support base and many Pakistanis convinced they know who was really behind the former prime minister's fall.

To wrap up, the fall of Imran and the rise of Munir is more than a "civilian leadership versus Army" clash. It is a marker of global power politics and the US's continued pursuit of a desired regime in Pakistan. Starting from the Cold War-era to the Afghan jihad of the 1980s to the US War on Terror in the 2000s and then the war in Ukraine, Pakistan has always found itself (mostly intentionally) on a geopolitical chessboard for larger powers.

The only difference this time is that the pieces moved faster than before, for Imran Khan and also for Asim Munir. And the US has a strategically placed player even as the Middle East burns over the Iran war.

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