Munir’s Gaza trap: Trump’s Peace Plan meets Pakistan’s street

Field Marshal Asim Munir has built his power on a deceptively simple proposition: Pakistan can be stabilised if the country submits to “order” first, politics later. In 2025, that proposition is colliding with a foreign-policy test that is designed to be lose-lose: President Donald Trump’s push for a Gaza “stabilisation” framework that would rely on troops from Muslim-majority countries. For Washington, it is an elegant political shield. For Islamabad, it is a domestic matchstick.

Reuters reports that Trump’s Gaza plan includes a proposal for a stabilisation force, potentially drawing troops from Muslim countries, to oversee reconstruction and demilitarisation after a devastating campaign in Gaza.  Pakistan is one of the obvious candidates: a large army, long experience working with the US security establishment, and a leadership that has openly prioritised strategic bargaining with Washington. But what looks like a pragmatic contribution abroad can be read as moral betrayal at home, especially in a society where Palestine is not just a cause, but an identity-marker embedded in sermons, street politics, and everyday sentiment.

That is where Munir’s balancing act turns into a tightrope.

The street will hear “Israel,” not “stabilisation”

Pakistan does not recognise Israel, and the state has repeatedly reaffirmed that Pakistani passports are “not valid for travel to Israel,” a bureaucratic detail that doubles as political signalling.  On Gaza, the public mood is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.

In that environment, even a whiff of Pakistani participation in a US-led Gaza architecture will be framed by opponents as “helping Israel secure the aftermath.” It won’t matter if the mission is branded humanitarian, Arab-led, or UN-blessed. It won’t matter if Islamabad says “demilitarisation” is about preventing future bloodshed. The simplest slogan wins: Pakistan is being used to police Palestinians.

Pakistan’s streets are already primed for mobilisation. Pro-Gaza rallies and marches have drawn large crowds in major cities, including Karachi.  In April 2025, the Associated Press reported a Lahore rally of about 15,000 organised by Jamaat-e-Islami, explicitly fusing Gaza anger with anti-US and anti-Israel messaging.  The US Embassy in Pakistan has also issued alerts monitoring planned protest activity, a reminder that demonstrations are not hypothetical, they are a recurring feature of the political calendar.

This is the domestic reality Munir must price into every phone call with Washington.

Munir’s “messiah” brand meets its hardest constituency

Munir has attempted something Pakistan’s generals have often wanted but rarely achieved cleanly: supremacy without the optics of a coup. He projects himself as the guardian of the state, above parties, above parliament, above the mess of electoral legitimacy. Reuters describes him as Pakistan’s most powerful military figure in decades, with expanded authority and political centrality that make him the decisive actor even without martial law.

That “messiah” branding has two pillars.

First, the promise of external leverage: the idea that Munir can extract aid, investment, and international indulgence by presenting himself as the only man who can keep Pakistan governable. Reuters notes that cooperation could strengthen US-Pakistan ties and unlock economic benefits but at the risk of domestic backlash.

Second, the promise of internal discipline: the claim that he can tame disorder, whether from political rivals, religious street power, or economic desperation, through a combination of coercion and controlled narratives. The Financial Times notes how his era has featured an unusual willingness to crack down even within elite circles, including the sentencing of a former ISI chief, in a climate of intense civil-military contestation.

But Gaza is different. Because it is not merely opposition politics. It cuts across constituencies: Islamist parties, conservative middle-class neighbourhoods, student groups, bazaar traders, and even apolitical households that see Palestine through the lens of faith and solidarity. It is the rare issue where Pakistan’s establishment and its most suspicious street movements share vocabulary, until that street suspects the establishment is compromising.

If Munir leans toward Trump, he risks triggering a wave of protests that are harder to delegitimise as “foreign-funded” or “anti-state,” because the emotional fuel is local and organic. And if he leans away from Trump, he risks squandering precisely the external leverage that underpins his strongman pitch: only I can manage Washington, and only Washington can keep Pakistan’s economy afloat.

The protest ecosystem is built for escalation

Pakistan’s protest politics is not just spontaneous. It is organised through mosques, party networks, and movement entrepreneurs who know how to turn outrage into logistics, buses, banners, sound systems, social media clips, and confrontation points.

The AP recently reported on the state’s anxieties around pro-Gaza unrest and hardline mobilisation, including legal action tied to incitement and clashes.  That matters because it underlines the state’s dilemma: repression can shrink a crowd, but it can also sanctify it. A baton charge outside a mosque after Friday prayers does not end a narrative; it multiplies it.

So Munir faces a sequencing problem:

• If he signals support for a Gaza stabilisation force early, he invites pre-emptive street resistance.

• If he tries quiet cooperation with Washington, leaks and rumours will do the street’s work for it.

• If he publicly refuses, he may win the street briefly but lose the strategic bargaining chip that his model depends on.

A general’s paradox: power without legitimacy is fragile abroad

Munir’s dominance “without a coup” may look modern, constitutional engineering, controlled civilian facades, and calibrated crackdowns. But it carries an old Pakistani vulnerability: legitimacy deficits make foreign policy explosive. When leaders lack broad consent, their external deals become internal weapons.

Trump’s Gaza plan, as outlined by Reuters, is precisely the kind of deal that can be weaponised: it contains troop optics, Israel adjacency, and the insinuation of “disarming” a group many in Pakistan view through the prism of resistance politics.

In other words, it is a perfect storm: a foreign policy move that can be sold as statecraft in Washington and betrayal in Lahore.

And that is why Munir will find it tough, not because he lacks authority, but because Gaza is one of the few issues that can force Pakistan’s street to ask a question stronger than fear: Who exactly are you ruling for?