Pakistan needs to pick its poison

Pakistan has clashed with 3 of its 4 neighbours in the past two years — Iran, Afghanistan, and India — while its politics, economy, and national identity are torn at the seams. It has become a country perpetually fighting on every front, yet winning on none. Now, caught between American conditionality and Chinese control, it must finally decide which poison to drink — the bitter medicine of Western reform or the slow-acting dependency of Beijing’s embrace.

The pattern of conflict is unmistakable. In January 2024, Pakistan and Iran exchanged cross-border airstrikes in an extraordinary escalation between two states that had long described each other as “brotherly”. Tehran targeted separatists in Balochistan; Islamabad retaliated under Operation Marg Bar Sarmachar. Both governments scrambled to calm tensions, but the precedent was set: for the first time in decades, Pakistan had struck another sovereign state directly. Not using its alphabet soup of ISI-sponsored jihadi groups. 

To the west, relations with Afghanistan are poisoned by mistrust and blood. Pakistan has launched airstrikes into Afghan territory against Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) sanctuaries, while Taliban forces have fired mortars back across the Durand Line. Border closures at Torkham and Chaman have paralysed trade and deepened resentment on both sides. To the east, confrontation with India has returned under the banner of Operation Sindoor, a campaign of covert operations and counter-infiltration following renewed clashes along the Line of Control. Islamabad accuses New Delhi of subversion in Balochistan; India blames Pakistan for cross-border militancy. The region has seen it all before, but rarely has Pakistan found itself fighting fires on three fronts at once.

Yet the gravest battle is within. Pakistan is riven by internal divisions that make it almost ungovernable. Balochistan remains insurgent; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lives under the shadow of the TTP; Sindh and Punjab are mired in patronage politics. Civil–military tensions have turned into open warfare, with elected governments routinely undermined by generals who claim to defend the nation even as they hollow out its democracy. The economy mirrors this chaos — a cycle of IMF bailouts, collapsing exports, energy debts, and public despair. Each rescue package buys a little time and erodes a little more sovereignty.

This is where the poisons divide. The United States offers medicine that Pakistan needs but resents. Its power runs through the IMF, the World Bank, and access to global capital markets. Every major Pakistani reform — tax broadening, energy pricing, debt restructuring — flows through Washington’s orbit. When Islamabad obeys, the funds come; when it baulks, the tap runs dry. It’s a harsh prescription, but one that, if swallowed, can restore health.

China’s elixir is sweeter, but addictive. Through the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Beijing has locked Pakistan into a web of loans, power projects, and strategic obligations. When militants strike Chinese engineers or delay CPEC infrastructure, Beijing demands action. When arrears mount, it demands payment. China enforces obedience where its interests are at risk — in Gwadar, Thar, and the Karakoram Highway — but it cannot reform Pakistan’s state or reconcile its people. Its poison numbs pain but deepens dependency.

Then there is a more ambiguous toxin seeping in from Washington’s new power circles. Reports linking former Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and his son’s crypto-finance venture, World Liberty Financial, to potential deals in Pakistan expose the blurred frontier between diplomacy and private profit. The impression that connected businessmen can monetise U.S. influence corrodes confidence and invites suspicion. If such ventures evolve into opaque financial backchannels, they risk turning the medicine of engagement into the poison of manipulation.

Neither superpower can save Pakistan. Both will shape it to serve their ends. The United States wants a disciplined Pakistan that honours IMF reforms and contains militancy. China wants a compliant Pakistan that protects its roads, ports, and workers. Islamabad’s elite want both — Western dollars and Chinese guarantees — but refuse to fix the structural rot that makes either relationship so perilous. Real change will come only when Pakistan resolves its civil–military imbalance, rebuilds its tax system, and reconciles its provinces. No external power can do that.

Today, Pakistan is a state surrounded and cornered — trading artillery fire with Iran, exchanging airstrikes with Afghanistan, testing India under Operation Sindoor, and imploding at home. It must now decide which poison to pick, and whether it has the courage to survive the cure.