by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal

Field Marshal General Syed Asim Munir’s stewardship of Pakistan’s armed forces has coincided with a period of rare convergence between military credibility, diplomatic momentum, and emerging economic possibilities. The brief but consequential India–Pakistan conflict of May 7–10, 2025 stands as the pivotal moment that redefined Pakistan’s posture in a volatile region and repositioned its leadership on the global stage. India’s missile strikes, launched under the codename Operation Sindoor in the wake of so-called terrorist incident in Kashmir, were widely interpreted as an attempt to impose a new coercive normal upon Pakistan. Instead, the response it provoked altered strategic calculations across capitals.

From the outset, General Munir adopted a posture that combined clarity with restraint. His public warning that any aggression would meet a “swift and intense” response was not rhetorical flourish but a calibrated signal of resolve. At the same time, he repeatedly emphasised that Pakistan sought deterrence, not escalation, reminding the world that recklessness between two nuclear-armed states carried incalculable risks. Under his command, Pakistan’s armed forces executed precise counterstrikes, downed multiple Indian aircraft, and demonstrated operational superiority without crossing thresholds that might have triggered full-scale war. This balance between force and restraint restored deterrence while allowing diplomatic channels to reassert themselves.

International reaction was unusually forthcoming. The crisis was widely seen as having been defused through disciplined command rather than chance. Then U.S. President publicly credited General Munir for preventing nuclear escalation, an acknowledgment that carried symbolic weight given Washington’s long-standing emphasis on crisis stability in South Asia. Such praise strengthened Pakistan’s global standing and enhanced the domestic legitimacy of its military leadership, reinforcing the perception of Pakistan as a responsible nuclear power capable of managing conflict under extreme pressure.

The months that followed marked a notable evolution in General Munir’s role. He emerged as a central figure in what many observers described as Pakistan’s geopolitical re-entry after years of diplomatic drift. High-level engagement with the United States resumed, ties with Saudi Arabia deepened—symbolised by the award of the King Abdulaziz Medal—and defence diplomacy expanded across the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Joint military exercises, counterterrorism cooperation, and economic discussions increasingly ran in parallel, reflecting a recognition that security and economics are now inseparable in global statecraft.

This context frames the most consequential question facing Pakistan today; can enhanced military credibility and diplomatic outreach help loosen the country’s long-standing dependence on foreign debt and the International Monetary Fund? Pakistan’s external debt now exceeds $100 billion, hovering around 70 per cent of GDP, with an IMF Extended Fund Facility of approximately $7–8 billion extending into the latter half of the decade. While reform projections suggest a gradual easing of pressure, structural vulnerabilities remain deeply entrenched.

Against this backdrop, defence exports have emerged as a strategic instrument rather than a peripheral activity. General Munir’s support for leveraging Pakistan’s indigenous defence industry reflects a broader understanding that military capability can generate economic dividends. The performance of Pakistani weapons systems during the May 2025 crisis functioned as an unintended but powerful demonstration to potential buyers. Cost-effective, combat-tested, and supported by flexible financing arrangements, these systems suddenly commanded renewed attention.

The JF-17 Thunder fighter jet has become the centrepiece of this strategy. Azerbaijan’s $4.6 billion agreement for forty JF-17 Block III aircraft stands as Pakistan’s most significant defence export success to date. Indonesia is in advanced negotiations for dozens of jets and drones, a deal that could generate several billion dollars while anchoring long-term defence cooperation in Southeast Asia. Sudan is nearing an agreement initially valued at $1.5 billion, with expansion potential exceeding $4 billion, encompassing aircraft, drones, weapons, training, and logistics. Saudi Arabia has explored either a direct $4 billion procurement or the conversion of roughly $2 billion in loans into aircraft purchases. Iraq and Bangladesh have also expressed interest, reinforcing the breadth of Pakistan’s defence diplomacy.

If even a portion of these agreements materialises, the financial inflows could reach into the tens of billions of dollars. Such earnings would bolster foreign exchange reserves, ease balance-of-payments stress, and support debt servicing, thereby reducing reliance on emergency IMF interventions. Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s assertion that sustained arms exports could help Pakistan avoid future bailouts may be optimistic, yet it reflects a growing recognition that traditional export models alone are insufficient.

Economists caution, however, that defence exports cannot by themselves resolve Pakistan’s economic challenges. Arms sales must be embedded within broader fiscal discipline, export diversification, and institutional reform. Non-defence exports have shown only modest growth, underscoring the need for parallel progress across the wider economy.

Still, opportunities rarely present themselves so clearly. Field Marshal Munir’s leadership during crisis, followed by diplomatic consolidation and economic outreach, has opened strategic space that Pakistan has long lacked. If this moment is matched by coherent economic policy and sustained reform, the gains achieved through strength and restraint may yet translate into greater financial autonomy and a more secure national future.

Qamar Bashir

Wars in the modern era are no longer fought only with bullets, missiles, fighter jets, or nuclear deterrence. Increasingly, they are fought long before any kinetic action begins—on a quieter, more deceptive battlefield: the battlefield of perception. Images, videos, and narratives now travel faster than diplomacy, bypassing borders, institutions, and even reason. In this new reality, social media has become one of the most dangerous weapons ever devised—capable of destabilizing societies without firing a single shot.

Over recent weeks, a flood of videos has emerged on social media platforms claiming to show massive demonstrations across Iran. The imagery is dramatic: endless crowds filling wide boulevards, national flags lining streets with striking uniformity, and aerial perspectives suggesting a country on the verge of total upheaval. There is no denial that Iran, like many nations under economic pressure and political strain, experiences dissent and protest. That fact is neither new nor controversial. What demands scrutiny, however, is whether the specific videos being circulated reflect organic reality or constructed spectacle.

Having worked as a news producer during a formative period from the late 1980s into the early 1990s, and having remained engaged with media management and state-level communication thereafter, I approach such material with trained skepticism. In professional journalism, the first rule is simple: never accept the image at face value. Images must be interrogated, contextualized, and tested against known patterns of human behavior, geography, and political reality.

Several elements within the widely shared video https://vt.tiktok.com/ZS5ntmNFQ/ raised immediate concerns.

First, the behavior and structure of the crowd itself. Genuine mass demonstrations are inherently chaotic. Human gatherings fluctuate in density, form pressure points at intersections, and show visible irregularities along sidewalks and side streets. Movement is uneven; space opens and closes unpredictably. In the video under scrutiny, the crowd density remains remarkably uniform across extraordinary depth—from the foreground to the far horizon. There are no visible bottlenecks, no dispersal patterns, no natural thinning at the edges. Such visual consistency is rare in real-world human assemblies and suggests construction rather than spontaneous congregation.

Second, the perspective and scaling appear inconsistent with physical reality. Buildings recede naturally with distance, but the human forms within the crowd retain disproportionate clarity far beyond what optics and aerial resolution would allow. In authentic drone footage, individuals quickly lose definition as distance increases, blending into texture and motion. Here, human figures remain visually distinct deep into the frame, defying the expected behavior of light, distance, and atmospheric interference.

Third, the symbolic repetition is striking. Flags appear at near-identical intervals, with uniform size, color saturation, and orientation. In real protest environments, symbols are irregular: some flags hang limp, others ripple unpredictably; many are partially obscured or tilted at varying angles. Perfect visual repetition is a hallmark of design, not of lived reality.

Fourth, there is an absence of micro-chaos. Even a single frame extracted from authentic protest footage captures motion blur, raised hands, head turns, banners at differing angles, and small disturbances rippling through the crowd. The video in question presents magnitude without motion—an image that appears alive but lacks the subtle disorder that defines real human movement.

Fifth, the information environment itself raises questions. Iran is among the most tightly controlled digital spaces during periods of unrest. Internet throttling, platform disruptions, and communication blackouts are common responses to internal instability. Under such conditions, high-definition, uninterrupted aerial footage does not typically circulate freely or repeatedly. Scarcity, not abundance, defines information flow from closed environments. The sudden frequency and clarity of this material therefore contradict known patterns of access and control.

This contradiction prompted further scrutiny. History provides sobering lessons. Before Iraq was invaded, narratives and visuals prepared global opinion. Before Libya collapsed, selective imagery framed intervention as humanitarian necessity. Before Syria descended into prolonged catastrophe, emotionally charged footage simplified complex realities into moral binaries. In each case, media preceded missiles. Images softened resistance, manufactured urgency, and created justification for actions whose consequences were later measured in human tragedy.

The current moment bears uncomfortable similarities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again openly revived the language of regime change in Iran, addressing the Iranian public directly and encouraging confrontation with the existing state. This rhetoric is not accidental nor unprecedented. It follows a long-established pattern in which internal unrest is amplified externally to legitimize future action.

At the same time, the familiar and highly combustible narrative of Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions has been reintroduced with renewed intensity. Despite years of inspections, contradictory intelligence assessments, and shifting red lines, nuclear alarmism is once again being used to mobilize fear—particularly within Western political circles. Its function is clear: to draw the United States back into a regional confrontation centered on Israeli security calculations.

Statements from Washington reinforce this trajectory. When American leadership publicly warns that Iran will be struck “where it hurts” if unrest is met with force, such language serves as a signal—not merely to Tehran, but to global audiences. It signals that escalation is conceivable, that internal disorder could justify external intervention, and that public opinion must be conditioned in advance.

Simultaneously, the re-emergence of Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s former monarch, as a proposed alternative leadership figure follows a familiar script. His sudden prominence, international exposure, and expressed willingness to lead mirror past efforts to elevate external figures as symbols of legitimacy during periods of destabilization. History shows that such figures often resonate more with foreign audiences than with populations on the ground—but they serve an important narrative function nonetheless.

It is within this convergence—Israeli advocacy for regime change, American military signaling, revived nuclear fear narratives, and the elevation of an external political alternative—that the circulation of dramatic protest imagery must be understood. These visuals do not merely document events; they construct inevitability. They suggest total collapse, universal opposition, and moral urgency—all prerequisites for public acceptance of actions that would otherwise face resistance.

This does not mean dissent does not exist in Iran. It does. But exaggeration, fabrication, and narrative inflation have historically been used to convert limited unrest into justification for catastrophic intervention. The consequences of such manipulation are not abstract. They are measured in destroyed cities, displaced populations, and generations condemned to instability.

Today, wars begin not with sirens but with shares. Not with explosions but with engagement metrics. By the time missiles are launched, the psychological battlefield has already been won.

The responsibility therefore lies with citizens, journalists, and analysts alike to resist reflexive belief. To pause. To question. To distinguish between organic human expression and manufactured spectacle. Justice demands evidence. Peace demands restraint. And truth demands patience.

In the age of instant imagery, seeing is no longer believing. Verification is.

Qamar Bashir
Press Secretary to the President (Rtd)
Former Press Minister, Embassy of Pakistan to France
Former Press Attaché to Malaysia
Former MD, SRBC | Macomb, Michigan,