Though it has failed to provide any credible evidence, the Pakistan army is repeatedly boasting of how it had convincingly trounced India during Operation Sindoor/ Bunyan-un-Marsous, with Field Marshal Asim Munir even claiming that in face of Pakistan army’s fierce response, New Delhi was “forced to beg for a ceasefire.” Unfortunately, he probably overlooked the fact that besides being a great healer, time is also a big revealer and hence like everything else, secrets too have a 'shelf-life'.
The Pakistan army’s brazen lie about its phenomenal military success against India getting exposed within a matter of just seven months despite all out efforts to prevent the same doesn’t come as any big surprise because the claims made by Rawalpindi were unconvincing as they bordered on fantasy. However, even though satellite imagery confirmed extensive damage to Pakistan’s defence installations and terrorist infrastructure, Rawalpindi continued to peddle its false narrative and got a shot in the arm through support from a section of Indians who rejected New Delhi’s account of this operation and parroted what Pakistan said.
But thanks to the US Justice Department’s Foreign Agents Registration Act [FARA], Pakistan’s falsehood has finally been exposed. Under FARA it's mandatory for “certain agents of foreign principals [a foreign government, political party, or any person/entity outside the US] who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute to make periodic disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities.” This proved to be Field Marshal Munir's undoing.
Pakistan had hired a number of lobbying and law firms. And it’s the details filed by these entities under FARA that has exposed the barefaced untruth peddled by both Islamabad and Rawalpindi to project its humongous military failure during Operation Sindoor/ Bunyan-un-Marsous as a “historic victory for Pakistan” achieved under Gen Munir’s “exemplary leadership and battlefield coordination” due to which he was subsequently promoted to the rank of Field Marshal.
The FARA disclosures made by lobbying firms hired by Pakistan confirm inordinately high intensity of lobbying activity when Operation Sindoor was in progress. During this period, Pakistani diplomats and defence officials [including Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and its defence attaché] repeatedly made contact with more than 60 US lawmakers and officials through emails, telephone calls and personal meetings. Such a frenzy and high level interaction gives a fair picture of the immense pressure which the top echelons of the Pakistani government and armed forces were under during that time.
To add to Pakistan’s embarrassment, an investigation conducted by the New York Times reveals that cash-strapped Islamabad spent a whopping $ 5 million on lobbying during April and May 2025. It has also attributed Washington’s new-found bonhomie towards Pakistan as the cumulative result of Islamabad’s extensive lobbying efforts, as well as nominating US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Prize and making several exceptionally attractive business offers and concessions. This rips apart Field Marshal Munir’s claim that Washington’s proximity to Islamabad stems from the sterling role of the Pakistan army in the war on terror.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, the entire picture is clear. Rattled by the devastating strikes against military targets as well as terrorist facilities and realising that his nuclear threat would not deter New Delhi, Field Marshal Munir pushed the Government of Pakistan into seeking US intervention to stop hostilities. This isn’t something new- Gen Pervez Musharraf had done the same in 1999 when he realised that his Kargil misadventure had failed miserably and that the Indian army could enlarge the scope of the conflict by attacking Pakistan.
It’s well known that Trump doesn’t involve himself in anything that doesn’t provide him or the US some benefit and so Islamabad made POTUS an offer that he couldn’t refuse. This included Trump’s nomination for the Nobel Prize, Pakistan Crypto Council signing an agreement with US crypto-currency firm World Liberty Financial in which the Trump family holds a 60 percent stake and lucrative rare earth prospecting arrangements.
Munir may have exploited Washington's need for an air base in the region and Kabul’s refusal to allow US access to the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan. Being Trump’s “favourite Field Marshal,” he may have reached an agreement allowing the US covert use of its air bases. The recent reported crash of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone near Maidan Shahr in Afghanistan’s Maidan Wardak province and Pentagon’s stoic silence on this incident raises strong suspicions that this drone may have been operating from an air base inside Pakistan.
The way things have panned out post Operation Sindoor has an uncanny resemblance to an incident in Joseph Heller’s popular anti-war fictional work Catch 22. When a commanding officer is at his wit’s end on how to cover-up a major operational lapse, the protagonist of the novel who’s responsible for the same proposes that he be given a medal. While the commanding officer is scandalised, the unit’s second-in-command endorses this suggestion by saying “You know, that may be the answer- to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of,” and emphasising, “that’s a trick that never seems to fail.”
So, isn’t Munir’s promotion to the rank of Field Marshal and his subsequent nomination as Chief of Defence Forces a classic example of acting “boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of”?