Asim Munir, the Pakistani field marshal negotiating peace between the US and Iran

Donald Trump announced a new extension on social media on April 21, shortly before the ceasefire between the United States and Iran was set to expire. In his message, he named the key individuals who had worked to save the situation from collapse: “Upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”

Munir is often considered the true strongman of Islamabad. He is the most powerful military figure in a country prone to excessive military power, where some analysts warn of a current drift toward a hybrid regime de facto controlled by the army. But he has found favor with Trump and has connections with Iranian authorities, placing this career officer and intelligence veteran at the center of talks between Washington and Tehran.

If Pakistan has emerged as the unexpected mediator, Munir is the executor of those negotiations. From his position, he has managed to cultivate relationships with both sides. He is one of few with the ability to visit both capitals, answer the phone, and relay messages. He personally greeted U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance at the airport for the first round of peace talks in Islamabad. But after their failure, and pending the outcome of the second round, it is not entirely clear that he will succeed where so many others before him have failed.

Born in 1968, Munir is the son of a schoolteacher and an imam. He quickly distinguished himself at the Officers’ School, receiving the Sword of Honor for graduating top of his class. He was assigned to an infantry unit and completed courses at the National Defense University and military institutions in Japan and Malaysia. He served as a military attaché in Saudi Arabia, where he learned the Quran and became a hafiz, a title bestowed upon those who can recite all passages of the Quran from memory.

Head of military espionage

In 2017, he was appointed director of military intelligence; in 2018, head of the intelligence services. Although he was soon dismissed, in 2022 he was promoted to Chief of the General Staff of the Army, the most influential position in security and policy, as the atmosphere grew increasingly tense following the attempted assassination of former prime minister Imran Khan and his subsequent imprisonment. In 2024, the world’s fifth-most populous country — a nuclear nation grappling with an economic crisis and rampant inflation — held elections that marked the return of the Sharif family to power. Under their influence, Munir and the military consolidated their power.

Munir’s rapprochement with Trump has paralleled his rise through the ranks. Following the brief May 2025 war with India, Munir, then Chief of Staff of the Army, became the face of what many in Islamabad saw as a decisive victory against their arch-enemy: a “courageous soldier,” as Muhammad Mehdi, president of the Soch Institute, a Pakistani think tank, described him in a text message exchange. He was immediately promoted from four-star general to field marshal, becoming the first officer to hold this rank since Ayub Khan in 1959, who would go on to become Pakistan’s first military dictator.

“I think that [the victory against India] was the moment the U.S. president realized that Pakistan’s field marshal is a powerful person, with a powerful army, who controls everything,” says Qamar Cheema, director of Sanober, an institute based in Islamabad, by phone. A month later, Trump invited him to lunch at the White House: it was the first time in history that a U.S. president had hosted a Pakistani military commander who was not also the head of state.

At the meeting, Munir called for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to the U.S. president for his contribution to ending the conflict with India. They discussed “trade, economic development, and cryptocurrencies,” according to a statement from the Pakistani military cited by Reuters. They also discussed the growing tensions between Israel and Iran. After the meeting, Trump emphasized that Pakistanis “know Iran very well, better than most.” Three days later, on June 22, 2025, he ordered the U.S. attack on three Iranian nuclear facilities in the operation dubbed Midnight Hammer.

Since then, the military man has returned once again to the White House alongside the Pakistani prime minister, and Trump has showered him with compliments, calling him an “exceptional man,” a “great warrior,” and “my favorite field marshal.”

The rapprochement culminates a new shift by Washington toward Pakistan, which has become an attractive cocktail of geopolitics and business.

In February, the U.S. administration signed an agreement with Islamabad to jointly develop a building in Manhattan — the Roosevelt Hotel — owned by Pakistan. This abandoned building is valued at around $1 billion due to its urban development potential, according to the New York press. This negotiation was handled by Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, a successful real estate magnate now in charge of the peace talks. He publicly announced the hotel agreement in an unusual setting: the inauguration of the Gaza Board of Peace, Trump’s project for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, which Pakistan agreed to join after committing to pay $1 billion.

In January, Zachary Witkoff, son of Trump’s special envoy, also visited Islamabad to sign a memorandum of understanding between the Pakistani government and World Liberty Financial, a controversial cryptocurrency platform he co-founded with two of Trump’s sons. In a photo from the meeting, the young Witkoff poses smiling among the country’s heavyweights: to his right, in khaki uniform, is Field Marshal Munir.

In Tehran, with his baton of command

Munir landed in Tehran on April 15, dressed in military fatigues and carrying the baton of command, to persuade Iranian leaders to resume the fruitless Islamabad peace talks. His mediation had already secured a ceasefire after Trump threatened to wipe out a civilization. He spent three days in the capital, meeting with the Iranian president, the foreign minister, the speaker of parliament, and the central military command, and reiterated the need to commit to dialogue to “achieve a sustainable peace in the region,” according to the Pakistani army.

Islamabad has a direct interest in stabilizing the region. It shares a 900-kilometer (560-mile) border with Iran, as well as historical, religious, and cultural ties; it is home to the second-largest Shia Muslim community in the world, after Iran, and both have supported each other at crucial moments: Iran was the first to recognize Pakistan after its independence in 1947, and Islamabad was the first government to do the same with the new Islamic Republic after the 1979 revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

“The field marshal has done a tremendous job,” says analyst Cheema. Regarding business dealings with the United States, he concedes that Munir seeks to help Pakistan achieve “macroeconomic stability.” He acknowledges that this role is related to “his personal influence” and a “strong military.” Mehdi, from the Soch Institute, adds that his experience in intelligence services, where he was in contact with the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, has been key to his ability to engage with both countries. “He understands this complex situation very well.”

Aqil Shah, a professor at Georgetown University, warns in a recent article that Pakistan has ceded leadership to the military “in matters of security, foreign relations, and even economic policy,” and cautions against a drift toward a “hybrid regime” in which supreme authority resides with the armed forces rather than elected civilians. He defines Munir as “the de facto head of the executive branch and responsible for diplomacy.” He pinpoints the definitive shift to November 2025, when a constitutional amendment was passed to elevate him to the newly created position of commander of the defense forces, granting him oversight of all branches of the military, including the nuclear arsenal, and guaranteeing him lifetime immunity.

After the failure of the last round of negotiations, it remains to be seen how far Munir can go in bridging the gap between Iran and the United States. Mehdi believes that the mere fact that they are sitting down together is a success. “Pakistan’s task is to keep both sides at the negotiating table so that hope remains alive, [and] they overcome mistrust,” Cheema concludes. “Now it’s up to them.”

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