How can a failed “jihadi general" be promoted to the exalted rank of Field Marshal? The answer is simple: it happens only in Pakistan.

In a land where irony dons a general’s uniform and parades as policy, Pakistan’s Cabinet, led by the ever-pliable Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, bestowed upon Army Chief General Asim Munir the rank of Field Marshal. Only the second time in the nation’s history, we are told, has such an honour been conferred—first to Muhammad Ayub Khan in 1959, and now to Munir, a man whose military credentials are as tarnished as a rusted bayonet.

The announcement, dripping with the sanctimonious pomp of a regime desperate to prop up its faltering legitimacy, has sparked a firestorm of satire and scorn on social media. Dozens of Pakistanis have dubbed Munir the “Failed Marshal." And the phrase has caught on, not only across the border in Bharat, but all over the world.

O, how the mighty fall! And then, apparently, promote themselves. The whole episode might seem laughable. And it should. Because every tinpot general in Pakistan is also a somewhat of a clown. Either himself a bit of a joker, like Perwez Musharraf, or the butt of innumerable jokes, as with Zia-ul-Haq.

But these “jokers" are, at another level, treacherous, diabolical, and deadly. So one wonders whom the joke is on. In this case, the victim is clearly the people of Pakistan. Behind the façade of this farce is oft-missed but seriously massive benefit. The person who could easily be charged........

© News18