Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : The geopolitical sands of Southwest Asia have shifted dramatically in recent months. In a stunning reversal of roles, Pakistan—once viewed as a struggling state battling internal insurgencies and economic instability—has emerged as a pivotal power broker on the world stage. Through its successful mediation between the United States and Iran and its efforts to avert a global economic crisis, Islamabad has positioned itself as a formidable voice in international diplomacy. This diplomatic ascendancy, however, has come at a considerable cost. By challenging the established order and offering a counterbalance to Israeli power in the region, Pakistan has inadvertently painted a target on its own back. The result is a new and dangerous proxy war being fought on Pakistani soil, leveraging the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Balochistan Liberation Army as tools to bleed the nation from within.
The calculus of power in the Middle East has been fundamentally upended. As the only nuclear-armed Muslim state with a growing arsenal, Pakistan is increasingly viewed by regional actors as a necessary counterweight to Israel’s unbridled military might and expansionist ambitions. The narrative in Islamabad and across many Middle Eastern capitals is that Israel, guided by a maximalist ideology and backed by its own nuclear capabilities, seeks to redraw the map of the region.
The perceived Greater Israel project, aiming to control territory from the Nile to the Euphrates, necessitates the destruction or fracture of all regional power structures. Under this worldview, Israel’s strategy is to create chaos, foster fractured governments, and use nuclear blackmail to cow its adversaries.
In this context, Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella is seen as the ultimate deterrent against Israeli aggression. By providing a potential shield for nations like Turkey, Egypt, and Iran, Pakistan has become a primary obstacle to Israel’s regional ambitions. This is the crux of the new animosity. Israel has recognized that it cannot neutralize Iran, Turkey, or other regional rivals without first neutralizing the threat from Pakistan.
The diplomatic achievements of Pakistan—including its instrumental role in stopping the wars in Lebanon and Gaza—have made it a major thorn in the eye of Israel. What Pakistan achieved diplomatically is perhaps greater in value and impact than what Iran achieved through its military confrontations with the United States and Israel.
This remarkable ascent has transformed Pakistan from a peripheral player into a central actor in the Middle Eastern power equation, and with that transformation has come the inevitable attention of adversaries who view its rise as a direct threat to their interests.
To counter this emerging threat, Israel is purportedly pivoting to a strategy of asymmetric warfare, exploiting Pakistan’s internal vulnerabilities through a classic playbook: find, fund, and arm proxy actors to destabilize a state from within, avoiding a direct and costly conventional confrontation.
The first prong of this strategy involves the TTP. Pakistan has long differentiated between the good Taliban in Afghanistan and the bad Taliban at home, but this distinction has become dangerously moot. The Afghan Taliban, now in power in Kabul, has provided safe havens, training camps, and logistical support to the TTP, allowing them to operate with near impunity across the porous border.
Now Israel in collaboration with India and elements within the Afghan government, is providing arms, ammunition, financial incentives, and operational guidance to the TTP. This financing and advanced training are intended to motivate TTP operatives to intensify their attacks on Pakistan’s military and civilian power centers, creating a constant state of insecurity that weakens the state from within.
The second, equally dangerous prong involves the separatist movements in Balochistan. The Balochistan Liberation Army and other ethnic insurgent groups are waging a war for independence, and while these movements have deep-rooted local grievances, they have become receptive to external manipulation.
The exiled Baloch leaders have expressed a willingness to align with Israel, viewing it as a potential guarantor of their independence. This creates a perverse alliance of convenience. India’s Research and Analysis Wing has a well-documented history of fomenting unrest in Balochistan to destabilize Pakistan, with the arrest of Indian naval officer Kulbhushan Jadhav in 2016 serving as a key example.
Now, Israel is reportedly deepening this cooperation, offering advanced intelligence, satellite reconnaissance, and perhaps even technological assistance to these separatist groups. In return, the BLA and its affiliates are promising to act as Israel and India’s stooges in a post-conflict scenario, leveraging whatever remains of a fractured Pakistan. The goal is to cripple the Pakistani state, potentially allowing external actors to seize control of the strategic Gwadar port and neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets.
Beyond the proxy war, there is an immediate and visceral threat that Pakistan must contend with: Israel’s technological prowess in targeted assassinations. Israel has a documented history of using sophisticated, often commercially available technology to track and eliminate high-value targets across the globe.
This includes the use of advanced surveillance software, remote-controlled weaponry, and even cyber-enabled sabotage of critical infrastructure. Pakistan, with its community of nuclear scientists, military strategists, and political leaders, is vulnerable to such tactics.
The threat is not merely hypothetical. Pakistan must ensure that the technology used by Israel for assassinating marked rivals and people of high political, scientific, and military value cannot be successfully deployed within its borders.
This demands a comprehensive overhaul of Pakistan’s internal security protocols, including strict monitoring of digital communications, protection of supply chains from cyber-tampering, and rigorous vetting of personnel with access to sensitive information. Failure to address this vulnerability could result in the loss of the nation’s most valuable minds and a catastrophic blow to its strategic capabilities.
Passive defense, however, is no longer sufficient. The current situation demands a proactive and offensive strategy. Pakistan cannot simply wait for an attack to occur; it must act to deter it. The core recommendation emerging from strategic analysts is the creation of a counter-spy network in Israel.
This is not merely an intelligence-gathering operation; it is a strategic necessity that would provide Islamabad with two critical advantages. First, a counter-network would provide Islamabad with powerful leverage, as knowing that Pakistan possesses the capability to respond in kind within Israeli territory would raise the stakes for any Israeli-initiated action in Pakistan.
Second, the doctrine of proportional response is central to this strategy. If Israel engages in sabotage, assassination, or support for proxy militancy within Pakistan, Islamabad must be prepared to reply in the same coin, delivering a proportional, measured, and effective response inside Israel itself. The goal is not escalation, but the creation of a credible deterrent that ensures the cost of aggression is too high to be borne.
This is where the expertise of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence becomes paramount. The ISI has decades of experience in covert operations, counterinsurgency, and intelligence gathering in Afghanistan and against Indian targets.
These accumulated skills must now be refocused on the Israeli threat. Pakistan has shown its diplomatic capability to de-escalate major international conflicts; now it must demonstrate its resolve to defend its sovereignty and nuclear assets against covert infiltration and sabotage.
The agency must evaluate the situation from all angles and place security mechanisms that are not only defensive but also offensive in nature. Pakistan should use all the deceptive and intelligence-gathering methods that Israel has employed to weaken countries within their own borders and apply them in Israel itself, creating a countervailing power that ensures proportional and responsible retaliation for any aggression. If this is not done now, it will be too late, and Pakistan will have to face the consequences of inaction. To be continued…….