It was early 1970, and Jordan was burning. King Hussein was facing an armed Palestinian uprising backed by Iraq and Syria. Into this chaos walked Brigadier Zia-ul-Haq and his Pakistani team, sent to "train" the Jordanian army. When hijackings, assassination attempts and street battles shook Amman, King Hussein decided enough was enough. Soon, Zia broke his mandate and joined the fight. With Zia's hand guiding tanks and troops, the Palestinians were crushed and Jordan's monarchy prevailed. The cost was thousands of Palestinian lives, with estimates running as high as 25,000, most of them civilians.

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Before Jordan, Pakistani troops went to Saudi Arabia in the late 1960s amid concerns about Egypt's war in Yemen. Pakistani Air Force pilots even flew Saudi BAC Lightning jets during a 1969 border skirmish with Soviet-aligned South Yemen. In the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca, some reports suggest, Pakistan's special forces helped Saudi troops. After that, Pakistani troops were permanently stationed at strategic sites across Saudi Arabia. During the 1991 Gulf War, a whole Pakistani division helped shield Saudi Arabia from a potential Iraqi invasion. Then there's the so-called "war against terror" when Rawalpindi fought the US' "dirty war", killing thousands of civilians in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

There was even a time in the 1980s when a Pakistani Air Force officer went on to become the Chief of Staff of Zimbabwe's Air Force.

For a functional democratic nation, this might not be normal. But for the Islamic Republic's army, it was simply the fulfilment of its duty of being a mercenary for hire. While it is routine for forces across the world to work with foreign forces in coalitions, peacekeeping, or training drills, the Pakistani military's deeds abroad have gone far beyond such duties. This Pakistan Army's mission in Jordan in 1970 was neither its debut venture nor destined to be the last, as the recent deal with Saudi Arabia shows.

At home and in the neighbourhood too, Pakistan's army has acted like "fire for hire".