Imran takes army and ISI-bashing to the next level--- International Sanctions

Imran’s game is now going beyond maligning two generals. The game is to call out international carrot for himself and stick of sanctions against Pakistan.

Imran Khan’s attacks on the army chief, General Asim Munir, and his intelligence heads are now in top gear. He is breaking all speed limits and is motoring on paths that take this fight beyond personalities. The new form of assault includes an open campaign for sanctions. A tweet by Sajjad Burki, Imran’s focal person in the US, makes the point abundantly clear. He has posted a video with Congressman Greg Casar, that he and the host, Tariq Majeed, are seen pleading to speak about the human rights situation in Pakistan, which the Congressman is most eager to do! Obviously! Being lobbied is lucrative in more ways than one.

More tellingly, the tweet makes a specific mention of the congressman being a co-sponsor of a bill “to tie military aid to human rights conditions in a country.” Part of the conversation in the video among the three characters is about utilizing US aid for the “promotion of democracy in other countries”. So Imran’s desperate domestic desire to be the sole political spokesperson of the Establishment---a status he thinks he lost last year when he was jettisoned by the army in his battle to survive a vote of no confidence that eventually ousted him---has now become a desperate open season on the army as an institution and Pakistan as a state.

Seemingly, Imran’s grouse is political. Consider his interview with Reuters where he lays into the army chief saying, “I think that maybe he has a grudge because I asked him to resign” as ISI chief. (A few weeks ago in another interview Imran had denied sacking the present General Asim Munir as DG ISI. But this is usual. Imran’s memory works according to the occasion. He brings on amnesia to serve the immediate.) But this is just the tip of the real iceberg of the effort to get the army defined as an Avatar of the Burmese Army and get the world to put them in a clamp and make them suffer. But any form of sanctions, say on military aid, or project aid for development, don’t just lash the army. The sanctions regime hits the state with consequences that go beyond individuals and their tenures.

You can argue that Imran is taking it out on the army because they are breaking apart his party. That would be a fair comment but can be misunderstood without context. To begin with, if the army is fragmenting the PTI as easily as an onion is peeled, it shows poorly on the party itself. Not long ago, PML-N and PPP’s odds were much tougher than what the PTI is confronted with but they did not melt like butter in heat. They survived long, roasting years and stayed intact.

PTI’s bandwagon has been upended in three weeks despite Imran’s propagated “irresistible, unbreakable” appeal to his followers and his “cult-like bonding” with his companions. Further, the army or intelligence agencies picking apart the PTI so quickly only tell you how Imran’s PTI was forged---not through a Lenin-like struggle, but through two decades of canard, coercion, and Byzantine intrigue. If what is happening now is reverse engineering, this was something Imran had seen being done to other parties but celebrated as a triumph of true democracy. Why complain? What went around, came around, with additional premium.

But the third point is most important: Imran’s effort to get the army humbled and humiliated predates the 9th May riots, after which Imran really stepped on the gas against the Establishment. A review of the meetings that he and his representatives had with various foreign figures early this year shows that he had already cast the die for the narrative he is peddling now. His sister Aleema met the US House of Representatives in February.

He had a meeting with a US legislators delegation and another with foreign correspondents a few days later. Earlier he also met with the British High Commissioner.

In all four the statement was identical. That the army is bad. That the ISI needs to be fixed. They both are murderous monsters. That Imran is the guy who can do this for democracy. That the world needs to squeeze the generals and side with Imran.

This narrative was repeated in meetings with Jake Ellzey, US Congressman, US Senators delegation (in March), the leader of the Canadian Opposition party, with the German ambassador in the months of April and May. The same things, in different packaging, were said. These were all public meetings. Private briefings to ambassadors and high commissioners before May 9th in Islamabad or lobbying abroad were all about defiling the army and the ISI to the point that they became “sanctionable entities.”

There is enough evidence to support the contention that even if there was no reverse-engineering (Imran’s allegations), and May 9th had not happened, Imran would have still used the sanctions card to bring the Establishment to listen to him and accommodate his real political demand---- that the army chief and the DG ISI should restore him to his previous glory. And, yes, also metaphorically drown his opponents in the Indian Ocean---though he won’t mind if it is done actually too. So here it is: Imran’s game is now going beyond maligning two generals. The game is to call out an international carrot for himself and a stick of sanctions against Pakistan. This is dumb. This is dangerous. This further dims his prospects of political survival.