Imran’s Kamikaze act against Gen Asim

Imran has strapped himself to the take-down Asim Munir Mission. He is going to take all of them down with him.

The situation between Imran Khan and the Establishment increasingly resembles the case of a particularly bloody divorce—of the sort in which both parties leave nothing to imagination and play all the dirt out in the full glare of publicity. The rising tide of the PTI leader’s attacks on the person of the Army Chief and reiteration of his resolve to “chase Asim Munir till his last breath” are not just howls of frustrations from jail. These are indicative of the final, and decisive, round of a bad, bad break-up that started long before General Asim took over.

Imran understands that it is now that he can build humiliating pressure on the army chief to prevent him from driving the final nail into his political coffin. He has political and media resources at his command. He is using them to the hilt to ensure that the legal net around him does not become a tightening noose. He needs to turn every move that the Establishment might want to make against him in the months ahead so controversial that it would lose all impact. The best way to do that is to keep hammering the center of gravity—person of the army chief so that he goes onto the backfoot and not go into a top gear to run over him.

But the issue is that General Asim Munir cannot afford to be on the backfoot. His worldview is quite clear. Imran and his party did 9th May. That’s the consensus that oozes out of the repeated references to this event in more than half a dozen press releases from the ISPR. Imran and his party have run a vicious global campaign against the Army. That is well-documented. Imran and his party have approached every international forum with petitions to choke the Establishment financially and strategically in order for them to get more space at home. This too has incontrovertible paper trail available. Imran and his party have directly accused top-ranking officials of plotting to kill him and his wife. To this effect, there are more than six dozen statements they have made without qualification and retraction. Now, Imran is pointing a long, direct finger at General Asim Munir, attributing to him heinous, murderous intent and singling him out as the main man behind all his woes. This cannot be reconciled with.

If General Asim Munir flinches before this pressure, he would end up endorsing all the accusations that have been and are being made against him personally. More important, he is not just a general. He is the head of the army. He runs a formidable institution. By blinking before Imran’s threats, he would undercut the power of the office he holds that lies in the perception that it is unassailable. By this logic, for him Imran’s stinging attacks are a good reason to stay firm and not give any impression that he is being affected by them. In fact, to show that Imran’s tricks mean nothing to him, he would have to start firing from all cylinders. The more Imran accuses him, the harder his stance is going to become and the bloodier the political scene is going to be.

Many in the PTI are sensing what is coming their way and where they are going. They know that Imran is preparing for a Kamikazi act and wants to use his party’s resources as a loitering munition to be dropped on General Asim’s GHQ. But there is little they can do about it. Imran has strapped himself to the take-down Asim Munir Mission. He is going to take all of them down with him. The ground for Imran and his party is approaching fast. Let’s see where they all land. On General Asim Munir’s head. Or somewhere in a deep ditch.