Imran’s war against the army chief

By singling out the army chief Imran is targeting the center of the army’s power gravity.

Imran Khan has declared an open war against army chief Gen Asim Munir. He has changed the list of his alleged tormentors again, and has now reduced it to what he calls “just one man”.

It is no longer Dirty Harry and his Boss, Gang of Four, Rana Sana the Murderer, the Savage and the Brute (his references to local intelligence officers), the ‘Detestable’ Caretaker chief minister of Punjab, etc. It is not even the retired army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa who has remained---deservedly so but for different reasons---the favorite punching bag of Imran for months. The new villain of the piece is the sitting army chief whom Imran has decided to comprehensively target.

Comprehensively because of the nature of the accusations the has hurled at him in the past few days. He has accused him of engineering his “abduction from the premises of the court” ---which the Islamabad High Court found to be legal except for the manner in which he was hauled up. This verdict was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

He has accused him of “everything that is happening to him (Imran), meaning assassination attempts, cases, investigations, arrests, etc.

He has accused him of promoting anarchy. He has accused him of being “petrified” thinking that he (Imran) might de-notify him upon becoming prime minister again.

Most egregiously, Imran has now accused the army chief of masterminding the shocking attack and burning of the house of the Lahore Corps commander so that Imran’s party could be banned.

This is serious stuff. Very serious. Imran is used to abusing (literally and figuratively) those he finds obstructing his path to power or self-aggrandizement. But this is not about abuse. This is defining the army chief as the architect and beneficiary of Pakistan's modern history’s worst chaos.

But exactly why Imran is doing this? First because as the political situation comes to a boiling point and his supporting judges in the Supreme Court look set to slap the prime minister with contempt notices for failing to comply with court orders of facilitating the holding of elections in the Punjab, he thinks the army chief is likely to play the role of an arbiter. It is useful to put the arbiter on the defensive and warn him not to arbiter against Imran’s interests.

This is Imran’s pet move. He has used this against judges, journalists, bureaucrats, chief election commissioner, and even against US president Joe Biden whose refusal to give him a call provoked unrelenting whining from him that culminated in his fanciful, and now abandoned, fiction of Washington being the main culprit that bankrolled his ouster from power.

Second, Imran has a history with this army chief who as the head of the ISI told him about his wife’s financial shenanigans (ironically, Imran himself had asked him to keep an eye on such matters) and was then removed from the post.

Third, General Asim Munir is a constant reminder to Imran of his lost paradise----what life could have been if his favorite General Faiz Hameed had become the chief. As prime minister, Imran’s utmost effort to install number four on the seniority list as the army chief were thwarted by the cunning of the then army chief Bajwa, whose putrid Machiavellianism drove him to stab everyone in the back and attempt to get his own man to succeed him, which he couldn’t.

The story of how General Asim Munir, number 1 on the seniority list, became the army chief is Imran’s elegy of the botched up opportunity to stay in power by using his nexus with the now retired Gen Faiz---his protector, benefactor, promoter, defender. Imran can’t imagine a political life in power without “his own man” as the army chief. While he accuses the chief of being “petrified”, Imran himself is deeply troubled by the thought of having to deal with someone, who like Biden, has not taken his call for talks and negotiations.

Therefore, for Imran, it is important to drag the COAS into damning controversies and create, among other things, a “command issue” for him. By singling out the army chief he is targeting the center of the army’s power gravity. Given the divisive environment that prevails in the country, Imran aims to get some traction for his move within the institution.

There is no evidence to suggest that Imran’s vicious vitriol is getting him space for negotiations with the army chief. In fact, the more he uses the lash of his tongue as a bargaining counter the more he ties himself in knots in the power game with the army.

His latest salvo is destructive of whatever little hope there was of a negotiated settlement of issues with the Establishment. You do not accuse the head of any institution (much less a fighting institution) of conspiring against his own men and think that there will be no response to the charge.

There is endless evidence to suggest that violence, arson, and destruction of state symbols, including statues of martyrs, involved PTI workers. Audios of leaders speak of directed planning. Imran’s own videos contain threats of “national reaction,” “civil war” and “Pakistan becoming Sri Lanka.” Imran by creating a new regime of accusations might be able to steal headlines for a while, but this does not get him off the piercing hook upon which he has decided to dangle himself and his party. For him after this, the deluge.