O Lord Trump, save a call for Kaan

But these days something else is warming Imran’s heart with anticipation, confidence and hope: the prospect of Donald Trump winning in the US.

Imran Khan is a privileged convict. He eats what he wants; does his work-outs at will with equipment of his choice; and meets whoever he desires. He sits behind bars and sees justices in courts offer him concessions that are unavailable to all ther prisoners. That explains Rs 3.5 million worth of food bill for his first six months incarceration. His meeting menu is no less rich: 976 visits by 65 persons in 180 days.

His other privileges include regular interaction with a handful of journalists who show up at his case/court appearances to then faithfully report his hyperbole and conspiracy theories without fuss. Add to this the fact that his party can now line-up — through heavily-funded lobbying — committee hearings where clueless congressmen rattle off spoon-fed queries to State Department officials about “Mr Kaan” and his “situation” and you have the case of a unique inmate, who acts as if he were sitting in his own layer, commanding attention, sending out directives, boiling up the propaganda pot.

They say this is the least he deserves. He is after all a former prime minister of Pakistan and very popular. But so were Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. One was hanged. The other was made to suffer personal pain in a death cell and exiled three times.

Part of the reason Imran gets VIP treatment is that the system that he once ruled with his uniformed allies, Gens Raheel, Bajwa and Faiz, still has his hangover. The other reason is that his party has done well at the polls, opening up the theoretical possibility of him returning to power some day.

But these days something else is warming Imran’s heart with anticipation, confidence and hope: the prospect of Donald Trump winning in the US. Is this mere mirage? Helpful hallicinations to pass time? A realistic possibility?

He certainly thinks the last of three is true. That explains his remark reported by the PTI-embedded press that he could spend another six to eight months in jail because after that this government would collapse.

Obviously, the “government-collapsing” and him coming out of the jar scenario isnt pegged onto hard-nosed analysis of national political trends. Imran’s record of reading the writing on domestic political wall is poor. For instance, when his allies were leaving him, he thought there was nothing to worry about. When he was being voted out, he said he had a bag full of surprises for his opponents. When he was out in the cold, he thought the cypher fiction would save his skin. When caught from the court and taken into custody, he thought the mob would come to his rescue. When he was in custody, he said they couldn’t keep him there. When he was jailed he said he won't be convicted. When he got long sentences, he said that a PTI victory in elections would turn the key and open the door for him. None of what he thought has came true. Though privileged, he is still in prison. Somehow he always misses the elephant in the room.

But he thinks he could ride the Republican Elephant if it walked into Washington D.C. with Donald Trump as mahout. Imran’s self-rescue plan now is to plead his case to the Republicans. The remarkable uptick in PTI US activities is illustrative of this strategy.

His party members have held demos, ran public campaigns, and have lobbied congressmen and senators like never before. The messages that they are sending out have a common thread: “release Imran”. In their generals-bashing, human rights violations drum-beating, elections-stolen mantra, one aim stands out: the Republicans should be favourably conditioned to the “Kaan case”.

So the Donald Lu sub committee hearing wasn’t meant to get condemnation of the alleged electoral fraud from the Biden Administration but to get the funded-congressmen parrot the theme that Kaan is not a national gift-selling con artist but a prisoner of conscience.

Imran and his lobbyists understand perfectly well that the Biden Administration (consumed by its own problems) has no time for them. Even it had time for them, this would not have been spent campaigning for Kaan’s release. Imran hates Biden more than Biden ignores him. Imran’s bean-stalk ego was hurt when as prime minister he kept waiting for president Biden’s call and the phone never rang. Later the loudness of attack in his cockamamie story of the US conspiracy to oust him was driven by his devastated narcissism. How could he (doddering old Joe) not call me, the Exceptional Kaan?

His lobbyists including his ex in-laws, the Goldsmiths, think that his bad ties with Biden are now his biggest asset to cultivate Trump, the only one who surpasses Imran in hating Biden and loving himself. Given the fractured and riven nature of American politics, anyone who is against Biden is an obvious Trump pet. So a six to eight month long investment in building the narrative that Kaan was wronged by the likes of Donald Lu at Biden’s behest is to throw a rescue rope to Imran. (See and hear jeers and boos of a planted audience when Donald Lou was speaking and coos of ecstasy when Pfluger, McCaul, Sherman and others were asking planted questions).

Also, Imran’s lobbyists think that he hit it off really well with Trump and swept his wife off her feet. Those choreographing his US campaign therefore believe that the current army leadership led by General Asim Munir would be forced to open the jail gates if only Trump could be convinced that Imran is his great buddy and best bet in Pakistan. This is why Imran is willing to wait as many months in jail as are left to the American Presidential polls, November 5.

His lobbyists will fund, favour, fawn at anyone who could get their ‘Kaan the victim” story told repeatedly at every forum. Of course who better than to paddle the story than Israel-loving, Palestinian-hating, Gaza-genocide justifying twerps like Brad Sherman.

Old hands at marketing trash. Now you understand why the PTI opposed, to the shock of everyone, the Gaza resolution in the National Assembly.

https://youtu.be/4O58NamaIIQ?si=5Jp3q5G40YtgLvVs

They did not want to annoy the frontmen of Israel in the US who, a week later, were to plead Imran’s case in the sub-committee of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs in room 2172. As they say, nothing happens without a reason.