Islamabad, Pakistan: Nowadays an interview with former Prime Minister Imran Khan is very much in the news in that interview he revealed that he dissolved assemblies of the province of Punjab and KPK on the advice (or ill-advice) of former COAS Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa though General retired in November 2022 and Khan followed his advice in January 2023. This claim is not as dangerous as one point that almost everybody is missing but was shared by Imran Khan and that was his claim that he learned from a Middle Eastern leader that the then army chief (Gen. Bajwa) had turned against him, adding that he had begun lobbying in the United States against his party. Â
This is a very dangerous claim and this claim would be taken very seriously in Gulf as well as in Middle Eastern-friendly countries. Now Imran Khan can claim that this friend was Mr. A of UAE or Mr. B of Saudi Arabia or Mr. C of Qatar or Mr. D of Egypt or Mr. E of Turkey (because Khan does not have good knowledge of geography ref Japan-Germany sharing the same borders) so for him Turkey can also be in the Middle East. Now everybody from almost every royal family of the Gulf and the middle east who met even once with Imran Khan could be disturbed and worried that a habitual liar can utter his or her name. What an excellent move of Imran Khan indeed. He is now in a position to blackmail any of the important leaders of the Gulf and Middle East.
The 42-month tenure of Imran would be remembered for ruining Pakistan’s foreign relations all over the world. His habit of sitting by putting one leg on the other while meeting foreign heads of state had been in diplomatic circles and he sacked one of his ambassadors who once suggested Imran should handle a decent posture while meeting with royal families as a basic rule of decency and diplomatic conduct. Only one head of state paid him in the same coin and that was Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte who put also his leg on the other leg and sat in the same posture Imran Khan was sitting.
Khan’s style of meeting had a trickled-down effect and his foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi used to also meet foreign dignitaries in the same posture his boss Imran Khan used to meet guests.
Since Imran Khan was raised by his engineers as larger than the state and bigger than anybody therefore the state institutions never responded whenever asked why did PM (the then) Khan sit in a diplomatically derogatory posture. Since the foreign minister was using the same posture therefore there was no question for any decent advice could come from the Foreign office or a fragile former foreign secretary.
His reaction to a letter from EU countries in reference to the Ukraine war and Khan’s comments on this letter in a public meeting and the US cipher fiasco had also been in foreign media along with his last-minute withdrawal from the Malaysian-hosted forum of Muslim countries. He had an edge that was his COAS Gen Bajwa because he had a duty to mend problems with foreign countries created by Imran Khan now Khan is putting responsibility for almost every ill he did to Gen Bajwa and his latest interview is the last example of his game of throne he is playing against the former head of Pakistan’s military.
