By Shazia Anwer Cheema
The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC and this Think Tank is considered one of the informal architects of the future foreign policy of the Department of State of the United States. It has had a very important role in the past in US-led wars either in finding reasons or reviewing the reasons for justification of American adventurism.
Without announcing directly, it promotes US concepts of the greater good, enduring freedoms, favoring democracy, the rule of law, the supremacy of the constitution, freedom of expression, and global democracy, therefore it keeps an eye on a country where “rulers are not treating their pubic well enough”. It had been keeping an eye on during the recent past over Iraq, Iran, and the former rulers of Ukraine. Nowadays, China is under its focus.
I believe the rise of Imran Khan is directly or indirectly linked with the CPEC project. PTI can call it a “conspiracy theory” but it does not look unfounded
In one of the articles published on May 26, 2023, at Brookings Institution, titled “Pakistan’s always-troubled democracy is on the brink once again” the writer urged “Pakistan’s international friends to help Pakistani leaders reach an agreement on a roadmap for achieving this objective”.
The writer is of the view that the Biden administration, should stand in favor of democracy in Pakistan, the rule of law, and the supremacy of its constitution, all of which, according to the author, are currently under threat.
Writer also urged that the Biden administration “should explicitly speak up against violations of the rule of law and the country’s constitution — especially against the idea that civilians may be tried in military courts in the country — and in support of free, fair, and on-time elections in Pakistan this year”.
One can find such material at several places produced by US important think tanks and media outlets that have a long history of working very closely with the Department of State. The exceptionally proactive role of neocon Zalmay Khalilzad in favor of former prime minister Imran Khan can also include in such material available in social media or in electronic journalism.
Interestingly, a number of foreigners whose services were hired by the establishment in the past for certain assignments are now standing with Imran Khan and the majority of them are from the United States, United Kingdom, Türkiye, and Canada.
One can ask how could US bureaucracy be supportive of Imran Khan, who in the past leveled charges that the US was behind his removal from power although he was voted out from the National Assembly of Pakistan through a vote of no-confidence against him. Khan after launching a public campaign against the US over the cipher fiasco withdrew all charges against the United States and then started accusing Pakistan’s military for his removal.
Answering this question is not difficult indeed by referring to US linguist Noam Chomsky who believes that “anti-Americanism” is a term of propaganda intended to stifle and shut down debate on any meaningful issues. This is what Imran did in the year 2022 and almost all right-wing parties had been doing this in Pakistan for a long. Having huge funding from the United States for Afghan Jihad, even Jamaat-i-Islami, and JUI had been leveling charges against the United States for materializing anti-American sentiments into vote power.
Khan’s protests halted the country successfully, causing a delay in the launching of CPEC till 2015 when the project was hurled without any huge ceremony that was earlier planned, and the Chinese President was scheduled to join the ceremony
Interestingly, Imran Khan had a wonderful relationship with President Donald Trump and he called his visit to America and his meeting with President Trump “one of the biggest successes” of his life. After coming into power in 2018, Imran Khan brought several US citizens to Pakistan and placed them in strategic positions like Governor and Deputy Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan and even as National Security Advisor (or what is also called PM Advisor on national security). He also placed a retired Lt. General of the Pakistan Army as the Chairman of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority whose whole family (if he is not) including his brothers, children, and wife are American citizens and run pizza and food business worth millions of dollars in the United States.
CPEC had virtually been halted during Imran’s tenure as Prime Minister and his key federal ministers had been accusing Chinese firms of corruption in CPEC projects. Moreover, 12 members of his federal cabinet were US citizens and 16 cabinet members of provincial cabinets of KPK and Punjab of PTI rule were US citizens. Under all these circumstances he in March 2022 blamed the US to maneuver his departure from PM Office this phase did not last for long and he shifted his stance in November 2022 and said he had no issue with the United States and actually the Pakistani military conspired against him although his fellow party leaders and pro-PTI media had been accusing the US, calling Washington planed “Regime Change”. Therefore, he used genetic ‘anti-Americanism’ and tried to earn the title of Che Guevara of Pakistan and his popular slogan “Absolutely Not” to the United States became his major tool for political publicity. Now he has hired two US lobbying firms and several US politicians are releasing statements in his favor. In May 2023, his audio leak appeared on social media in which he was requesting a US congresswoman to lobby for him and use her contacts to close down cases of corruption he is facing in his home country.
Interestingly, a number of foreigners whose services were hired by the establishment in the past for certain assignments are now standing with Imran Khan and the majority of them are from the United States, United Kingdom, Türkiye, and Canada.
If someone browses reporting style of Western media during the year 2014 campaign of Imran Khan against the then PMLN government, one can find glaring support for Imran Khan in foreign media credible foreign media was reporting as “An estimated 50,000 protesters, led by an opposition politician and a Canada-based cleric, had been holding demonstrations in Islamabad”, although local media sitting in Islamabad knew that the number of protesters during all 126-days of a sit-in outside parliament never went beyond the figure of three to five thousand a day. Foreign media has more resources and competency than local Pakistani media but reporting style by foreign media was evidently one-sided during the four-month-long sit-in.
Nobody in foreign media talked about the fact that the allegations of election rigging and electoral reforms were only a red herring and what prompted Imran Khan to make a sudden volte-face was the launching of CPEC that triggered everything against the government that launched the CPEC project as the flagship project of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Khan’s protests halted the country successfully, causing a delay in the launching of CPEC till 2015 when the project was hurled without any huge ceremony that was earlier planned, and the Chinese President was scheduled to join the ceremony.
I believe the rise of Imran Khan is directly or indirectly linked with the CPEC project. PTI can call it a “conspiracy theory” but it does not look unfounded. On 18 February 2013, Pakistan awarded a contract for the construction and operation of Gwadar Port to a Chinese state-owned enterprise and everybody knew that it was the first step to link China with the hot waters of Indo-pacific through the already available Karakoram Highway (KKH). In May 2013, the general elections were held in Pakistan and PTI successfully bagged seats to get the government in KPK province which is the main artery linking KKH to Gwadar Port. PTI which never got more than eight seats in the National Assembly in the past suddenly rose as the third largest party by bagging 35 National Assembly seats and completely wiped out Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Now it became one of the main stakeholders of Pakistan’s political system and just a year after it tried to halt the CPEC project but failed to do so. However, after getting power in KPK, Punjab, and the Centre after the 2018 general elections, CPEC became the news of the past for the next 42 months.
This theory is so sensitive that even the establishment does not encourage this discussion because everybody knows that the military establishment was behind the launch of Imran Khan. Therefore, halting CPEC and placing a retired general whose all business interests are in the United States could be linked with Pakistan Army and that is the reason everybody is shy to talk about this. PMLN sources claimed in 2014 September the government of Pakistan contacted the Canadian embassy in Islamabad complaining that Dr. Tahirul Qadari who is a Canadian citizen was involved in destabilizing Pakistan and demanded the Canadian government to take an action against its citizen for harming the state of Pakistan. According to sources, the Canadian embassy refused to intervene and regretted taking any action against its citizen. Sources said that the response of the Canadian embassy was shocking for the then Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif but he could not do anything.
Whether Imran Khan works for foreign powers or not is a debatable allegation but one thing is clear western media and think tanks are mostly favouring him since he successfully halted CPEC in 2014. Interestingly around 16 of his followers who had been arrested for attacking military-related buildings on May 9 are dual-nationals having citizenship of Western countries.
Note: Writer Shazia Anwer Cheema is an author, columnist, and foreign affairs expert who writes for national and international media. She is a doctoral student and researcher in semiotics and philosophy of communication at Charles University in Prague. She can be reached at her: Twitter @ShaziaAnwerCh Email: shaziaanwer@yahoo.com
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this article/Opinion/Comment are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk (DND). Assumptions made within the analysis are not reflective of the position of the DND Thought Center and Dispatch News Desk News Agency.
