Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan has been ousted througha no-confidence motion, he had been claiming that his ouster was entirely aby-product of foreign interference, primarily an orchestrated regime changeoperation intitiated by the US against the PTI-led government in Pakistan.
The former PM and PTI Chairman’s claims have been constantly negated by theUS. However, John Bolton a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations andformer White House national security adviser on Tuesday, indirectlyconfirmed the allegations leveled by Imran Khan by revealing that he hadhelped plan attempted coups in foreign countries.
According the the details, Bolton made the remarks to CNN after the day’scongressional hearing into the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Thepanel’s lawmakers on Tuesday accused former President Donald Trump ofinciting the violence in a last-ditch bid to remain in power after losingthe 2020 election.
Speaking to CNN anchor Jake Tapper, however, Bolton suggested Trump was notcompetent enough to pull off a “carefully planned coup d’etat,” lateradding: “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here but youknow (in) other places – it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he(Trump) did.”
Tapper asked Bolton which attempts he was referring to.
“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” Bolton said, before mentioningVenezuela. “It turned out not to be successful. Not that we had all thatmuch to do with it but I saw what it took for an opposition to try andoverturn an illegally elected president and they failed,” he said.
In 2019, Bolton as national security adviser publicly supported Venezuelanopposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his effort tooust socialist President Nicolas Maduro, arguing that Maduro’s re-electionwas illegitimate. Ultimately Maduro remained in power.
“I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me (beyond Venezuela),”the CNN anchor said, prompting a reply from Bolton: “I’m sure there is.”
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Many foreign policy experts have over the years criticized Washington’shistory of interventions in other countries, from its role in the 1953overthrowing of then Iranian nationalist prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeghand the Vietnam war, to its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan this century.
But it is highly unusual for U.S. officials to openly acknowledge theirrole in stoking unrest in foreign countries.
“John Bolton, who’s served in highest positions in the U.S. government,including UN ambassador, casually boasting about he’s helped plan coups inother countries,” Dickens Olewe, a BBC journalist from Kenya, wrote onTwitter.
It is pertinent to note that earlier this month, former PM Imran Khanstated that the United States (US) backed regime change because it wantedto have military bases in Pakistan and use the country once again to meetits foreign policy objectives in the region and beyond.
The former premier said that the US once again wants to have bases inPakistan and use the country against Russia, saying the issue was going onbetween the US and Russia but Pakistan can’t import cheap oil and gas fromRussia; a condition that doesn’t apply to India.
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