A foreign policy independent of America is difficult for countries wherethe elite have parked their progeny in the United States. In Pakistan, thiselite will gouge out Imran Khan’s eyes if his anti-Americanism persists.This elite is influential, but numerically small. Imran has decided toignore this coterie and tap directly into people’s anger against decades ofIslamophobia, particularly since the 9/11 wars.
He has a role model in Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erodgan, who blocked Americantroops from passing through Turkey for Iraq’s occupation in 2003.Anti-Americanism, simmering since the televised brutalities of the Bosnianwar, flared up and Mr Erdogan’s rise became unstoppable. It wasn’t a meagrefeat. His popular ratings surpassed the founder of the Turkish state,Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Army, the guarantor of the secular Ataturkconstitution, was with steady strokes undermined by people’s power. Today,Turkey is just like any other Muslim country.
Anti-Americanism is a sure-fire electoral trick in a Muslim country thatnurses a deep grievance against the US. Pakistan was yoked by the US intothe Afghan war, where it lost 80,000 lives.
Did the winds from Ukraine fan the flames in Islamabad? That a regimechange was instigated by America is Imran Khan’s chosen narrative. Does thepredicament in which Imran finds himself have something to do with hisofficial two-day Moscow visit starting February 24, the day the Russiansinvaded Ukraine. The high-stakes game the Americans were leading the Westinto made it important for them to prove that Imran was on the wrong sideof history.
The message was simple: Imran must wrench away from the Chinese-Russianembrace. This embrace impedes the world order being sketched and any USmove in Afghanistan. It was galling for the US that the Kazakh adventurefailed in January, ironically, as Russia intervened. It is a crueladmission to make, but this war isn’t about Ukraine. Sadly, Ukrainian bloodhas been purchased with Western treasure — in cash and arms. The amazingmedia management has been breath-taking — bringing Volodymyr Zelenskyy liveto every European Parliament, nay, even at the Grammy awards.
Some of the West’s war aims are straightforward: to retain Anglo-Americandominance in the world order; preserve Nato’s centrality to this order;keep Russia in focus as a weakened pariah in Ukraine for as long aspossible. The West is having kittens as China and Russia have declaredtheir friendship “has no limits”. They have to be separated; that isAmerican policy.
This mindset was on display even as Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullahpersuaded the Americans to end what was an existential threat to the Houseof Saud and Israel, namely Iran. To target Iran, the “Shia arc” — Syria,Hezbollah, Hamas — had to be dismantled. That is how the Syrian expeditionbegan. “Get out of the way, Assad” secretary of state Hillary Clinton wavedher hand imperiously. Has Assad gone? Does the US have a status of forcesagreement with Iraq after the Stars and Stripes were “cased” on December31, 2011? The ignominious Afghan exit in August won’t be forgotten in ahurry. This after 20 years of occupation. So, it’s do or die in Ukraine.
Is Liz Truss, UK’s foreign secretary, cheerleader for “democracy againstautocracy”, pleased with the election results in Hungary and Serbia, inUkraine’s neighbourhood? Viktor Orban and Aleksandar Vucic are bothself-proclaimed “illiberals”. The spectre of Marine Le Pen haunts France.At the other end of the world, a real-life theatre of the absurd producedand directed by the US and Britain is being played out. In a moment ofpique bordering on desperation, Washington, unable to set aside or digestVenezuela’s duly elected President Nicolas Maduro, floated a parallelpresidency and picked 38-year-old Juan Guaido as President. Besides the USand UK, no European country is part of this sideshow.
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Evo Morales, the first indigenous, left-wing, anti-World Bank BolivianPresident, was replaced by an ideological lookalike, Luis Arce. Was thesuccess of 35-year-old socialist Gabriel Boric in Chile an improvement onmilitary dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom the CIA installed after killingthe popular Salvador Allende, a friend of one of the world’s greatestpoets, Pablo Neruda?
Colombia, nursed by the US as its pocket borough for decades, has come outof its suffocation. In irreversible lead is another socialist, a formerguerrilla leader, Gustavo Petro. Peru’s President Pedro Castillo is calleda far-left socialist. Is all this a march of democracy or autocracy? Abattle royale is due in Brazil in October, where Lula da Silva will take onJair Bolsonaro, known for ignoring the Covid-19 pandemic, burning theAmazon patch by patch and being chief guest at India’s Republic Day in2020. One commends to Ms Truss the thought that she sees Edge of Democracy,a masterly documentary on how Lula, the country’s most popular politicianever, was dethroned by global corporate intrigue.
How do the votaries of democracy in this format approach developments inPakistan? The principal charge against Imran Khan was that he mismanagedthe economy, his team selection was poor and he is self-righteous andarrogant. Those arrayed against him have proven cases of corruption againstthem.
Obviously, these groups, with a possible signal from the Army, leavenedtheir numbers with defectors, and asked for a vote of no-confidence. ImranKhan showed, on a selective basis, minutes of a conversation betweenPakistan’s ambassador to Washington and Donald Lu, US assistant secretaryof state for South Asia, which seems to suggest the US wants Pakistan tofall in line “or else”. Will this revelation eventually help Imran, or isit an albatross around his neck, given the hostile elite?
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