Sensing Victory, Is Imran Khan Beginning To Backtrack On Some Of His Decisions?

Imran Khan, the self-proclaimed “cornered tiger,” is riding the crest of a wave of popular support. He’s exuding confidence since his vituperative accusations against the Pakistani military and the US administration have roused the Pakistani public like never before.

Ever since he was dismissed from office in April, he has accused General Bajwa and the army leadership for staying “neutral” in his dispute with the opposing parties that are currently in government. And he has accused the US of orchestrating the regime change which resulted in his dismissal from office in April.

In a recent interview, he regretted giving a second term to army chief General Bajwa. He was a year into his tenure as Prime Minister when he approved the extension citing “national security” as the reason.

For much of his tenure, Imran Khan would say that for the first time in history, the civilian government and the army were on the same page. Some three years into his term, the two men had a falling out.

The media is ripe with reasons for the falling out, much of it based on speculation. But what’s clear is that the relationship had totally soured by the time spring arrived. Imran Khan stigmatised the generals for being “neutrals” because they refused to intervene on his behalf when his coalition government began to fall apart.

In any democracy, the army is supposed to stay out of politics, take no sides between the political parties, i.e., stay neutral. If the army intrudes into the affairs of the civilian government, as has happened all too often in Pakistani history, it should be called out.

Strangely enough, when the army showed that it was abiding by the constitution and staying neutral, Imran Khan, the professed democrat, began to regret extending Bajwa’s term. One can assume that Bajwa was equally regretting his decision to support Imran Khan’s appointment as prime minister in 2018.

As for the US, he told a US correspondent during an interview that he intends to restore normal ties with the US when he is back in power. When asked how that would come about, since he had vilified the Biden administration by asserting that they orchestrated his removal from office, his response was that the US is a democracy and is used to taking criticism. That was the most facile response ever given to a serious question but it was typical of the man. He talks routinely from both sides of the mouth.

It’s worth recalling that he did not provide a shred of evidence to back up the claim other than to flash a blank piece of paper at a rally, saying it was a “cipher” from Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington detailing his conversations with a senior US official. Imran Khan is now genuinely worried that the Biden administration will not forgive him. He will have to beg and plead with them to even get Biden to call him, let alone invite him to Washington.

In his short tenure of 3.5 years as Prime Minister, he made more mistakes than most prime ministers do in their entire political career. Here are some of the key mistakes that one day he will have to regret.

1. Meeting with Putin on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. He says he went there to buy natural gas at a 30% discount. There is no evidence that such a deal was signed. When he was blamed globally, he said the trip was planned a long time ago. But why did not cancel it when it became clear that trouble was brewing or shortened it? He must wish he had.
2. While criticising the West for practicing Islamophobia, he refused to even admit, let alone criticise, China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims. He initially denied it, then said it was their internal matter, and finally said the two countries were “iron friends.” The episode showed that he had no moral character.
3. He claimed over and over again that, unlike prior rulers, he would not go around the Arab World with a begging bowl and then borrowed repeatedly from the Arab States. He went so far as to chauffeur the Saudi Crown Prince, the murderous tyrant, around Islamabad. He said that he would commit suicide rather than borrow a dime from the International Monetary Fund and then proceeded to borrow heavily. When his tenure ended, Pakistan’s external debt had gone up by 50%.
4. He said that he would recover $200 billion of looted wealth on Day 1 as Prime Minister. There’s no evidence that any money was recovered.
5. He claimed that he would create a New Pakistan that would combine the best elements of Swedish democracy, Chinese economic prosperity, and the first Islamic state in Medina. The idea was suffused with contradictions that rendered it infeasible. Having gotten a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, albeit in a third division, he must have known that such a Utopian was not feasible.
6. Continuing the Utopian theme, he claimed that no Pakistanis would go to the Gulf states to work. Instead, Arabs would start coming to Pakistan to work.
7. He appointed not one but four finance ministers in three years. Even then, the economy continued to perform poorly.
8. He launched a “long march” from Lahore to Islamabad hoping to force the government to set a date for an early election. Imran halted the march before getting to Islamabad. The end was anticlimactic! All it did was disrupt Pakistan’s economy, killed a journalist, and almost killed him.

In his three and a half years as prime minister, Imran Khan showed that he was nothing but a populist demagogue in the tradition of Donald Trump. If he returns to power, will he be any more successful in bringing economic progress and stability to the country than he was in his first term?

He will quickly find out that expectations will be even harder to meet because the millions he has hypnotised will expect nothing but an overnight miracle from him.

Pakistanis will regret bringing him back to power. They will come to only one conclusion, that his only talent when he was in office was to make grandiose promises, not to fulfil them; and that when he was out of office, it was to hold mass rallies.

He is destined to go down in history as the most duplicitous man who ever ruled the country.