File photo. Aamir Qureshi—AFP
Addressing a public rally on Sunday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said former president Asif Ali Zardari and former premier Nawaz Sharif fear a “strong and patriotic” Army chief who can hold them accountable for the “looted money” they have allegedly stashed abroad. He said a new Army chief would be appointed in November, and they [Zardari and Nawaz] jointly wanted to appoint a “favorite” of theirs as the next Chief of Army Staff. The military’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has condemned the statement, describing it as an effort to bring the Pakistan Army into disrepute.
Khan’s focus on the Army points to his “plan” to return to power. He is undoubtedly the most popular politician in the country and his appeal extends to the Army as well. (Retired servicemen organizations Veterans of Pakistan and the Pakistan Ex-Servicemen Society—both declared ‘unauthorized’ by the Defense Ministry—have welcomed his remarks!)
Why should Zardari and the Sharifs representing the two formerly big parties in the country want to choose a “bad” Army chief in November? According to Khan, this would allow Zardari and the Sharifs to continue with the Army’s policy of not siding with Khan under incumbent Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. The crux of the matter is that Khan wants the Army to break with the current policy of not opposing the United States, the country accused of instigating a “foreign conspiracy” by Khan to attract the general public in Pakistan. Unlike Army chiefs of the past, Gen. Bajwa has been advising Khan not to take on too many global and regional powers simply to keep the common man in Pakistan aligned to him. Such strategic wisdom, as shown by Gen. Bajwa, has been rare in Pakistan.
Ironically, greatness of leadership stems from isolationism, the ability to take a lonely and “morally” upright stand and set oneself apart from run-of-the-mill leaders. Khan, in his tenure, put off the Arab leaders in the Gulf by trying to stage his own Islamic summit in Malaysia. He put off Iran by staging a joint military exercise with Turkey in Azerbaijan knowing full well that Iranian troops were on the Azeri border fearing repercussions on its own Azeri minority. (Turkey’s President Erdogan, partnering Pakistan in the exercise in Azerbaijan, later made up with Iran, but not Khan.) The most important part of Khan’s worldview is anti-Americanism and he continues to think he was removed from power by America. The irony that works in Khan’s favor is that Pakistan has been an American ally in the region in the past even as its people hated America.
American journal Foreign Policy (Aug. 31, 2022) constructed a curious comparison between Imran Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the politician whom Khan most resembles in the magnetism he holds for the Pakistani common man: “Khan’s rhetoric also resembles that of another former Army protégé: the late prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who rose in the 1950s and 1960s during Gen. Ayub Khan’s tenure only to ultimately turn against the general. After five-and-a-half years of leading Pakistan, Bhutto was executed under the rule of Gen. Muhammad Ziaul Haq in 1979.” What is different this time around is Khan’s “ideological” appeal, as opposed to Bhutto’s “socialist” appeal, goes down well with the people. But the unusual dawn of “realism” within the establishment stands between the populism of Imran Khan and his ability to come to power.