None of the issues Imran invested heavily in was able to attain either the stated strategic objective or establish Khan’s credentials as a ‘naya leader’ of a ‘naya Pakistan’.
New Delhi: An increase in anti-India actions emanating from the Prime Minister›s Office at Red Zone of Islamabad, engaging of at least 10 lobbying firms in the United States to support Pakistan›s narrative at the Hill and at the global level, investing massively to turn Kashmir into an international issue, bringing a specialist security advisor, and trying to establish himself as the leader of the Ummah, were few prominent issues that Imran Khan invested in after coming to power in August 2018 as part of his foreign policy strengthening measures and keeping the radical domestic groups on his side.
None of these issues, however, were able to attain either the stated strategic objective or establish Khan’s credential as a “naya leader” of a “naya Pakistan”. In his roughly 43-month tenure as the PM of Pakistan, Khan invested millions of dollars to engage at least 10 lobbying firms to create a pro-Pakistan narrative in the US alone. This was done even as the country was going through a massive financial crisis and surviving on loans from the International Monetary Fund, China and Saudi Arabia. When Khan came to power, one dollar could be bought for Rs 120 Pakistan rupee, last week it was Rs 185 Pakistan rupee, indicating the state of the economy in the simplest of terms. The corresponding increase in India was Rs 6, in Bangladesh, it was BDT 6 (from BDT 82 in August 2018 to BDT 87 today). The inflation rate was 3.93%, and now it is touching 13%. From September 2018 to the end of February 2022, Imran Khan›s government on average added Rs 14.2 billion per day to public debt. The total public debt increased by 73% from September 2018 to February 2022 which indicates a whopping 20.3% average increase each year. No other South Asian country has engaged so many lobbying firms as Pakistan under Khan did.
Yet, no positive outcome could be achieved by Khan with the Joe Biden government literally turning him into a pariah as he indicated by not talking to him even once after assuming the presidency of the state in January 2021, something that Khan rued till the last day of his office. Khan’s effort to assume the role of guardian of Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power, too, failed to materialize as the Haqqanis refused to govern their foreign policies as per the directions that were shared to it by Pakistan.
Taliban has so far refused to give any anti-India statements despite being pressurised by Khan with Taliban leaders telling The Sunday Guardian, on and off the record, that they will not follow Pakistan’s diktat of speaking out against India with whom they have no clash. In fact, Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s representative to the UN, told The Sunday Guardian that they had no interest in Kashmir.
DOMESTIC STRATEGIC FAILURES
Khan, in order to infuse a more modern way of managing strategic matters, especially related to India, recruited Moeed Yusuf as his security advisor. Yusuf, who had an impressive CV that includes studying and teaching in the US, was the country’s eighth security advisor in its 75-year-long history, but the first political appointee. Before him, all the rest seven were government officials, with five of them belonging to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. Yusuf’s appointment as the NSA took 20 months as first he was introduced to the system as a chairperson of Pakistan’s strategic policy planning cell in September 2019 before gradually being made the NSA in May 2021.
However, it was under his watch that TTP spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan escaped from an ISI safe house in January 2020 after being arrested by the Pakistan army in March 2017. Ehsan’s escape which led to action being taken against at least 10 Pakistan army officials caused a massive dent to ISI and GHQ Rawalpindi’s global image as Ehsan was portrayed by these two organizations as someone who was working on the aid and advice of Indian intelligence agencies. After escaping, Ehsan, over a period of time, has continued to reveal, despite being hunted by ISI desperately, many details of the ISI and GHQ that shows how these two agencies work in tandem with terrorist organizations active in the region. It was under Khan›s and Yusuf›s tenure that the chief of Jaish-e-Mohhamad was designated as a global terrorist despite Pakistan using all resources at its disposal to stop this from happening.
Khan, Yusuf and the GHQ, which had promised fool-proof security to the visitors, also faced global embarrassment after an international cricket team, New Zealand, chose to abandon its tour without playing a ball after multiple international security agencies confirmed of an imminent suicide attack on the touring cricketers by terrorists of Islamic State (Deash).
It was under Yusuf›s tenure that the resource-starved Pakistan increased its focus on making Kashmir an international issue by taking multiple steps, that included “celebrating” the 18-year-old yearly exercise of “Kashmir Solidarity Day (KSD)” in a much bigger way than earlier by involving even its embassies across the world. However, despite its best efforts, KSD failed to make traction not just outside Pakistan, but even inside the country with locals refusing to take part in these “celebrations” even as they battled rising inflation and corruption. Documents accessed by The Sunday Guardian earlier revealed similar observations by GHQ that stated that KSD had failed in its objectives, something that was also confirmed by other international relevant agencies.
In mid-2020, Indian intelligence agencies unearthed a plan that had the backing of Moeed Yusuf apart from ISI which was to create a false bogey of The Resistance Front (TRF), which was being pushed as a new terror group composed of Indian nationals, which was planning to carry out a spectacular attack, akin to the 2019 Pulwama attack, on Indian soil. Khan was directly involved in strengthening this narrative and used his Twitter account to talk about a “false flag” operation in India.
Imran Khan shared at least six tweets in that period stating that “false flag operations” will be carried out by agencies in India for which the blame will be shifted to Pakistan. This series of tweets, were, however, a part of the pre-emptive steps that were being taken by Khan to absolve Pakistan from a terror strike that the Yusuf and ISI had been planning for a long time against India. It is in the same context, a false bogey of TRF, which, in reality, was nothing but a new name for Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) terrorists, was raised.
This was done so that when “this” big strike takes place, then it will be “claimed” by TRF giving a clean chit to Lashkar and HM. Secondly, once India says that the plotting of the terror strike took place in Pakistan, then Pakistan will say to the world that no less than their country’s PM had predicted that India will blame Pakistan for a terror attack in the near future.
In November 2020, ISI released a “dossier” detailing the anti-Pakistan activities that were being carried out by India; this was again a “novel” idea that was the brainchild of Yusuf.
However, it did more harm to him and the country’s image as the “facts” listed in the dossier found virtually no takers. The dossier was full of comical errors and looked more like a project report of a college student than professionally compiled details by a “well-regarded” spy agency. The so-called dossier jointly made public by the Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi and director-general of inter-services public relations (ISPR) Major General Babar Iftikhar contained tall claims, but had no evidence to support them and were full of errors. The dossier was prepared and released to coincide with the regime change in Washington and was distributed to the new Biden team by Pakistan supporting lobbyists in Washington so that anti-India sentiments can be generated.
It is pertinent to mention that Khan’s ascendancy to the throne was facilitated by both the army and the judiciary coming together. When the Supreme Court of Pakistan, in its judgment on the Panama Papers case, announced in April 2017 that it wanted a further investigation into the corruption allegations and ordered a 6-member Joint Investigation Team (JIT), that team also included an officer from the ISI and an officer from the Military Intelligence. The two officers who represented the ISI and the military in the JIT, Brig (retd) Muhammad Nauman Saeed (ISI) and Brig Kamran Khurshid (Army) were known for their anti-India stances and both were also a part of the committee that probed the “Dawn leak” case.
Imran Khan was brought into the picture by GHQ after the incumbent PM Nawaz Sharif became too close to India and refused to speak out against the death of terrorist Burhan Wani and continued to engage in friendly ties with Indian PM Narendra Modi and his messengers. Khan, on the other hand, was also supported by the radicals as he had been publicly speaking out against India and stated that he will do his best to make Pakistan an Islamic state while going to the extent of supporting Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws that mandate the death penalty for any “imputation, insinuation or innuendo” against the prophet Muhammad.
Khan replacing Sharif, as per former Pakistan’s ambassador to the US and well-known hand on Pakistan Hussain Haqqani, was a part of the civilian façade that the GHQ wanted to continue by putting in place a pliable “elected” government that follows the military’s dictates while ensuring that a genuinely popular civilian politician does not come to power who will not follow the foreign policy tailored by GHQ. Within one year of coming to power and even as he gave interviews to the US and UK-based media that he wanted friendly ties with India, Khan played a pivotal role in permitting an operation to disrupt the “Howdy Modi” rally in Texas in September 2019.
Pictures and other details showing how the Pakistan state machinery tried to stop people from attending the rally were accessed by The Sunday Guardian. Khan had released resources so that at least 22,000 locals could be assembled at the rally spot to stop supporters of Modi from reaching the stadium. All the main faces behind the protests were related to Imran Khan’s party, PTI, and they had got support from a major Muslim organization which is the sister concern of terror group Hizbul Mujahideen. One of the main organizations that exclusively became active to gather public support for this anti-Modi campaign, was the International Humanitarian Foundation, a group that is managed by a resident of Houston, but who is originally from Rawalpindi. It was this organization that played the role of the nodal agency to spread messages and coordinate about the September 22 protest at the NRG Stadium in Houston.
The website of the organization, as per the electronic footprints’ records that were accessed by The Sunday Guardian, became active in July last- early August this year. It is pertinent to mention that the announcement of the Howdy Modi event was made public in July this year. This means that this organization was brought into existence specifically with the purpose to disrupt the event. The individual behind the website and the Facebook page also runs a Twitter handle of the “Overseas affair of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)” and is a prominent PTI voice in Houston.
PTI leaders, along with Khalistani faces, met multiple times to raise funds for the anti-Modi protest. Among those who were present in the meeting was one Atif Khan who is the “President of PTI, Houston Chapter’. Later, his efforts to “successfully disrupt” the Howdy-Modi event came in for personal praise by Imran Khan who met him personally on 24 September.
INTERNATIONAL DISAPPOINTMENT
In October 2019, Pakistan PM Imran Khan has said that he will act as a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and for the same purpose he was in Tehran recently. However, Khan angered one of its staunchest allies, Saudi Arabia by questioning the standing of the leadership of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), dominated largely by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab states, for not doing “enough” on the issue of Kashmir.
The comment was met with fury in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia terminated its loan and oil supply to Pakistan. A concerned GHQ sent Army Chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa to Riyadh to repair ties. However, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman refused to give him an audience. The ties are yet to normalise. In October 2020, Khan, with his continued objective of emerging as the global leader of Islamic nations, declared that “Pakistan will take the lead in engaging with the leaders of the Muslim world to effectively counter the surge of Islamophobia in the western world. European countries have no understanding of our religious sensitivities and it is our responsibility to get them understood. However, he could not escape independent scrutiny over his silence on the situation in Xinjiang province where China has reportedly detained hundreds of thousands of Uyghur Muslims in “re-education camps”. In November 2020, Imran Khan’s foreign ministry, harried by multiple developments that included Israel establishing its diplomatic ties with UAE, Bahrain and Sudan started working secretly to ‘recalibrate’ its options vis-à-vis Israel. The same was seen by many experts as a “carrot” to the Biden government of seeking favours in return for this “deal”.
Some of the suggestions and actions, that was forwarded by the officials at foreign affairs to the leadership of Pakistan, included not raising the Palestine issue vociferously and regularly, especially on international forums, exploring discrete ways of maintaining contact with Israel and not criticizing the effort being made by Israel to improve relations with Arab countries. The Pakistani officials, in their communication, emphasized that these moves should be done very quietly and gradually as it has the potential to “undermine” the Kashmir cause, impact Pakistan’s relations with Iran and create a negative public perception about the government in Pakistan if these developments come out in the public domain. However, these efforts were derailed with the details of coming out in the open.
SPLURGING ON LOBBYISTS
BLJ Worldwide was among the lobbying firms engaged by Khan to push his narrative in Washington. It was earlier engaged by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Syrian leader Bashar-Al-Assad, and an Iran-based political group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq, whose stated aim is to overthrow the government of Iran. BLJ is also the advisor to the Chinese embassy in the US.
BLJ had carried out a four-month extensive campaign in 2010 by recruiting journalists, bloggers, high profile public figures to dent the bid of the US and Australia on behalf of Qatar for the 2022 FIFA world cup. The method used by the firm was to use middlemen to approach journalists, and bloggers and plant negative reports to hurt the bids by rival countries in exchange of a “fee”.
Apart from BLJ, Khan also engaged the Houston-based Linden government solutions which had earlier provided services to the Libyan National Army. Khan also engaged Washington-based Holland and Knight LLP, while paying it $88500 (1.42 crore PKR) per month excluding expenses apart from $10,62,000 (17 crore PKR) as a one-time fee. Two more lobbying groups—Kashmir Action Network (KAN) and Chinar Consulting, both based in Washington—were engaged by Khan with a specific focus to create an anti-India image on the issue of Kashmir. Both of these groups are owned by Germany born U.S national Carin Fischer whose full name is Carin Jodha Fischer. Fischer had come to Kashmir in 2006 as a tourist, till she was asked to leave by the Indian government in June 2016. Then, Khan joined hands with Grenier Consulting to help the country enhance its relationship with those in power in Washington. Earlier, the country had engaged Fentoon/Arlook firm for the same purpose for which it was to pay them $25000 per month excluding the pocket expenses and travel expenses.
However, as fact showed, none of the stated objectives behind engaging these firms were achieved. In fact, Pakistan’s image deteriorated in the Hill with multiple bills being introduced in the senate seeking action against Pakistan for promoting terror.
“Stopping Pakistani Terror Act”, a bill introduced in the US Congress by US Congressman Scott Perry on 8 March 2022 seeks “designation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and for other purposes.” The bill was introduced by Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania, Scott Gordon Perry who joined politics after serving in the armed forces for 39 years and going on to become Brigadier General during which he commanded a battalion in Iraq.
On 9 March, Perry and two other members of Congress had written to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the Islamist ties of the newly appointed ambassador from Pakistan, Masood Khan who, in 2020, had called on the U.S. to release a terrorist convicted of trying to kill American troops.
In their letter, Congressmen Perry, Mary Miller, and Gregory Steube have asked Garland to investigate Masood Khan’s relationships with a number of terrorist groups in Pakistan which the lawmakers fear represent a threat to U.S. national security. The three pages letter contains multiple pieces of proof showing Khan’s links with terrorist groups including and Pakistan intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligences (ISI). Earlier on 27 January, Parry had sent a letter to the Biden Administration requesting the President to reject Khan’s diplomatic credentials “in light of Khan’s perverse attachment to Islamic terrorism”.
In September 2021, a group of 29 high-profile US senators had moved a bill in the US Senate seeking imposition of sanctions on the Afghan Taliban and Pakistan Khan despite marketing himself as a progressive leader, ensure that terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is in a prison in Pakistan for killing American journalist Daniel Pearl, was getting home-like facilities in Hyderabad central jail where he is incarcerated. This emerged after a two-judge bench of the Sindh High Court in December 2021, directed security agencies not to keep Sheikh and other accused under «any sort of detention» and declared all notifications of the Sindh government related to their detention as «null and void». The order to ensure that Sheikh continues getting home like an environment in the prison until he is freed, had come from the office of Brigadier Ijaz Ahmed Shah, who till recently was the interior minister in the Khan cabinet.