Imran Khan is nothing if not a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he is wont to point out how Pakistan has paid a very dear price for supporting the American war on terror. Similarly, he likes to berate Washington for treating this country as nothing more than a hired gun. On both counts, the PTI chairman is not wrong.
\nBut anything beyond this narrative sees the former cricketer lose his footing. For there is one simple truth that Kaptaan has failed to grasp: backing the other side in the GWOT renders the country party to the conflict. Thereby invalidating the otherwise legitimate claim that this is not our war.
\nThus it is extremely troubling to see how the PTI and Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil are cosying up to each other. After all, the latter is a man who knows a thing or two about the Fourth Schedule; being the former chief of the globally proscribed Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM). This was outlawed by the US back in 2001. Pakistan followed suit the following year. And in 2014, the State Department included him on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). Khalil has long been accused of having ties to Al Qaeda. Today, he is part of the Army\u2019s militant mainstreaming project; under banner of political party Ansar-ul-Ummah (AuM).
\nYet it is Imran, the man, who, by all accounts, is poised to become Pakistan\u2019s next Prime Minister, that continues to play a most dangerous game. One that began in earnest when his party held Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last government; earmarking a budget of almost Rs600 million for the controversial madrassa run by \u201cFather of the Taliban\u201d Sami-ul-Haq. In return, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) is expected to support PTI at the ballot.
\nAll of which lends credence to Kaptaan\u2019s detractors who claim that he is batting on someone else\u2019s wicket. Not least because with less than a week to go before the vote \u2014 the PTI chairman is doing nothing to rid himself of his \u2018Taliban Khan\u2019 handle. Rather, he has once more returned to a favourite pet topic: how the Army is Pakistan\u2019s only functioning state institution. Of course, he does not go on to ponder the impact of interrupted democracy on the larger picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Imran Khan is nothing if not a man of contradictions. On the one hand, he is wont to point out how Pakistan has paid a very dear price for supporting the American war on terror. Similarly, he likes to berate Washington for treating this country as nothing more than a hired gun. On both counts, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorial"},"yoast_head":"\n