Imran Khan joins the long list of deposed prime ministers and underscores the reality that, in Pakistan, whoever the people elect, the U.S.-backed military is always in charge.
by Alan Macleod
Part 6 - A dangerous near miss
The Pakistani military is thought to possess around 165 nuclear warheads. The country’s nuclear status came into sharp relief just as the campaign to oust Khan was heating up.
While the world was concentrating on Ukraine, a potentially far more deadly incident occurred when India mistakenly fired a BrahMos cruise missile – the sort it uses to deliver its nuclear warheads – into Pakistan. In the course of routine maintenance, the rocket was accidentally launched. India did not immediately inform its neighbor of its mistake.
Faced with what seemed to be a nuclear attack, the Khan administration had no more than a few minutes to decide how to respond. One position was to launch Pakistan’s entire nuclear arsenal back at India – an action that could have spelled the end of organized human life worldwide. In the end, they decided to simply let themselves be hit. Fortunately, their bet that this was a terrible mistake proved correct, and the missile fell in a rural area of Punjab, killing no one.
Faced with what seemed to be a nuclear attack, the Khan administration had no more than a few minutes to decide how to respond. One position was to launch Pakistan’s entire nuclear arsenal back at India – an action that could have spelled the end of organized human life worldwide. In the end, they decided to simply let themselves be hit. Fortunately, their bet that this was a terrible mistake proved correct, and the missile fell in a rural area of Punjab, killing no one.
“If our air force had not picked it up well inside India, there could have been an accidental reaction to this accidental launch. Do people realize the implications and consequences of that? That is very serious,” said Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who, last week, was deposed along with Khan. “I am not trying to be dramatic about it but it is a realistic assessment… I am shocked that the media and the world have failed to feel this tremor,” he added.
Despite official U.S. denials, circumstantial evidence suggests that Washington might have had at least a guiding hand in the removal of Imran Khan from power. From its immediate endorsement of new Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, whose off-the-cuff comments more-or-less admitted its involvement, it appears that the U.S. at very least gave its tacit blessing to the move to topple Khan. He, therefore, joins the long list of deposed prime ministers and underscores the reality that, in Pakistan, whoever the people elect, the U.S.-backed military is always in charge.
Despite official U.S. denials, circumstantial evidence suggests that Washington might have had at least a guiding hand in the removal of Imran Khan from power. From its immediate endorsement of new Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, whose off-the-cuff comments more-or-less admitted its involvement, it appears that the U.S. at very least gave its tacit blessing to the move to topple Khan. He, therefore, joins the long list of deposed prime ministers and underscores the reality that, in Pakistan, whoever the people elect, the U.S.-backed military is always in charge.
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