On 6 October 2016, PM Nawaz Sharif betrayed Pakistan through #DawnLeaks 🧵⬇️

Pakistan was facing threat of isolation from USA, India and Afghanistan.

On 4 October, during in-house-discussion,there were three presentations: 1st by DGMO, 2nd by NSA & 3rd Foreign Secretary.

1/16 Dawn published a story, supporting international isolation narrative of troika being spread by USA, Indian and Afghanistan.

“Act against militants or face international isolation,civilians tell military”

But before that on 29 September 2016, USA and India NSAs talked+

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My difference of opinion proved right when I read an article by S.M. Qureshi,who wrote,

Two years after hanging Bhutto,I was sent to meet Yasir Arafat to patch to see him. He told me that General Zia had promised while siting in Masjid e Haram that he wouldn’t hang Bhutto.

1/16 Zia said this in the presence of Shah Khalid. Later, he did not keep his words.

Here is a detailed account from page126-128 from book, ‘compulsions of power’
Biography of General Mirza Aslam Beg.

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As groups of mujahideen fought for control of Afghanistan in the 1990s, Benazir Bhutto's government made a decision to back the Afghan Taliban in its bid for power; she later admitted she and her government had made a mistake.

From book, #PakistanUnderSeige by @MadihaAfzal

1/8 Some members of the Pakistan Taliban became radicalized from their involvement in the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In 1989, Sufi Muhammad, who had fought in that jihad, formed the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-Shariat-Mohammadi (TNSM) to impose Sharia in Dir.

Bhutto's untimely death forced Musharraf to delay elections beyond 8 January 2008 to 18 February. Leaderless party of Bhutto faced a crisis in middle of the campaign. Zardari, who had remained in Dubai when his wife had travelled back to Pakistan for the campaign, suddenly

1/6 produced a handwritten document reportedly prepared by his wife naming him as the heir of the party command and control. A compliant PPP leadership team quickly accepted this evidence and his new role as the head of the party of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

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The transition to democracy following Zia's death raised hopes that Pakistan would enter a new era with the beginnings of a modern party system, the addressing of long-standing social inequalities and the ending of the centre-state problems which had beset the country.

1/6 The advent of Benazir Bhutto as Pakistan's youngest and first female Prime Minister also raised the possibility that gender inequalities would be addressed & Pakistan would move towards becoming a progressive and tolerant Muslim society. Such hopes were to be cruelly dashed.
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Foreigners were never quite sure what to make of Benazir. As a young woman, she was the object of global admiration, the whip-smart, eloquent daughter of a Pakistani prime minister. She went to Radcliffe & then Oxford, where she drove a sports car, was known as 'Pinky', and

1/12 entranced posh young Englishmen with her regal airs. In the 198os, she led a gutsy campaign against a brutal military dictator, General Zia ul Hag, who had overseen the execution of her father. Returning from exile, in 1986, the streets filled with fervent supporters clamouring

In a pattern which was to be repeated in 1990s, civilian politicians approached army to intervene against their detested opponents.

In 1972,during Sindhi language disturbance &again in 1973,army was approached by right-wing & Islamist groups calling on it to remove Bhutto.

1/5 The pressures for intervention were however much greater during the PNA agitation. The weakly institutionalized PPP lacked the coherence to counter them. As the protesters became increasingly violent, the police and FF struggled to contain them.

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Bhutto had threatened established interests & tantalized the masses with the glimpse of a more egalitarian society. But the impact of his reforms had been largely cosmetic. His land reforms, according to one estimate, had released just 1 % of cultivable land to the tenants.

1/5 Rather than destroy feudalism, Bhutto ultimately accommodated himself with the landed elite. Zia thus inherited a situation in which, as throughout Pakistan's history, a section of the landed class would be available to lend legitimacy to an authoritarian regime.

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Why did the civilian governments acquiesce in the military's economic activities? The main explanation is summed up by the comment from Nawaz Sharif's Finance Minister, Sirtaj Aziz: 'Had we begun to curb their financial interests, it would have had an immediate reaction from

1/4 the armed forces' 26 President Ishaq Khan expressed a similar sentiment to Elahi Buksh Soomro, Speaker of the National Assembly, likening the issue to a 'beehive' that should not be touched. Along with this realistic awareness of the asymmetrical power relations between the
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—Capturing the ISI

From behind the scenes, Zardari began exerting his power throush his compliant prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, and his own handpicked group of ministers, including Rehman Malik. Similar to Benazir Bhutto's attempted internal coup against the military

1/11 during her first term, when she appointed a retired general to head the ISI, Prime Minister Gilani attempted an administrative coup against the ISI on
26 July 2008. He did this by issuing a notification that placed both civilian IB & military's ISI under the Minister of Interior.

Like a Machiavellian prince, Bhutto tried to maximize power through adopting a dual approach of propagating populist measures and coercing other players.

The land reforms & nationalization of private business and industry aimed at cutting down the power of other classes and

1/8 Bhutto's own feudal class rather than transferring the control of land and other resources from the ruling elite to the masses.

In fact, his land reforms were as meaningless as those of Ayub Khan, because they were aimed at pressurizing his political opponents rather than

Mujib assumed power in Bangladesh as President, then Prime Minister, & then again President until his assassination on 15th August 1975.

Mujib was murdered along with his family by Indian-trained Mukti Bahinis, National Liberator's soldiers.

Mujib-era saw rise in prices,

1/7 Mujib-era saw rise in prices, smuggling, hoarding, corruption, and political killings.
The prices rose to 300 times higher than they were in East Pakistan. Smuggling was rampant due to corrupt politicians of Awami League who granted licenses to their friends & relatives, and

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The other partner to which Pakistan could turn is Saudi Arabia.

In fact, the Middle East was the region of the world where Pakistan found its first allies, preceding even its alliance with the United States.

In the early 1950s,

1/8 it signed treaties of friendship with Iran (1950), Iraq (1950), Syria (1950), Turkey (1951), Egypt (1951), Yemen (1952), and Lebanon (1952). But, considering the American support of Israel, many Arab countries objected to Pakistan joining CENTO in 1954.

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The 1988 election gave Bhutto's PPP 92 seats out of 215 in the lower house of Parliament. The IJI president was Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, an elder senior politician from Bhutto's home province of Sindh who had served in her father's Cabinet.

1/6 The IJI’s most resourceful leader was

Nawaz Sharif, a young industrialist whom Zia ul-Hag had appointed CM of Punjab. Jatoi lost his own seat in Parliament to a PPP candidate.
Sharif, on other hand, managed to use his position as Punjab CM to get a plurality in provincial.

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On 25 May 1969, at age 39, Colonel Nimeiry overthrew civilian government of Ismail al-Azhari.

On 26 May, he suspended constitution, dissolved, National Assembly, & disbanded all political parties.

That day he also promoted himself to major-general and

#SudanCrisis 🧵⬇️

1/23 That day he also promoted himself to major-general and retired 22 serving officers, mostly senior to himself, dismissed over 30, and appointed 14 new officers to the most important posts.
Nimeiry became prime minister later, on 26 October 1969.

Benazir Bhutto attempted internal coup against military during her first term, when she appointed a retired general to head ISI, Prime Minister Gilani attempted an administrative coup against the ISI on 26 July 2008.

From behind the scenes, Zardari began

🧵 ⬇️

1/10 From behind the scenes, Zardari began exerting his power throush his compliant prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, and his own handpicked group of ministers, including Rehman Malik. He did this by issuing a notification that placed both IB & ISI under the Minister of Interior.

During the election campaign, some of the clerics in the IJI had denounced Bhutto and her mother as ‘gangsters in bangles'.

In an effort to paint her as a westernized woman who, once in power, would corrupt the morals of Pakistanis, leaflets purporting to show Bhutto and

1/4 her mother in swimsuits were airdropped in major Pakistani cities. Training aircraft from Lahore Aero Club had been rented for this purpose by a Lahore businessman with close ties to General Beg after Sharif& his team refused to use material in their election literature.

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11 takeaways from Iran 🇮🇷- Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 deal brokered by China 🇨🇳

Reference: @ForeignPolicy article ⬇️ 🧵

1/12 For Iranian Supreme Leader & IRGC, deal is about far more than normalizing ties with Saudi government. Instead, it is about further facilitating, along with China & Russia, rise of a new anti-Western global order and excluding United States from a new regional arrangement.

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She served as prime minister of India for three consecutive terms (1966–77) &a 4th term (1980–84). She was assassinated by Sikh extremists. Lal Bahadur Shastri, who succeeded Nehru as prime minister in 1964, named her minister of information & broadcasting in his government.
1/13 On Shastri’s sudden death in 1966, She became leader of Congress—&thus also PM—in a compromise between the right and left wings of the party. Her leadership, however, came under continual challenge from right wing of party, led by a former minister of finance, Morarji Desai.
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◼️THREAD 157 /1000

▪️Title: #ChoicesInsideTheMakingOfIndianFP
▪️Genre: GeoPolitics
▪️Published: 2016
▪️Author(s): @ShivshankaMenon
▪️Print by: @BrookingsInst
▪️Length: 166
▪️Cost: $26
▪️Description: On India’s most critical FP decisions by former foreign secretary and NSA. About the author @ShivshankaMenon

The US education system, committee charged, "was being run as if the Soviet challenge did not exist." Grant persuaded the local school board to sponsor a "Know Your Enemy" series for committee's speakers: young lawyers, businessmen, & educators to engage high school students.
1/7 For five months, they researched Communist and Soviet history, case histories of communist coups, riots, strikes, guerrilla movements, communist strategy, party organization, and recruiting and training methods. They reached an interesting conclusion:
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