🧵

Who is selected & who isn’t?

Who was a “project” & who wasn’t?

ZAB, NS & IK were all varying degrees of originally establishment-backed political phenoms. Partisan bickering aside, there is a reason the “dismantling” never works.

Politicians reside in hearts…

👇🏽 So IK will endure in people’s hearts, as NS has endured since 1980s & ZAB has since 1960s.

There’re two aspects of the dismantling of Project IK that are unique & they make the IK conundrum more profound than the challenge faced by the military in previous iterations.

👇🏽

🧵

One crucial & inescapable challenge for all critics of IK (including 🙋🏽‍♂️) that merits reflection is how deep the support for IK runs across the country, across ethnicities, and frankly, among young people that cannot stand the status quo & those associated with it.

…

⬇️ This is a pretty substantial challenge because without legitimacy there can be no authority.

The facts of how IK successfully dismantled the legitimacy of status quo actors are almost irrelevant.

What is relevant is: does legitimacy remain a contested space today?

⬇️

🧵

Should Pakistan's foreign minister attend the SCO foreign ministers' meeting at Goa in early May?

There are four questions that should shape the decision, and if they are considered, whatever decision the government takes will be a solid one.

These questions are...🔽 1. How seriously does Pakistan take the SCO?

Given that this community is one that

* both 🇨🇳 & 🇷🇺take seriously,
* 🇮🇷🇹🇷🇸🇦 all want to join,
* will continue to be important to 🇵🇰's neighborhood &
* 🇵🇰 & 🇮🇳 were welcomed to the SCO together, as equals?

🔽

🧵

Today’s merger of PML-Z with PTI is a another important data point for those tracking the souring of the love affair between the “establishment” and Imran Khan.

Remember, prior to this, we saw Chaudhry Pervez Elahi formally join PTI.

What does this mean?

⬇️ For starters, the Bajwa-Khan breakup was not a breakup between the “establishment” & Khan.

This is important because from Musharraf onward,

COAS = establishment = COAS.

The Bajwa-Khan breakup is a unique & disruptive schism because the establishment DID NOT follow COAS.

⬇️

🧵

Every institution in the country is in free fall.

This is why I keep referring to the current catastrophic convergence of crises as an institutional meltdown.

The situation can be salvaged, but it would be foolish to feign optimism about the short & medium term.

⬇️ There are four crises taking place at the same time.

1. Political
2. Economic
3. Security
4. Constitutional

All four can be tackled—but none can be tackled without collaborative problem solving by Pakistan’s eight most powerful individuals.

Who are these individuals?

⬇️

The country is skidding toward a sovereign default and experiencing institutional meltdown, but our boys in khaki are at the frontlines of the most important struggle for our national security: more land for the Pakistan Army.

dawn.com/news/1742652?r… In a country where the Supreme Court has 52,000 pending cases & where even meetings w MBS of 🇸🇦 don’t lead to the movement of files, a Feb 20 notification leads to a March 8 JV leading to this March 10 letter.

This is speed of light levels of efficiency.

Only for Pakistan Army.

I just spoke to @asmashirazi on her show & it merits clear and unambiguous repetition.

The current economic crisis, and the economic catastrophe that has been unleashed upon Pakistanis is now entirely Ishaq Dar & PML-N’s burden to carry.

Why? 🧵 ⬇️ 1. IMF program was on track in September 2022. 9th review was due in October, w board approval & disbursement in November 2022. Dar’s appointment as Finance Minister disrupted this schedule.

2. Disruption to IMF programme is anchored in Dar’s stubbornness & inability to deliver.

🧵

Three things to remember about ALL petrol price reductions in 🇵🇰.

(& two thing about THIS one).

Three things…

1. The poor do not consume petrol directly. Only indirectly. Motorcycle & car owners NOT among poorest. Higher prices affect everyone. Lower price don’t.

👇🏽 2. Prices tend to be “downward sticky”.

Higher gas prices immediately result in inflation.

Lower prices do not reduce inflation.

Price reduction impact, if it ever manifests, takes a long time to materialise.

👇🏽

🧵

The reasons Pakistan remains mired in polycrisis is crystallized in two simultaneous crises emerging this week.

Both are anchored in the staunch and unfailing resistance of Islamabad & Rawalpindi to accepting the agency of the rest of the country.

How?

👇🏽 Crisis 1? The provincial fiscal crisis in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, GB, AJK & Balochistan.

Crisis 2? BNP-M & JUI-F unhappiness with the resolution of the Reko Diq mining fiasco & new Investment Protection Act.

At the heart of both crises?

Seven decades of contempt.

👇🏽

🧵
unfortunate & evasive press release from @StateBank_Pak.

Direct carrier billing ongoing for years. Knowledge of it, not new.

There are two crises, both in the making over many years, largely by Finance Division & SBP.

1. FX crisis
2. Unbanked Pakistanis’ crisis

⬇️ The FX crisis is a product itself of two crises: a persistent trade imbalance crisis, combined with the crisis of an obsession with a low dollar exchange rate.

Low FX reserves prior to major loan repayments drive speculation of default.

Next sukuk payment is December 2nd.

⬇️

The change most urgently needed in 🇵🇰 today is not just a change of guard in Pindi, but a decisive break from the post 2016 era.

It is not politicians’ corruption or inexperience that has manufactured the economic & political crises today.

It is military meddling in politics ⬇️ This meddling was anchored in so-called lessons learnt by the military from 2008-2015, especially in the aftermath of what seemed like victory against the TTP insurgency in 2015.

But the post victory political meddling has produced failure & humiliation.

How? ⬇️

🧵

🇵🇰 is experiencing a generational crisis of governance.

Extracting state & society from this crisis will require some honesty, a little compromise & a lot of courage.

First, let’s assess the scale & scope of the crisis.

Every major position of authority is under 🚀 🔥

⬇️ Parliament, cabinet & the PM are widely reviled, their authority & legitimacy is constantly under attack.😔

The military leadership has been weakened by its political entanglements. Speculation about an extension in service for the COAS drives political discourse. ⚠️

… ⬇️

🧵

The head of @AlkhidmatOrg Abdul Shukoor speaking at a fundraiser for #PakistanFlood right now…

Some key points from his talk 👇🏽

The most important stage of the effort in terms of rescue may be winding down.

There is a need for a focus on relief…

To get an idea…
⬇️ …of the challenge, consider:

Burying the dead requires finding dry ground. In some cases people have to go many miles to find such ground.

Heart-rending situation wrt to vulnerable people, esp pregnant women.

Rescue boat overturned yesterday, with several fatalities…

⬇️

🧵

For the last several years, at least since 2014, ARY has been the unofficial spox of the military’s preferred national discourse.

During this same period, the largest news group & channel (Jang/Geo) & the widest read English paper (Dawn) have endured the wrath of… ⬇️ … state machinery.

Channels on cable scrambled, channels “banned”, PEMRA “activated”, delivery in DHAs restricted & numerous columnists & anchors blacklisted.

Throughout there were two kinds of violations taking place.

One, constitutional.
Two, national interest.

⬇️

An absolutely devastating electoral defeat for PML-N in the one province it supposedly dominates.

Imran Khan now likely a juggernaut more powerful than he has ever been.

Hard to see how the government recovers from this. But with this genuinely “neutral” process, the ground for a GHQ-Khan reconciliation is set.

Is a lame duck military leadership is now saddled with a lame duck coalition government?

Exhilarating political dynamics in the most vibrant Muslim majority democracy on the planet. 🇵🇰

Supreme Court declares the votes of rebel MNAs to be invalid!

The honourable judges have spoken on the need for independent and coherent political parties!

Classic. 😐 As I said, the Supreme Court is now fully on the 18th amendment train, as far as the autonomy of political parties is concerned.

This is a major step in terms of the evolution of how parties are treated by the law and the law interpreters.

PTI protests this evening represents serious and profound challenges for Pakistanis invested in a federal, democratic, plural & solvent Pakistan.

Some quick takeaways for reflection ⬇️

1. Military intervention in politics produces unpredictable outcomes. IK is the 3rd. Stop

+ 2. Populist narratives like "imported government" or "foreign conspiracy" are inexpensive to deploy and almost impossible to contain once deployed. They have to be tackled head on. This requires relentless message discipline. Can a motley coalition produce this discipline?

+

Some PTI power ⬇️ that merits the thoughtful and deep attention of GHQ, Shahbaz Sharif, and the PPP.

The plan so far seems to be to delay the VNC.

PTI leaders should convince PM Khan to alter course & accept the inevitable VNC.

Government seems determined to bait the Opposition into a scenario in which voting will be delayed.

The Opposition MUST act w wisdom & patience. On Geo News, speaking to @ayazakbar786, Sheikh Rasheed seems to be threatening the subversion of the entire system as the price for removing PM Khan.

For this, IK & PTI must be willing to push the country to violence, and the military leadership needs to be ready to step in.

عمران خان نے جو بین الاقوامی سازش کا ڈراما رچایا ہے، اس سے پاکستان کی خارجہ پالیسی اور سفارتکاری کو گہرا نقصان پہنچے گا۔

کسی ملک کے اندرونی امور میں مداخلت کرنا بہت مشکل کام ہے۔ خاص طور پر پاکستان کے۔ کیوں؟

کیوں کہ مداخلت کے لیئے تین اہم چیزیں درکار ہیں۔ اور یہ مشکل ہیں

⬇️ ۱) سمجھ۔ دوسرے ملک میں مداخلت کے لیئے اس کو سمجھنا ضروری ہے۔ امریکہ پاکستان کو کتنا سمجھتا ہے؟ اندازہ اس سے لگا لیں کہ ستمبر ۱۱ کے دہشتگرد ہملہ سے اب تک ایک ہی چیز مانگے جا رہا ہے۔ اور وہ اس کو ملتی نہیں۔ اس کو پاکستان کی کوئی سمجھ نہیں۔

۔۔۔ ⬇️

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امریکہ کے یار

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