Imran Khan: Pakistan's asset? – CNN

When we came out of the helicopter, Khan quickly jumped into an armored car, we took off at full speed, dozens of people from the airport. Security guards armed with submachine guns piled on flatbed trucks with us.

When we arrived, Khan received a rock reception: crowds, men and women, young and old go wild waiting to hear from him.

He commanded a huge crowd with ease, his anti-American and anti-Pakistani political establishment message in connection with the deeply conservative tribal society crammed into the stadium.

It was in 2013. Bathing in worship seemed to come naturally to him.

As Trump Does Today, I saw Khan invigorated by the crowd, pumping them for victory as they swelled his ego, lifting him toward his goal.

But as the wind-ripped rocky helicopter rolled into the remote region that day, its ambitions in the world. The 2013 elections were rushed.

He was getting closer to the leadership work that he desired, could taste victory, enough to launch a four-month challenge accusing the establishment of cheating, vote-rigging, and results [19659002]

] Mega-star legend

This was another sports stadium, another time in Khan's life where his journey on the way to the prime minister was really cemented.

In 1992, at the end of a brilliant career one of the most talented cricketers of his generation, he led Pakistan's national team to victory in the World Cup , the crowds rose for him as for more than two decades

He was a legendary mega-star, lived in London, acquired a Playboy reputation, and has become a regular at many of the city's most glamorous nightclubs, before joining British high society with his marriage to heiress Jemima Goldsmith

Fame was his constant shadow; today, he avoids the good golden life that he had then for the principles of his conservative Islamic education. But it is undoubtedly his rump popularity of the poster that has been his pbadport in politics.

Like Trump he was born in privilege, and as the president of the United States has never held political office.

Military: The Real Power Behind Khan?

What earned him votes, was an anti-corruption ticket, aimed at overthrowing the rival political dynasties of the Pakistani duel, coupled with his anti-

He lashed out at Trump's Afghan policy which accuses Pakistan not to do enough to fight terrorism, and for more than a decade, Khan has stepped up anti-American sentiment along the Afghan-Pakistan border. deadly fervor over alleged US misdeeds in Afghanistan.

In this election cycle, his supporters swelled themselves beyond the cadres of religious conservative young men that he badembled in the past. Now they include voters who simply want a change from the selfish and selfish politicians of the two Pakistani dynastic powers who are widely blamed for leading the country into an economic hole.

The powerful Pakistani army has been accused by many journalists of being intimidated in the months leading up to the election, especially Khan's critics. But the military has never been far from power, has orchestrated several coups in the country's short seven-decade history, and has a disproportionately large number of commercial interests in Pakistan.

In short, Khan will not be his own man. No value of Khan's popularity will deter them from their basic interests, the survival of Pakistan.

The military believes that India is an existential threat to their Muslim nation dug in the bloody collapse of the British Raj. Armed nations still face the Himalayas on the Siachen Glacier, 21,000 feet above sea level, but it's over Pakistan's western border in Afghanistan as the battles of Today are most often conducted.

The Taliban played a key role in Khan's success

In the early 1990s, Pakistani intelligence services supported the Afghan Taliban to take full control from Afghanistan and leave the thin "strategic depth" of Pakistan. India will do more in Kabul, a red rag for the Pakistani army, and so where Trump could find a common cause with Khan, perhaps with the Taliban.

The American president needs the group to stop fighting and join the Afghan government to withdraw American troops. Khan, an ethnic Pashtun like many Taliban, has gained support among Pakistani Taliban loyalists, which could be a bargaining chip with the Taliban.

[19659032] To align all of this, it will take more than Trump's public threats to cooperate or otherwise, and it will undoubtedly take much more than what Khan has to offer – or else the will to do it. army to offer

. Short term Khan is going to be consumed by forming a government, attacking a crooked and ruined economy, dealing with creditors like China, and fending off the allegations of a rigged election of the Pakistan People's Party and the Pakistani Muslim League – the same two dynasties he has been fighting for decades, the same people he has directed street protests against claiming The same misdeed in 2013.

To borrow from his cricket legacy, he goes He had to go through some limits before he could turn to Trump's requests, and according to all the evidence, he would need the help of the army to do it. 19659045] [ad_2]
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