You conveniently miss out why this is happening. With little political capital left, Imran Khan appears to be deliberately stoking instability in hopes of creating an opening for his return. The threat posed by the afghan proxies is real. It has only grown due to years of inconsistent and poorly coordinated policies by the security establishment. Now, with the Afghan government openly hostile toward Pakistan, allegedly working in alignment with India, and Modi declaring that “Operation Sindoor” is merely on pause, the crisis is just a shitshow.
This institutional clash is exactly the kind of chaos Imran Khan is banking on, which is why Gandapur was pushed out. Then they brought in Afridi, who’s been running around making wildly inflammatory statements and deliberately stirring things along ethnic lines, especially with this exaggerated Pashtun victimhood narrative and stopping military operations.
Add to that Achakzai with his “Lar o Bar” nonsense, and PTI’s social media nonstop dragging in 1971 as if it’s some relevant parallel. It isn’t, Pashtun rights aren’t being crushed, nothing of the sort is happening. This entire drama is being manufactured around one aging man’s political ambitions.
You have an entire PTI ecosystem sitting abroad, running the party’s social media machine, operating bot networks, and pushing targeted campaigns against the military 24/7. These people aren’t even in Pakistan, yet they control the entire online narrative. Imran Khan has attacked two COASs back-to-back, along with two DG ISIs, two DG ISPRs, and now DG-C. FJ at least had a political network supporting her — IK has no one. The entire PTI ecosystem survives on sensationalism, fake news, and manufactured outrage because that’s where the money is.
These YouTubers and influencers abroad are going to destroy PTI’s politics themselves. Everything they push revolves around getting that geriatric guy out of jail. And with the way PTI’s social media is spiraling, it’s basically open season on the entire military leadership. I’ve never seen any political party anywhere in the world go after military officers by name the way PTI is doing now. For them, it’s no longer about the institution, the entire military is the enemy. Then add into the mix the lobbying efforts in the US: sanctions targeting military operations, stoppage of training programs, suspension of F-16 parts and support, it’s insanity.
Even if Munir goes, the next COAS will be attacked. And the one after that. And the one after that. PTI has turned this into a built-in reflex, a political disease where every problem in the country is automatically blamed on the military, no matter who is in charge or what the reality is.