The real challenge continues to be on the economic front. China has enough problems to deal with to continue to bankroll Pakistan. The US is focused on Ukraine and Taiwan theaters. Russia is a spent force. This leaves Saudi Arabia as the sole potential sponsor. What will Saudi get in return?? Where will the funds come from to engineer a rescue in Pakistan??

Will IK take on the holy cow of defense spending and dominance of the Army in select industries?? Will IK attempt to secure an honorable peace with India to allow Pakistan to heal and recover?? Will the chaos in Afghanistan allow Pakistan to pare back defense expenditures??

In fact, the Army may want to play a lesser role to let IK be the fall guy as the economy continues to sputter, and law and order spins out of control, allowing the Army to once again emerge as the savior as the only institution that can keep Pakistan united and sovereign.

He has to switch to the establishment side.

This is Pakistan. It always swing one way.

But India should be on guard.

Nobody came out on the streets when Bhutto was overthrown, or sentenced, or even when he was hanged. Nobody took to the streets when Nawaz was deposed, twice by the military. People actually celebrated the military. But millions of people in several cities and towns throughout the country took the streets when Imran was ousted. And that too in Punjab, which is where the army draws its support. They cannot jail IK without bloodshed, when both Bhutto and Nawaz were easily jailed and sentenced. They stuck a lot of charges on Nawaz and Bhutto, yet they cannot even stick one on Imran. So there is no comparison here. This is the era of social media, it’s outside the army’s capability to control the narrative online and it’s too late to ban it.

“ If Imran comes back, he will come back as the top dog and the CoAS will be answerable to him and not the usual.“

I bet that won’t be the case. Bhutto was under that delusion too. So was Nawaz during the mid 90s.

Also, generals are used to branding politicians as “traitors”, now find that they are the ones being labeled as traitors and those charges are sticking on them because it’s made by a person whose loyalty to the country cannot be questioned by the populace no matter what. This is what threatens them the most.

If Imran comes back, he will come back as the top dog and the CoAS will be answerable to him and not the usual. This will be a fundamental paradigm shift in Pakistani politics as it has never happened before, so its not temporary or insignificant. It remains to be seen whether IK can leave a legacy whereby these rules are intact after him.

And Imran is not backed by the army since act of last year, yet he is more popular than ever.

I know the vitriol and retarded-ness of pro-IK crowd but Pakistani generals are far more venomous than civilians.

At the very least a new generation of Pakistanis is being trained in the art of disrobing the army on the streets. Maybe PML-N will give it a try in the next round.

Enemy of my enemy…