Yes a lot of what you wrote is definitely agreeable.
About Amreeki sazish, no matter how well connected some one may seem - I think its above the pay grade of a lot of people. We can only look at circumstantial evidence and try to make a picture.
So on the letter - its established that the Ambassador was threatened that if no confidence against IK is not successful then there will be severe consequences, otherwise if the other party wins then Pakistan will be forgiven. This has been endorsed by Military twice and Pakistan has officially protested as well. Now its upto you to think, that this all there is to it.
Here is my speculation:
1) Our politicians are sellouts period. They have no shame in bending over to powerful countries for kursi. This is proven by what Zaradri did in memo gate, what Molana Fazl lobied for power according to wikiLeaks, How PPP used to say ‘no worries about collateral damage’, and even how Musharraf opened doors for foreign intell agencies in Pakistan etc. So if Zaradri can lobby for support against a serving COAS, phir IK kis khait ki muli hai?
2) There was clear interference as I said. But to what extent if there was a complex conspiracy? What happened in all those meetings? No one knows. And then we have the argument of mudakhlat vs sazish LoL.
3) We know PTI had a thin majority that required the ashirwaad of a powerful institution- did they Military become ‘neutral’ out of good will for democracy and rule of law or some pressure? Did our politicians become encouraged to take on PTI, and assurances were given by a powerful country that it will pacify Military in their favir ? This is where it becomes murky.
4) Even PMLN leaders (like Khaqan Abbasi) were on record that no confidence can never succeed without establishment support. So now it has. Did all these parties and members grow a conscious over night ( which likes of you were calling as ATMs, cheeni choor etc) or they were bribed. Bribes can take many forms, and promise of a monetary benefit in future is also a bribe.
5) How courts acted and preempted every move from PTI etc
6) All these moves cannot just be completely indigenous and local. It seems like establishment did move its support from one side to the other. They claim to be neutral now, the same way they claimed neutrality in PTI govt formation for which your opinion is well known
7) Political narrative building and rhetoric is the right of any political party. There will be exaggerations as others do too. For last 3.5 years PTI was accused of being part of Yahoodi lobby, giving Kashmir to India, being selected, etc. The same party cursed Army and COAS openly, accused them of terror (ye jo deshatgardi ha eska peechay …), In past PPP was called security risk in, BB saw the worst character assassination etc. So its PTI now in opposition and it is now forming its narrative based on its position. Who has not called the other party a ghaddar? Its very common. So why such a huge outcry against IK. In fact PMLN and NS were directly and openly vicious against institutions and judiciary. So the only issue is that - IK is being very successful and the response generated from public is way more than anyone expected. There was spontaneous reaction from public in all cities (100x more than what PMLN could manage after NS disqualification), without any effort. You can see it in surveys, how ARY viewership jumped to top with 65% viewership, how social media is filled with trends. I have been a silent reader of this forum, and even during the dark days of Musharaf I think this forum was fairly pro Military- so what happened now ? This is a point to think.
Again sorry for the long post.
I love reading your posts because you argue your points with civility & logic. I may disagree with you on a number of issues & your stance which is quite different from mine, but I'd rather have someone challenge my views like you do than have someone just confirm my biases. I welcome contrary opinions because they make me think about my own. So don't say that you are sorry for the long post. It is structured & coherent & a breeze to read.
Coming to the points, I think we should list where we both concur. Basically these would be principled positions, which are pretty solid in themselves:
1. No role of Generals in politics - there never should have been leaders like IK, NS, Bhutto, etc... They all owe their positions of power to the army. The first martial law was the original sin which gave us EBDO that finished careers of many old & established politicians (& hence space for likes of ZAB). I know that I am simplifying here & that there is more to the story, but I have to keep it simple. Look, had there been no bureaucratic (uniformed mostly, but non-uniformed in the early 50s) control in politics, we'd not only be a vibrant democracy, but perhaps both East & West Pakistan would be in a sort of a confederate setup. We would not have any of the present-day dynastic political parties, or likes of NS, IK, or even BB.
2. Role of elites in plundering Pakistan's resources. This is actually a very grave threat & is not discussed as often as it should be. All the present political parties are more representatives of various resource-grabbing elites than of common people - some more so & some less so & we can differ about it. But we can both agree that this is a serious issue that is quite independent of political parties & their narratives.
Now we can come to where we would likely disagree:
1. If Generals were to be kept out of politics, PTI would have had a hard time coming to power in 2018. To me this is as good as a 'fact' just because I avidly read & analyzed all the available material to come to this conclusion. Feel free to disagree, but this is how I see it.
2. "Neutral to janwar hotay hain" says a lot. It shows how hard it was for IK to openly blame Establishment & yet he had to censure the Establishment for abandoning him. So, if I take this statement at face value (I really should not since it is from IK & we both know his track record) then I should look at the conduct of the Establishment in context from 2011 until now - especially now.
We know how Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) came into being. This should have been a cause of concern for PTI partisans, but I do not know of a single Insafi who expressed any concern about how it was being created. It was obvious that BAP leaders would not only be opportunists aligned with Establishment, but that they would look to Establishment to see what was expected of them. Once such party saw that PTI had been abandoned in the name of neutrality, it was not difficult to see how they would act. So, in my view, there was no particular need for Establishment to declare their preferences. Once IK was ditched, it was a free for all brawl with results as could be expected. Notice that PML-Q in NA too acted similarly & it is a well-known prop for Establishment. So did the Establishment need to make a conspiracy against IK? This question has no certain answer. But the result is in no doubt. And that is what must concern us more than whether or not Establishment is / was neutral.
So while you may think in terms of conspiracy, I would tend to discount it. But the more important thing has already happened regardless of our individual opinions. We really need to move on.
3. Amreeki Saazish: You seem ambivalent about it, though you'd seemingly like to err on the side of a conspiracy while I would err on the other side. You think that Army acted upon a threat, & I think that the threat was not a great concern; economy was a greater concern that may have force the Army to be neutral. Frankly, after IK's Russia visit Americans were furious & they did express their annoyance. I am also sure that they did not just use diplomatic channel to communicate their feelings. The economy was already in such a state that Pakistan could ill-afford blocking of IMF/WB loans or (even worse) possible sanctions on trade. Americans were certainly going to use IMF, especially when PTI govt acted contrary to accepted IMF conditionalities. If you want to call an unspoken threat a conspiracy, then what can I say? Its not as though Americans were threatening military action & Pakistan Army caved in. It was the economic fall-out that was most important & this MAY (may, because it is not certain that this indeed was the cause) have pushed Establishment to withdraw support - no telling though if it had already been withdrawn, since VoNC had been in the works for months.
4. Role of other parties: Yes you are right - they are ruthless in pursuit of power. But this is how democracy works. Norms have to be established & enforced via public opinion, journalists, courts, etc... What one can not do is criticize others while receiving benefit in a similar way. This is hypocrisy. So now we see PTI & PML-N on opposite sides of hypocrisy scale. This is wrong. Though I must say the way PML-N was hounded 360 degrees, PTI has not yet begun to experience a tenth of that.
5. Courts did not so much pre-empt PTI's moves as safeguard the constitution. Had it been pure partisanship, SC would not have spent days listening to multiple sides to come up with a ruling. Though I do think that such flimsy excuses as a diplomatic cable did not merit both-siding a constitutional issue. But SC still did it. Fine. At least we have an enforceable norm that would stand in way of a weak government trying to save itself by using a diplomatic cable.
6. Public support for PTI: I am not going to write a long paragraph about it. I would just say that rallies do not necessarily corelate with electoral success. So feel free to disagree.
