In 1953, the
democratically-elected government of Dr Mossadegh in Iran was overthrown in a
coup by the US and the UK as revealed by the declassified documents of the US
government. Before the coup, massive protests were stirred against Dr Mossadegh
with protestors calling him a dictator who stuffed the ballot boxes.
The protestors demanded electoral reforms and removal of Dr
Mossadegh. As suspected, Dr Mossadegh was soon overthrown, and the Shah of Iran
was reinstated as the monarch. Years later, it was found out that underneath
the sham of election rigging, the US and the UK had toppled the Iranian
government under Operation Ajax because
of the Iranian government’s decision to nationalise Iran’s petroleum industry
which was going to be a major blow for the UK’s economic interest in the
region.
Same script, but
different country, 60 years later. For social media pundits, and certain media
groups, the current protests in Pakistan are about electoral rigging and
bringing about a ‘change’ in Pakistan. For the innocent protesters on ground,
yes indeed! However, the reality is shrouded in dense layers of
fourth-generation warfare (economic and media). Beneath this rhetoric of an
‘Azadi March’ against the corrupt structure is an activity aimed at
destabilising the very government which is going against the economic interest
of certain global powers, national institutions and ambitious political leaders
who can’t wait for their turn.
The ideal way to explain
this is that the local ambitions of Imran Khan and a couple of other
politicians, coupled with interests of the establishment, matched the
international economic ambitions of foreign powers, thereby instigating the
current crisis. Imran might not even realise it, but the way with which he is
being played in the hands of external actors through local mediators is
startling.
What exactly is going on
needs a bit of out-of-the-box thinking and a read in history. The UAE is
running out of oil, Dubai is already barren. The only thing Dubai is surviving
on is its strategically-placed port that still provides a hub for trade. The
‘sin’ of the new PML-N government is that it has generously opened itself up to
China, which is rapidly investing and developing the country.
With an estimated 80 per
cent of all the international trade being conducted with China, the first
country to suffer will be the UAE. A major chunk of its port operations will be
shifted to Gwadar.
Now, a country that has
its entire survival on its port becoming redundant in a few years would
certainly be worried. Hence, for those who understand geo- politics and
economics, fracturing the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is at the key of the
ongoing demonstrations. And interestingly, this time it’s not the US that has a
problem, nor the UK or India. In fact, it’s the Arabs of UAE that have a
serious cause of concern from the ongoing massive projects between China and
Pakistan, and the opening up of Gwadar port.
Those who think that all
this is part of conspiracy theory, let me take the pleasure to remind you of a
recorded history of the regime changes, now declassified under the Freedom of
Information Act, led by the United States. Foreign powers have been involved in
the overthrow of democratically-elected governments since the dawn of history.
Politics
is all about economic interests. Rarely, if ever, revolutions are caused for
ideological reasons. However, to mobilise the public, sensational and emotional messages
of ‘change’ ‘democracy, and ‘freedom’ are thrown in as a cover or economic
interests to charge up the mob. Why else would thousands of Pakistanis come out
against the PML-N government if they had even a hint of what has happened in
postcolonial nations in terms of regime changes by the Western powers?
It’s disappointing to
see that even after 67 years of independence, this country is still under
economic imperialism and under the fourth-generation warfare where media is the
key element. Those who support democracy are labelled as badshahs and those that have partnered with the
dictators are painted as ‘revolutionaries’.
Published in The Express
Tribune, August 23rd, 2014.
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