ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Richard Grenell, a close aide to US President-elect Donald Trump, made a post during a protest in Islamabad last November when he demanded the release of imprisoned former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. spread rapidly.
“Watch out for Pakistan. Their Trump-like leader is in jail on false charges and his people are inspired by the US red wave. Around the world,” Grenell wrote in another tweet that has since been deleted. Stop political prosecution!”
As both tweets garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Grenell reiterated his call for Khan’s release on Dec. 16, a day after President Trump nominated him as special presidential envoy. This post has been viewed more than 10 million times.
The message gained further traction when fellow Republican Matt Gaetz, Trump’s attorney general nominee, also wrote, “Free Imran Khan.”
The post on X (formerly Twitter) is expected to be a major boost for Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which has been demanding the release of its leader from August 2023.
But many commentators said they were skeptical that the interest in Mr. Khan shown by Mr. Trump’s allies would translate into meaningful pressure on Pakistan to release the former prime minister. He also pointed out the deep irony that the PTI, the country’s most popular political party, was seeking US support less than three years after accusing the US of involvement in Khan’s ouster. Some did.
complicated relationship
Khan’s government remained in power for about four years before being removed by a vote of no confidence in parliament in April 2022.
He blamed his ouster on a US-led conspiracy in collusion with Pakistan’s powerful military, and rallied his supporters to protests across the country. Both the US and Pakistani military strongly deny these allegations.
Since then, Mr. Khan and his party have faced a wave of repression. Khan has been imprisoned since August 2023 on dozens of charges and convictions. The party’s symbol, the cricket bat, was banned from Pakistan’s national elections last February, forcing candidates to run as independents.
Meanwhile, relations between Pakistan and the US appear to have improved slightly since Khan’s dismissal, with the Biden administration appointing Donald Brohm as US ambassador to Pakistan in May 2022, a position that had been vacant since August 2018.
During the crackdown on Mr. Khan and the PTI, U.S. officials have largely avoided commenting on Pakistan’s internal affairs. However, influential Pakistani diaspora groups in the United States, the majority of whom support Khan and the PTI, have waged a widespread campaign among American politicians to bail out Khan.
Hassan Abbas, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., told Al Jazeera, “The vocal advocacy of the Pakistani diaspora in the United States, especially around the release of Imran Khan, adds further complexity to this relationship.” .
Their efforts led the U.S. Congress to vote in Pakistan last March, following bipartisan calls for President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to scrutinize Pakistan’s controversial February 2024 election. A public hearing on the “future of democracy” will be held.
Months later, in October, more than 60 Democratic senators called on Biden to use Washington’s influence over Islamabad to secure Khan’s release. And a few days before the November 5 US presidential election, US PTI executive Atif Khan met with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump to discuss concerns about Khan’s imprisonment.
On January 22, two days after the inauguration of the new Trump administration, another Congressional hearing on the November protests in Islamabad, in which at least 12 PTI workers were killed, is scheduled to be held at the Capitol. PTI maintains that authorities are responsible for the casualties.
So far, Islamabad has denied the significance of the comments from President Trump’s allies. Last month, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the two countries seek a relationship based on “mutual respect, mutual benefit and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.”
“We do not want to comment on people who are speaking in their personal capacity,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said at a press conference.
Rana Ihsan Afzal, a spokeswoman for Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said the government views statements by individuals like Grenell and Gates as the opinions of “American civilians.”
“The government does not react to what individual citizens say. We look forward to working with the new government and only if there is agitation at the government level will we need to issue a formal response,” Afzal said. he told Al Jazeera.
Is Khan a knight in shining armor?
Syed Mohammad Ali, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, called the campaign by PTI supporters to support the US “a kind of irony.”
“Promoting the idea of US intervention to overthrow the PTI government, the PTI-supporting diaspora is now pleading with the incoming US administration to take a stronger role in what is happening in Pakistani politics. ,” Ali told Al Jazeera.
“But that irony aside, this shows that for overseas Pakistanis sitting far from the country, many of them see Imran Khan as a knight in shining armor. ”
Mr. Trump criticized Pakistan during his first term, calling it “only lies and deceit,” but later forged a relationship with Mr. Khan when he was prime minister from 2018 to 2022.
The two first met in Washington in July 2019 and again in Davos in January 2020, with Trump calling Khan a “very good friend.”
By contrast, relations between Mr. Khan and Mr. Biden have been frosty. Khan has frequently criticized Biden for never communicating with him after he took office in November 2020.
Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, acknowledged the effectiveness of the Pakistani diaspora in rallying support. “They persuaded officials from both parties to seek Mr. Khan’s release,” he told Al Jazeera.
But Haqqani, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, warned that Pakistan remains a low priority in President Trump’s foreign policy.
“It would be naive to think that PTI supporters can build relationships with US officials in this way. Apart from one or two statements, there are no signs of a broader policy shift,” Haqqani said.
Ali, who is also a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, emphasized the disconnect between US domestic and foreign policy.
“The Trump administration may adopt a more transactional approach. Pakistan has benefited from Republican administrations in the past, but currently does not play a significant role in U.S. plans.”
Haqqani noted that while U.S. influence often comes with sanctions and economic pressure, Pakistan is no longer a major recipient of aid and its options for exerting influence are limited.
“Pakistan was once a major recipient of aid from the United States after 9/11, but aid has declined significantly in recent years.Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs, relations with China, and support for armed groups Issues such as suspicions are a concern for the United States.”
“And Khan isn’t particularly helpful in any of these aspects.”
