Burhan wani PTI

🇵🇰🇺🇸 The cable that toppled a government is finally public. On March 7, 2022, Pakistan's ambassador in Washington sat down with U.S. assistant secretary of state Donald Lu. The message was short and clear, remove Imran Khan through a no-confidence vote and Washington will look the other way. "All will be forgiven," the ambassador later recalled. Thirty three days later, Khan was gone. But this didn't start with that meeting. In June 2021, CIA Director William Burns personally flew to Islamabad to meet Khan. Waited a full day. Khan never showed. Said he'd only speak to his counterpart, meaning Biden, who had been dodging Khan's calls since day one. Burns left with nothing. Weeks later Khan went on record with Axios and just said it out loud, "Absolutely not. There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan." No diplomatic cushioning, no ambiguity. Washington had its answer. Pakistan's military had seen enough of their own prime minister. In July 2021, behind Khan's back, the military quietly put a former CIA Islamabad station chief on retainer as a lobbyist in Washington. The generals were already cutting their own deal. Then came the moment that sealed it. On February 24, 2022, the exact day Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, Khan was in Moscow shaking hands with Putin on a long scheduled visit. Biden's national security advisor Sullivan had personally called Islamabad days before urging them to cancel. Khan didn't budge. Pakistan then abstained on the UN vote condemning the invasion. Washington was done. Weeks later came the Lu meeting. The cable. And then Khan was out. What followed was a gut punch. Artillery shells started flowing to Ukraine secretly through U.S. defense contractors. American support for Pakistan's IMF lifeline was explicitly tied to keeping that weapons pipeline running. Pakistan got its $3 billion bailout in July 2023. In February 2024 the military brazenly rigged the elections and the U.S. and EU sat on their hands and said nothing. And Khan? Buried under a never ending conveyor belt of charges, corruption, contempt, national security, one case collapsing only for another to appear. He has been behind bars for nearly 3 years now. His wife still in prison. His party outlawed, stripped of its electoral symbol, barred from even fielding candidates under its own name. The cypher was always real. They called it fake, jailed the man who leaked it, and hoped everyone would move on. They didn't. Source: Drop Site News