By Junaid S Ahmad
To an outsider, Pakistan’s ruling class appears schizophrenic, perpetually swinging between Washington and Beijing, using each as leverage against the other. While Pakistan’s geostrategic importance allows this game for now, the day may come when both powers grow tired of Islamabad’s antics and walk away.
Even if former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s tenure was considered lackluster, his skyrocketing support since his 2022 ouster raises a crucial question: why would a failed leader gain popularity? Usually, populations abandon leaders who overpromise and underdeliver. Yet, Pakistanis persistently describe Khan as honest but naive, a rare figure in a plutocracy like theirs. His continued mass appeal suggests something deeper than mere political preference—it’s a repudiation of the ruling elite.
Adding to the absurdity, Pakistan’s military establishment, having once nurtured the Taliban to oust foreign occupiers, is now imploring the U.S. to return and help defeat its own creation. The generals, seemingly addicted to tactical ‘wins,’ fail to acknowledge their role in producing perpetual crises. Their policies resemble a gambler chasing losses, always hoping the next bet will finally pay off.
The regime is now employing time-tested authoritarian tactics: cultivating traitors and splitting opposition ranks. The defections within Khan’s party, Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), more commonly known as the Movement for Justice (MFJ), were expected. Yet, rather than weakening the movement, this ‘purge’ has strengthened its resolve. As one student activist put it, “The fewer crooks, the better.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. has turned its attention to the likes of USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), long accused of backing dubious ‘liberal’ activists in Pakistan. Trump’s crackdown on USAID has sent shockwaves through the NGO world, which thrives on maintaining empire-friendly narratives that enable the careerism and opportunism of these comprador elites.
Nevertheless, Western media’s coverage of Pakistan remains predictably inconsistent. Outrage over military overreach surfaces only when the generals fall out of Washington’s favor. While The New York Times once fixated on Pakistan’s venal ‘deep state’ during the ‘War on Terror,’ it largely ignored its resurgence post-Khan’s removal—until now, when the generals are once again deemed inconvenient.
Pakistani liberals, often turning a blind eye to state repression when directed at Khan’s supporters, are finally waking up. Indeed, Amnesty International has done a better job documenting abuses than local activists, who remain divided between abstract ideological debates and real-world action. One would expect progressives to engage in the struggle, though – understandably – seem to prefer the comfort of the lecture circuit over the discomfort of a jail cell.
Pakistan’s military, once seen as omnipotent, now faces cracks within its own ranks. Reports indicate growing dissent among junior officers, reluctant to fire on fellow citizens. This internal discord, coupled with increasing public resentment, signals a legitimacy crisis of historic proportions. For the first time, even Punjab—the military’s traditional stronghold—is turning against its overlords.
Despite its nuclear arsenal and large army, Pakistan behaves less like a regional power and more like a desperate child vying for parental attention from Beijing and Washington. Meanwhile, its rulers boast of their nuclear prowess while proving incapable of governing 240 million people.
In targeting Khan, the military has made a grave miscalculation. He is not just another politician but the country’s most beloved national icon. Pakistan has a history of defying logic, but even by its standards, persecuting its most popular leader while expecting public compliance has been a strategy doomed to fail from the very beginning.
In addition, conservative religious ideology Pakistan Is often criticized (correctly) by Western progressives, yet when it comes to violent Salafi jihadists in places like Syria, platforms like Democracy Now! (DN) have deliberately chosen to conveniently suppress those valid critiques.
Washington, meanwhile, supports dictators and illegitimate regimes only as long as they serve a purpose. When they become liabilities, the U.S. either turns indifferent or actively facilitates their downfall. From Zia to Musharraf, military rulers were propped up—one for jihad, one against it—until they outlived their utility. Now, with General Asim Munir at the helm of power, it’s unclear what strategic interest he serves for the U.S.
Most disconcertingly, Islamabad can barely manage the Taliban, its own Frankenstein’s monster, and its only bargaining chip remains the implicit threat that things will spiral into chaos if the generals lose control.
Pakistan’s establishment occasionally flirts with the idea of pivoting toward China, but even that bluff falls flat, given the frequent targeting of Chinese workers on Pakistani soil.
Meanwhile, the country’s progressive intelligentsia enjoys remarkable freedom, which should prompt some introspection: why are they allowed to operate unscathed while mass movements face ruthless crackdowns? The discourse of the diaspora Pakistani left is particularly lamentable —fiercely vocal against Islamophobia in the West but silent on the same issue when it arises among their own liberal circles in Pakistan. These activists rail against colonial categories like Eurocentrism and Orientalism, yet deploy the same frameworks to dismiss the Movement for Justice (MFJ) simply because parts of it hold views they dislike.
Do they agree, for example, with all of Hamas’s ideology? Unlikely. But they extend it solidarity nonetheless, understanding that movements in the Global South do not fit neatly into Western political binaries.
At present, Pakistan is witnessing obscene levels of repression. This is a moment of truth: silence is complicity. Just because the MFJ isn’t led by a sectarian leftist political party shouldn’t preclude support – an obvious and elementary premise. As the well-known political scientist, Norman Finkelstein, aptly put it, commitment must be to both justice and truth, not a selective ideological agenda. Yet, the shifting allegiances of liberal activists are regrettable.
The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), an inspirational grassroots social movement once embraced by progressives, is now dismissed because PTM leadership has denounced the traditional dynastic political parties and now leans toward the PTI/MFJ. The moment Pashtuns showed affinity for Khan, the cosmopolitan human rights and democracy activists lost interest in opposing the state’s racist violence against them.
Interestingly enough, boycotting military-owned goods has become one tangible form of resistance—no research is needed to identify which products are theirs. This is a potentially promising development to hit the generals where it hurts.
In addition, with regards to regional geopolitics, it must also be emphasized that Pakistan’s perennial enemy to the East, India, for all its right-wing authoritarianism, has played its foreign policy hand masterfully, balancing its relationship with Washington while keeping ties with BRICS and Russia. Pakistan, on the other hand, is simply obsessed with constantly reassuring the U.S. that it poses no threat to the Empire’s interests.
However, most disturbingly, highly-respected Western progressive outlets like Democracy Now and Jacobin have amplified the Pakistani Left’s most absurd talking points: Khan is unpopular, his support base is elite, his removal was a democratic milestone, and, most ludicrously, that his views align with the Taliban. These claims collapsed instantly as millions, many from working-class backgrounds, flooded the streets. Women—whom liberals and progressives conveniently ignore when they support Khan—make up half of the Movement’s supporters, including in the ostensibly ‘conservative’ province of KPK. Yet the insinuation of Democracy Now and its ilk is that these women suffer from incorrigible ‘false consciousness.’
If so, the Taliban must be wondering why Afghan women don’t seem as ‘conscious’ of their benevolence.
Ultimately, the Pakistani Left’s admirable role in domestic politics is unfortunately negligible. Its influence is disproportionately inflated in Western progressive circles, which take its narratives at face value. When Democracy Now invited an Awami Workers Party (AWP) member post-Khan’s ouster, she parroted the establishment’s line, absurdly claiming Khan’s removal was a democratic triumph. The sheer hatred for Khan blinded them to reality.
The truth was evident then, and even clearer now: the MFJ is one of the largest grassroots movements in Pakistan’s history, driven by the very communities that progressives claims to champion. Perhaps it’s time for the Left to step outside its ideological echo chamber and recognize that justice doesn’t always wear the colors they prefer.
Indeed, it is remarkable how some of the sharpest minds on the Left once proudly declared the end of Imran Khan’s so-called ‘hybrid regime’—a military-political alliance—only to now decry Pakistan’s descent into a near-martial law nightmare. The same analysts who celebrated Khan’s removal as a democratic victory now admit the country is enduring one of its darkest authoritarian episodes.
Which – once again – brings us back to our friends at Democracy Now (DN). After facing criticism from Pakistanis and Pakistani-Americans for its flawed coverage of Khan’s ousting, DN largely went silent. Instead of correcting course, or—heaven forbid—inviting a supporter of Khan’s Movement for Justice (MFJ) to offer a counterview, it opted for avoidance. Surely, if DN were so certain in its earlier framing of Khan’s movement as a reactionary, religious outfit, it should have eagerly welcomed such a guest to confirm its suspicions. Unless, of course, DN itself wasn’t entirely convinced by its own narrative.
Contrast this with BreakThrough News (BN), another progressive outlet, which quickly realized its initial coverage was unrepresentative. Rather than doubling down, BN invited a new guest—a seasoned leftist activist who, while critical of MFJ’s politics, acknowledged its mass appeal and democratic significance. BN’s approach exemplifies what responsible, independent journalism should look like.
Fast forward two years since the regime change to February 2024, and despite state repression, rigging, and outright electoral fraud designed to crush MFJ, Khan’s party emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections. Even Western media—initially cheerleaders of Khan’s removal—begrudgingly admitted that his movement is the most popular political force in Pakistan. Pakistani liberals, ever wary of looking completely detached from reality, started shifting their stances accordingly.
Better late than never, but the real pivot came after the ‘Islamabad massacre’ in November 2024. Suddenly, the Left recognized Pakistan as a totalitarian, even fascist, regime. And nowhere was this about-face more glaring than on DN. Enter Professor Aasim Sajjad Akhtar—a respected progressive intellectual—who recently stated on DN that MFJ “controls the streets” and is at “the forefront of the democratic struggle.” Quite the upgrade from the earlier depiction (by another guest of the same political party, AWP) of MFJ as a Taliban-esque cult with no real support. Either the movement/MFJ evolved, or the Left’s analysis improved. The latter seems more likely.
DN’s reluctance to engage with MFJ supporters stemmed, in part, from a thinly veiled Islamophobia. In its initial coverage, as mentioned before, DN dismissed Khan’s movement by equating it with Taliban-like extremism—an old, lazy trope used to delegitimize Muslim political movements. If DN was so eager to critique religious ideologies in the Muslim world, perhaps it could’ve started with the U.S.-backed Salafi jihadists still running amok in Syria. But, of course, that would require questioning Western imperial narratives, which is much less convenient.
Ultimately, media accountability isn’t about settling scores; it’s about recognizing moments when solidarity was desperately needed. Millions of Pakistanis have been protesting peacefully, confronting the military establishment like never before. And yet, the Left—so often posturing as a revolutionary force—is conspicuously absent when it matters most. When the greatest challenge to Pakistan’s deep state in history emerges, where are they? Nowhere to be found. Except, of course, when it’s time to belatedly acknowledge what was obvious all along.
Alas, our courageous and indefatigable friends at Democracy Now (DN) have long exhibited a secular-liberal bias, but the coverage of Pakistan has been particularly egregious. Its portrayal of Imran Khan and the Movement for Justice (MFJ) as “identical to the Taliban” was both reckless and Islamophobic. This is the same outlet that had no qualms about supporting the so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria—jihadists aligned with Al-Qaeda and ISIS—because they fit the West’s regime-change agenda.
Many of us oppose foreign-backed regime change as a matter of principle, but in Syria, it was particularly abhorrent due to the U.S. favoring violent Salafi jihadis over any genuinely pro-democracy opposition. Yet, when we pointed this out, we were labeled “Assadists” simply for not supporting Western-backed fundamentalists. Now, in Pakistan, a similar playbook is at work, and DN has been complicit in perpetuating misleading narratives that serve the interests of the military establishment and Western powers.
DN’s selective concern for misogyny is also telling. There has been zero accountability for the misogynistic ‘activists’ and officials complicit in the mass imprisonment, torture, and sexual abuse of Pakistani women since April 2022. The reality of this brutality has been conveniently ignored.
Similarly, DN had no problem misrepresenting the case of Mukhtaran Mai in 2002, deliberately distorting her words to fit an Islamophobic narrative while erasing the role of the village imam (religious leader) who risked his life to denounce Mai’s gang rape. When Mai stated her wish to teach the Quran properly, the translator for DN falsely claimed she wanted to teach science and math—because, of course, only ‘secular’ subjects can be emancipatory in DN’s worldview.
Again, and as much as it pains us to make this claim: the contradictions within DN’s coverage of Pakistan have been nothing less than staggering. Initially, it dismissed Khan and MFJ as an unpopular, reactionary movement with no public backing. Now, three years later, DN acknowledges that the MFJ is at the forefront of Pakistan’s democratic struggle, leading mass protests and commanding overwhelming popular support.
What changed? Certainly not the movement itself, but perhaps DN’s need to save face as its initial narrative collapsed under the weight of reality.
DN’s invited “experts” from Pakistan’s progressive intelligentsia have been equally inconsistent. One moment, they claimed Khan was removed through constitutional means and had no real support. Now, they admit the current PML/PPP regime lacks legitimacy and is merely reinforcing military rule. If DN had been even slightly fair-minded three years ago, it might have played a constructive role in building solidarity rather than enabling a narrative that painted Pakistan’s largest democratic movement as a fascist cult.
Pakistani liberal and progressives —both at home and in the diaspora—initially parroted this narrative, dismissing MFJ as reactionary. Now that the ground reality has forced them to acknowledge MFJ’s role in the democratic struggle, they are scrambling to realign. Yet, they still criticize the movement for not being radical enough or for pausing protests in the face of state massacres. Armchair revolutionaries, who have contributed nothing to the struggle, now expect MFJ activists to be martyrs.
DN’s complicity in covering up Pakistan’s authoritarian turn is undeniable, a sad chapter in the laudable history of America’s leading progressive media outlet.
DN mocked regime-change claims, ignored mass repression, and failed to offer a platform to those actually on the ground. If DN is finally recognizing MFJ’s significance, it should at least have the decency to admit how disastrously wrong it was. The Pakistani people deserved better than to be smeared as fascists for demanding democracy.
Undoubtedly, the Islamabad Massacre of November 26, 2024, marks a grim chapter in Pakistan’s history, where brute force and war-grade weapons were deployed against peaceful protesters. The military, hellbent on crushing the Movement for Justice, executed a premeditated massacre under the guise of maintaining order. The generals, terrified by Imran Khan’s ability to galvanize the masses, opted for indiscriminate bloodshed—an age-old tactic that, ironically, only amplified his popularity.
Initially, the long march by MFJ activists in November 2024 remained peaceful, with demonstrators engaging in singing, praying, and climbing atop shipping containers. However, within 24 hours, the military’s patience wore thin. The police, followed by elite Ranger squadrons and snipers, unleashed unprovoked violence—first with rubber bullets and tear gas, then with live ammunition. The army, fearing dissent within its ranks, was kept away from the bloodbath, stationed instead to guard Adiala Jail, where Khan remains imprisoned.
Eyewitness accounts and independent reports from Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, the Pakistan Doctors Forum, and the Red Crescent confirm the savagery. Hospitals, sealed off by military forces, denied entry to families, lawyers, and journalists. Reports of “operation clean-up” suggest an orchestrated effort to disappear both bodies and evidence. The casualty count remains uncertain, but conservative estimates place the dead at around 100, with thousands injured and detained. The magnitude of the suffering and the images of the dead drew parallels to Gaza—obviously not in terms of the scale but with regards to the moral depravity of the Zionist comprador rulers of Pakistan.
Internationally, even Washington seems to be losing patience with its once-loyal lackeys. The generals, desperate to prove their anti-China credentials, have done little to prevent a steady stream of assassinations of Chinese workers in Pakistan, a move that has enraged Beijing and jeopardized the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Meanwhile, the Biden administration’s response to the massacre in November 2024 had been characteristically hollow—urging the Pakistani military to investigate itself, much like its farcical demands for Israel to investigate its war crimes.
Rather alarmingly, the Pakistani state has resorted to Orwellian extremes in suppressing Khan and his movement. His name cannot be mentioned on local media; his party’s flag is banned; half of PTI’s leadership languishes in prison. Despite surviving two assassination attempts and enduring over a year of imprisonment, Khan remains the most formidable political force in the country’s sordid history. His continued influence terrifies the military, which has a well-documented record of eliminating civilian leaders.
The sheer brutality of the Islamabad Massacre has led to resignations from civil servants and military personnel in protest. Calls for international sanctions on Gen. Asim Munir and an ICC arrest warrant grow louder. A budding BDS-style movement against Pakistan gains traction. Even the ever-cautious BBC has been forced to acknowledge the military’s barbarism, lest it lose credibility with its Pakistani audience.
Now in 2025, three years after the regime change against Imran Khan, the wildly popular former prime minister languishes in isolation, deprived of medical care and cut off from his family, with the risk to his life growing by the day. The regime has demonstrated time and again that it will stop at nothing to retain power. The question now is not whether Khan can survive their wrath—but whether Pakistan can survive its own generals.
2 March 2025
Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches Law, Religion, and Global Politics and is the Director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Decolonization (CSID), Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a member of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST – https://just-international.org/), Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN – https://nakbaliberation.com/), and Saving Humanity and Planet Earth (SHAPE – https://www.theshapeproject.com/).