Did the U.S. Really Oust Pakistan’s Imran Khan?

The Intercept’s claim that the U.S. helped oust former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan from office last year unsurprisingly caught fire on social media last week. The left-leaning site alleges that the State Department “encouraged the Pakistani government” to remove the now jailed Mr. Khan “over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

But the evidence that Washington precipitated Mr. Khan’s downfall is laughably thin. Mr. Khan lost power after falling out with his former patron, then army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. Gen. Bajwa didn’t need U.S. permission or help to do what Pakistani generals have done for decades: boot civilian leaders from government. The State Department flatly denied the allegations.

It’s easy to see why some people find the Intercept story convincing. America toppled unfriendly governments during the Cold War—including in Iran, Chile and Indonesia. And Pakistanis in particular see the U.S. as wielding outsize influence. As the local saying goes, everything important is decided by “Allah, army or America.”

Read the full article on The Wall Street Journal.