The U.S. State Department encouraged the Pakistani government in a March 7, 2022, meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.

The meeting, between the Pakistani ambassador to the United States and two State Department officials, has been the subject of intense scrutiny, controversy, and speculation in Pakistan over the past year and a half, as supporters of Khan and his military and civilian opponents jockeyed for power. The political struggle escalated on August 5 when Khan was sentenced to three years in prison on corruption charges and taken into custody for the second time since his ouster. Khan’s defenders dismiss the charges as baseless. The sentence also blocks Khan, Pakistan’s most popular politician, from contesting elections expected in Pakistan later this year.

One month after the meeting with U.S. officials documented in the leaked Pakistani government document, a no-confidence vote was held in Parliament, leading to Khan’s removal from power. The vote is believed to have been organized with the backing of Pakistan’s powerful military. Since that time, Khan and his supporters have been engaged in a struggle with the military and its civilian allies, whom Khan claims engineered his removal from power at the request of the U.S.

The text of the Pakistani cable, produced from the meeting by the ambassador and transmitted to Pakistan, has not previously been published. The cable, known internally as a “cypher,” reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Khan, promising warmer relations if Khan was removed, and isolation if he was not.

The document, labeled “Secret,” includes an account of the meeting between State Department officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu, and Asad Majeed Khan, who at the time was Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S.

The document was provided to The Intercept by an anonymous source in the Pakistani military who said that they had no ties to Imran Khan or Khan’s party. The Intercept is publishing the body of the cable below, correcting minor typos in the text because such details can be used to watermark documents and track their dissemination.

The cable reveals both the carrots and the sticks that the State Department deployed in its push against Prime Minister Imran Khan.

The contents of the document obtained by The Intercept are consistent with reporting in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn and elsewhere describing the circumstances of the meeting and details in the cable itself, including in the classification markings omitted from The Intercept’s presentation. The dynamics of the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. described in the cable were subsequently borne out by events. In the cable, the U.S. objects to Khan’s foreign policy on the Ukraine war. Those positions were quickly reversed after his removal, which was followed, as promised in the meeting, by a warming between the U.S. and Pakistan.

The diplomatic meeting came two weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which launched as Khan was en route to Moscow, a visit that infuriated Washington.

On March 2, just days before the meeting, Lu had been questioned at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over the neutrality of India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan in the Ukraine conflict. In response to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., about a recent decision by Pakistan to abstain from a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s role in the conflict, Lu said, “Prime Minister Khan has recently visited Moscow, and so I think we are trying to figure out how to engage specifically with the Prime Minister following that decision.” Van Hollen appeared to be indignant that officials from the State Department were not in communication with Khan about the issue.

The day before the meeting, Khan addressed a rally and responded directly to European calls that Pakistan rally behind Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd. “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.” Join Our Newsletter Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. I'm in

In the meeting, according to the document, Lu spoke in forthright terms about Washington’s displeasure with Pakistan’s stance in the conflict. The document quotes Lu saying that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position (on Ukraine), if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.” Lu added that he had held internal discussions with the U.S. National Security Council and that “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.”

Lu then bluntly raises the issue of a no-confidence vote: “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister,” Lu said, according to the document. “Otherwise,” he continued, “I think it will be tough going ahead.”

Lu warned that if the situation wasn’t resolved, Pakistan would be marginalized by its Western allies. “I cannot tell how this will be seen by Europe but I suspect their reaction will be similar,” Lu said, adding that Khan could face “isolation” by Europe and the U.S. should he remain in office.

Asked about quotes from Lu in the Pakistani cable, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “Nothing in these purported comments shows the United States taking a position on who the leader of Pakistan should be.” Miller said he would not comment on private diplomatic discussions.

The Pakistani ambassador responded by expressing frustration with the lack of engagement from U.S. leadership: “This reluctance had created a perception in Pakistan that we were being ignored or even taken for granted. There was also a feeling that while the U.S. expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the U.S., it did not reciprocate.”

“There was also a feeling that while the U.S. expected Pakistan’s support on all issues that were important to the U.S., it did not reciprocate.”

The discussion concluded, according to the document, with the Pakistani ambassador expressing his hope that the issue of the Russia-Ukraine war would not “impact our bilateral ties.” Lu told him that the damage was real but not fatal, and with Khan gone, the relationship could go back to normal. “I would argue that it has already created a dent in the relationship from our perspective,” Lu said, again raising the “political situation” in Pakistan. “Let us wait for a few days to see whether the political situation changes, which would mean that we would not have a big disagreement about this issue and the dent would go away very quickly. Otherwise, we will have to confront this issue head on and decide how to manage it.”

The day after the meeting, on March 8, Khan’s opponents in Parliament moved forward with a key procedural step toward the no-confidence vote.

“Khan’s fate wasn’t sealed at the time that this meeting took place, but it was tenuous,” said Arif Rafiq, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and specialist on Pakistan. “What you have here is the Biden administration sending a message to the people that they saw as Pakistan’s real rulers, signaling to them that things will better if he is removed from power.”

The Intercept has made extensive efforts to authenticate the document. Given the security climate in Pakistan, independent confirmation from sources in the Pakistani government was not possible. The Pakistan Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to a request for comment.

Miller, the State Department spokesperson, said, “We had expressed concern about the visit of then-PM Khan to Moscow on the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have communicated that opposition both publicly and privately.” He added that “allegations that the United States interfered in internal decisions about the leadership of Pakistan are false. They have always been false, and they continue to be.”

They lied about Afghanistan. They lied about Iraq. Now they're lying about Ukraine Russia's invasion was a war crime. That's no excuse for the disastrous, destructive path of endless war
-Chris Hedges

The playbook the pimps of war use to lure us into one military fiasco after another, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine, does not change. Freedom and democracy are threatened. Evil must be vanquished. Human rights must be protected. The fate of Europe and NATO, along with a "rules-based international order" is at stake. Victory is assured.

The results are also the same. The justifications and narratives are exposed as lies. The cheery prognosis is false. Those on whose behalf we are supposedly fighting are as venal as those we are fighting against.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a war crime, although one that was provoked by NATO expansion and by U.S. backing of the 2014 "Maidan" coup, which ousted democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych wanted economic integration with the EU, but not at the expense of economic and political ties with Russia. The war will only be solved through negotiations that allow ethnic Russians in Ukraine to have autonomy and Moscow's protection, as well as Ukrainian neutrality, which means the country cannot join NATO. The longer these negotiations are delayed the more Ukrainians will suffer and die. Their cities and infrastructure will continue to be pounded into rubble.

But this proxy war in Ukraine is designed to serve U.S. interests. It enriches the weapons manufacturers, weakens the Russian military and isolates Russia from Europe. What happens to Ukraine is irrelevant.

"First, equipping our friends on the front lines to defend themselves is a far cheaper way — in both dollars and American lives — to degrade Russia's ability to threaten the United States," admitted Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

"Second, Ukraine's effective defense of its territory is teaching us lessons about how to improve the defenses of partners who are threatened by China. It is no surprise that senior officials from Taiwan are so supportive of efforts to help Ukraine defeat Russia. Third, most of the money that's been appropriated for Ukraine security assistance doesn't actually go to Ukraine. It gets invested in American defense manufacturing. It funds new weapons and munitions for the U.S. armed forces to replace the older material we have provided to Ukraine. Let me be clear: This assistance means more jobs for American workers and newer weapons for American service members."

Once the truth about these endless wars seeps into public consciousness, the media, which slavishly promotes these conflicts, drastically reduces coverage. The military debacles, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, continue largely out of view. By the time the U.S. concedes defeat, most barely remember that these wars are being fought.

The pimps of war who orchestrate these military fiascos migrate from administration to administration. Between posts they are ensconced in think tanks — Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Initiative, Institute for the Study of War, the Atlantic Council and the Brookings Institution — funded by corporations and the war industry. Once the Ukraine war comes to its inevitable conclusion, these Dr. Strangeloves will seek to ignite a war with China. The U.S. Navy and military are already menacing and encircling China. God help us if we don't stop them.

These pimps of war con us into one conflict after another with flattering narratives that paint us as the world's saviors. They don't even have to be innovative. The rhetoric is lifted from the old playbook. We naively swallow the bait and embrace the flag — this time blue and yellow — to become unwitting agents in our self-immolation.

Since the end of the Second World War, the government has spent between 45 to 90 percent of the federal budget on past, current and future military operations. It is the largest sustained activity of the U.S. government. It has stopped mattering — at least to the pimps of war — whether these wars are rational or prudent. The war industry metastasizes within the bowels of the American empire to hollow it out from the inside. The U.S. is reviled abroad, drowning in debt, has an impoverished working class and is burdened with a decayed infrastructure as well as shoddy social services.

Wasn't the Russian military — because of poor morale, poor generalship, outdated weapons, desertions, a lack of ammunition that supposedly forced soldiers to fight with shovels, and severe supply shortages — supposed to collapse months ago? Wasn't Putin supposed to be driven from power? Weren't the sanctions supposed to plunge the ruble into a death spiral? Wasn't the severing of the Russian banking system from SWIFT, the international money transfer system, supposed to cripple the Russian economy? How is it that inflation rates in Europe and the U.S. are higher than in Russia despite these attacks on the Russian economy?

Wasn't the nearly $150 billion in sophisticated military hardware, financial and humanitarian assistance pledged by the U.S., EU and 11 other countries supposed to have turned the tide of the war? How is it that perhaps a third of the tanks Germany and the U.S. provided were swiftly turned by Russian mines, artillery, anti-tank weapons, air strikes and missiles into charred hunks of metal at the start of the vaunted counteroffensive? Wasn't this latest Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was originally known as the "spring offensive," supposed to punch through Russia's heavily fortified front lines and regain huge swathes of territory? How can we explain the tens of thousands of Ukrainian military casualties and the forced conscription by Ukraine's military? Even our retired generals and former CIA, FBI, NSA and Homeland Security officials, who serve as analysts on networks such as CNN and MSNBC, can't say the offensive has succeeded.

And what of the Ukrainian democracy we are fighting to protect? Why did the Ukrainian parliament revoke the official use of minority languages, including Russian, three days after the 2014 coup? How do we rationalize the eight years of warfare against ethnic Russians in the Donbass region before the Russian invasion in February 2022? How do we explain the killing of more than 14,200 people and the 1.5 million who were displaced, before Russia's invasion took place last year?

How do we defend the decision by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ban 11 opposition parties, including the Opposition Platform for Life, which had 10 percent of the seats in the Supreme Council, Ukraine's unicameral parliament, along with the Shariy Party, Nashi, Opposition Bloc, Left Opposition, Union of Left Forces, State, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialist Party of Ukraine, Socialists Party and Volodymyr Saldo Bloc? How can we accept the banning of these opposition parties — many of which are on the left — while Zelenskyy allows fascists from the Svoboda and Right Sector parties, as well as the Banderite Azov Battalion and other extremist militias, to flourish?

How do we deal with the anti-Russian purges and arrests of supposed "fifth columnists" sweeping through Ukraine, given that 30 percent of Ukraine's inhabitants are Russian speakers? How do we respond to the neo-Nazi groups supported by Zelenskyy's government that harass and attack the LGBTQ community, the Roma population and anti-fascist protesters, and threaten city council members, media outlets, artists and foreign students? How can we countenance the decision by the U.S and its Western allies to block negotiations with Russia to end the war, despite Kyiv and Moscow apparently being on the verge of negotiating a peace treaty?

I reported from Eastern and Central Europe in 1989 during the breakup of the Soviet Union. NATO, we assumed at the time, had become obsolete. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev proposed security and economic agreements with Washington and Europe. Secretary of State James Baker, along with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, assured Gorbachev that NATO would not be extended beyond the borders of a unified Germany. We naively thought the end of the Cold War meant that Russia, Europe and the U.S. would no longer have to divert massive resources to their militaries.

The so-called "peace dividend," however, was a chimera.

If Russia did not want to be the enemy, Russia would be forced to become the enemy. The pimps of war recruited former Soviet republics into NATO by painting Russia as a threat. Countries that joined NATO, which now include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, reconfigured their militaries, often through tens of millions in Western loans, to become compatible with NATO military hardware. This made the weapons manufacturers billions in profits.

It was universally understood in Eastern and Central Europe following the collapse of the Soviet Union that NATO expansion was unnecessary and a dangerous provocation. It made no geopolitical sense. But it made commercial sense. War is a business.

In a classified diplomatic cable — obtained and released by WikiLeaks — dated Feb. 1, 2008, written from Moscow and addressed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the NATO-European Union Cooperative, the National Security Council, the Russia Moscow Political Collective, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, there was an unequivocal understanding that expanding NATO risked conflict with Russia, especially over Ukraine:

Not only does Russia perceive encirclement [by NATO], and efforts to undermine Russia's influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. ...

Dmitri Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the long-term, the most potentially destabilizing factor in U.S.-Russian relations, given the level of emotion and neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership. ... Because membership remained divisive in Ukrainian domestic politics, it created an opening for Russian intervention. Trenin expressed concern that elements within the Russian establishment would be encouraged to meddle, stimulating U.S. overt encouragement of opposing political forces, and leaving the U.S. and Russia in a classic confrontational posture.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened if the Western alliance had honored its promises not to expand NATO beyond Germany's borders and Ukraine had remained neutral. The pimps of war knew the potential consequences of NATO expansion. War, however, is their single-minded vocation, even if it leads to a nuclear holocaust with Russia or China.

The war industry, not Putin, is our most dangerous enemy.