Remove Imran Khan & All Will Be Forgiven in Washington? Ryan Grim & Moeed Pirzada

Dr. Moeed Pirzada: Ryan, thank you so much for finding time. I know that you’re so busy. , I really wonder how someone balances children, family life, home, television and writing and drop site and meetings all at the same time. Thank you so much for finding time.

Mr. Ryan Grim: It’s my pleasure. How are you?

Dr. Pirzada: I am less hassled, less harassed than you are. So, I want to come straight to the point why you and your team decided to publish this cipher now when you had it for the past several months. What changed your perspective?

Mr. Grim: So, at the Drop Site, we are driven really by twin imperatives. On the one hand we want maximum possible transparency for the global public. We want to get as much information as much source and documents information to the public as is possible. We also want to maintain and pursue maximum possible protection for sources who provide us with information. And so very often because of the kind of restrictive nature of various governments, this is not unique to Pakistan at all.
Revealing and publishing the documents themselves can then lead to the identity of the sources because of the different kinds of unique markings that are on some documents where they might be watermarked in. They might be kind of invisible to the naked eye and then can be traced back to the original source. So that’s why we often don’t publish documents or we kind of reproduce them in a way that we feel is safe. Now in this case it has gotten to the point where we felt that the risk was much lower than publishing.

Dr. Pirzada: For how long have you had these documents?

Mr. Grim: Well, when did we publish it? August of 2023. So, we had it at least some period before that.

Dr. Pirzada: So, I mean I have number of questions, a huge percentage of the public across the world and people have taken a lot of interest and have welcomed it. There are many naysayers and many people who have lot of questions. I mean one of them is the Wall Street Journal columnist Sadanand Dhume. They have several questions, one to the authenticity- many people asked how to have you really verified the authenticity of this cable and these documents?

Mr. Grim: Well, the government itself has repeatedly verified the authenticity of it by making false claims that it was Imran Khan or somebody close to him that leaked it. The documents that we have, as you can see now that we’ve published, have no check marks next to the office of the prime minister, which is the check marks go onto these ciphers so that you can kind of track which office has which copy. The check mark here is by the military. But the Pakistani government has made vague accusations that it was Prime Minister Imran Khan that leaked these documents. If the documents are not authentic how on earth could he have leaked it like that it just doesn’t make any sense. So, like both things can’t be true like either it’s fake neither of the things are true because he didn’t leak it but from their perspective both things can’t be true. It can’t be both fake and have been leaked by the prime minister.

We’ve also corroborated the contents of it in both Pakistan and the United States with sources who were like involved in that meeting or otherwise would have knowledge of this. But I don’t think that anybody seriously disputes the authenticity of it. I think that some people would prefer to call it inauthentic rather than kind of discuss the substance and the contents of it. But I doubt that there are people on the planet who don’t think it’s authentic. What is your sense? It’s hard to get into the minds of some of these critics. But I think even the critics don’t believe what they’re saying there.

Dr. Pirzada: Interesting! My position was a bit different in the sense that I had more excess than any others and I had this what we can call is an undue sort of excess in the sense that I was among those 10 journalists with whom the cipher in April of 2022 was read out by the then cabinet minister very important person by the name of Asad Umar. He had the cipher in his hand, and he read it out in slightly different language. Because the law then said that you cannot use the same language.
So, they sort of deciphered it and he read it paragraph for paragraph. It was me; it was Imran Riaz Khan who is now in United Kingdom. I think there was Fareeha Idris, Habib Akram another Pakistani prominent journalist. I think there was Kashif Abbasi. So, there were 10 Pakistani journalists sitting in an office in the prime minister’s office and secretariat in Islamabad. And the cipher was read out to us including the late Shahed Arshad Sharif who was subsequently murdered in mysterious circumstances in Kenya. So, this cipher which you have published exactly tallies word-by-word paragraph-by-paragraph what we had and when we heard it, we also made our notes.

So, I understand this is authentic but, I think there is a very prominent Pakistani television anchor person whose name is Mansoor Ali Khan. I mean he at the time because Imran Khan waved a documents in Islamabad in a public rally and many people thought perhaps it was not the actual cipher perhaps he wanted to make the point so now people are actually going by this the fact that he waved a documents and that document was not the cipher.

So, the first thing was physical authenticity, but the second thing is what is the political significance of these documents. Ryan, how do you really see it? I mean do you think, the second set of criticism like what comes from Sadanand Dhume and the Wal Street Journal and many other people would be that this is just an angry diplomatic exchange between Donald Lu from the state department and Pakistan’s Ambassador Dr Asad Majeed. What’s so significant about it?

Mr. Grim: Well, that is for people to decide for themselves. As far I’m concerned, I have my own opinion which is that the United States when it speaks on matters like this to government, to the military in particular in Pakistan carries an enormous amount of weight and that obviously a lot of different factors within the government and the military have their own motivations that they are not, Just simply taking orders from the United States.

But I think it’s transparent that if the military is going to go forward with some type of a power grab, they’re going to look for United States approval for it. And if they sense United States disapproval, maybe they do it anyway. I doubt it, but maybe. Who knows? But in this case, they were moving forward in that effort, and this green light had them drive, right through the intersection. So, I think people maybe get it a little bit too twisted in their head that it’s not like Donald Lu says do this and they hope to and do it. But if Donald Lu doesn’t say that do they, do it?

We don’t quite know. What we do know is that Donald Lu gave a green light and they did it. Like that is just the natural chronological fact. Like that is what happened. And it’s important to get these documents into the public record so that the doubters can kind of move beyond that question and then they can debate the power dynamics and the decision- that was made by the various parties. Rather than debating whether it happened, we now know what happened.

Dr. Pirzada: Get rid of Imran Khan and all will be forgiven. All will be forgiven. All will be forgiven. Khan was gotten rid of all was forgiven. Like that is like that is what happened. So, all what happened in Afghanistan, all the acrimony, all the all the all the problems we had for the past 20 plus years for the double games and everything will be forgiven if you get rid of this man, this Imran Khan.

But it’s very interesting that you have brought more depth to the argument by saying they could have done it anyway. This brings you closer to Sadanand Dhume. I mean he believes this thing that the Pakistan and many other Indian watchers of Pakistan believe that Pakistani military is strong enough and assertive enough and rebellious enough to carry on its own things. It’s after all running the regime itself. So, what is your assessment? Because you are now obsessed, possessed by this Pakistani politics for the past 3 plus years. What do you think the Pakistani military could have done it anyway without the approval from the department of state and the Biden administration?

Mr. Grim: From my perspective, it doesn’t necessarily matter, because that’s not what happened. They did it with not just a green light but very strong encouragement with carrots on the one hand, all will be forgiven and the relations will be very good on the one hand and sticks on the other. It will be very hard going if Pakistan doesn’t do this. I can’t speak for Europe, but I suspect that Pakistan would be isolated from them too so that’s not just green light. Go ahead and do it. There was that famous green light that the United States State Department gave to Saddam Hussein in 1990.

Dr. Pirzada: 1990, I think 1990 or 89. Yeah. Yeah. When he attacked Kuwait, right?

Mr. Grim: He said, “The State Department was something like we’re not interested in your border disputes.” And he took that as a green light. He may have misinterpreted that may have been bait. Historians could argue about that for decades. That’s different than what happened here. What happened here was crystal clear. There was no ambiguity, no it’s not our concern what happens in a parliamentary no confidence vote. It was very clear.

If you do this, good things happen. If you don’t, bad things happen to you. And this is from the most powerful country in the world which is angry at this moment and is really hyped up about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So that is what happened. Now would the military have operated behind the scenes to twist arms and get people to switch their vote and throw Iran Khan out of office? Maybe. Also, as an American, you lived there a long time now. That’s such an odd concept to me. The idea of the military working in parliament to organize votes to oust a prime minister. It’s like the argument that they would have done it anyway to me is not remotely defending the military.

It’s like you doing this, what are you doing? Why are you doing this at all? Like military job is not to be lobbying or torturing or pressuring parliamentarians or like picking up their sisters or whatever to get them to vote one way or the other. Military’s job, I thought is supposed to be defense of the country. But that’s my view from over here. Our military’s job apparently is to just burn the world to the ground and drive up everybody’s fuel prices and make it impossible for anybody to get fertilizer. That’s a separate issue. So maybe I’d prefer that my military were just messed around with Congress rather than out there.

Dr. Pirzada: Abducting congressmen, their daughters, sisters, wives, importing cars.

Mr. Grim: If it means you’re not out there like invading Middle Eastern countries, every few years,

Dr. Pirzada: But your military will probably do both things.

Mr. Grim: They can probably do both because they have the power to do both, yeah.

Dr. Pirzada: But what was your view of Pakistan? Because before 2022 for the past 4 years almost 4 years you are observing monitoring analyzing Pakistan. What was your view of Pakistan? What was your understanding of Pakistan before 20122 and how it has changed?

Mr. Grim: Oh. O I’d have as much understanding of it as any other kind of American journalist covering foreign policy which would be not very much. and I’ve been there. I hope I get to go someday. But sovereignty and ability to kind of turn things around. I cover, Egypt as well, and I see some real similarities in the way that the economies are structured where you have the military owning these very kinds of inefficient companies that play a purely kind of extractive role in the economy. And it makes it very difficult for foreign investment for international financial institution investment to mean anything because you’re not able to produce companies that are able to grow. it creates a lot of despair. I think, among young people who can pursue an education but then wonder what I can do with this education afterwards and the kind of military economy just becomes a thing that is interested only in preserving itself rather than kind of growing prosperity in the country.

Dr. Pirzada: I asked this question because you earlier said that they could have done it anyway, but you also said that they were being facilitated they got a green signal from Donald Lu perhaps the Europeans could have got along with him everything will become all right all will be forgiven. So, what do you think is the exact nature I mean because you have invested almost 4 years into writing about this research, it you have spoken about it you have attended the seminars, the symposia. What is the nature of relationship between the United States establishment and between the Pakistani military. What is this relationship?

Mr. Grim: Yeah. And cipher has gotten all the attention from this latest story that we did, but I would really encourage people to read the entire thing because I think it’s the most comprehensive kind of look at that relationship that you’re going to find in the probably either press like combining it all into one place. although there were a few details that I think hadn’t been reported before. but it’s the United States kind of seeing Pakistan as an ally or a useful tool in its foreign policy whether it comes to stemming China’s influence around or whether it comes to producing ammunition for Ukraine. Whether it comes to some type of effort to destabilize this, situation in southeastern Iran or try to set up something for the potential future destabilization, which didn’t seem to come to pass at all.

It’s always a back burner issue for the US and whereas Pakistan I think has this similar situation where Netanyahu’s main goal his entire life crushes Palestinian resistance and expand the state of Israel. Whereas people who European leaders, American leaders like a lot of other regional folks they have a lot else that they’re doing is that that that’s his one focus. waking up, working on it, going to sleep, thinking about it for decades. , and in a similar way, the US is paying very little attention to kind of its relationship with Pakistan, whereas Pakistan understands that it’s balancing act that it plays between everyone whether it’s Iran, the Gulf countries, Russia, China or the United States. Is India there as well in the balancing act?

Read more: “Revolution Turned Iran Into a Power” — Prof Marandi in Conversation with Dr Mooed Pirzada

Dr. Pirzada: Is India also part of the balancing act?

Mr. Grim: That’s an interesting question, I think to the extent that the US wanted to see is starting to sort of want to see India checked a little bit they can play into that same with China war looks early over at India but that that’s a more constant competition I think Pakistan and India whereas Pakistan seems willing to compromise on everything else.

And all and what we find consistently is Pakistan being willing to make enormous concessions for the sake of what whatever short-term goal they’re trying to reach. but having really little interest or or intintention like sticking to those agreements that they made seeing them as kind of negotiable.

Dr. Pirzada: The India is also an interesting question because for the past 20 plus years after 9/11 most Pakistanis believed including myself that United States has a more growing sort of an inter interdependence with India and Pakistan is less and less irrelevant. But in the last one year we have seen that United States has become more closed the way President Trump embraced the favorite field Marshall and the Pakistani prime minister especially field Marshall the Indians have been left out of the equation. It looks as if the Pakistan is being used also to browbeat Indians to sort of balance them out to so make them realize that they’re not all that important that is why I ask the question I mean how have you looked at Donald Trump embracing president he’s marshall wait say that again the Donald Trump embracing how have you seen Donald Trump suddenly embracing no American president has embraced an army chief in uniform formed before.

Mr. Grim: Well, I mean, Trump loves the loves the name Field Marshall. I think he I didn’t even say that he wishes he could call himself Field Marshall. Like, he really really seemed to love it. And I think what Trump really appreciates about his relationship with Muneer is that he’ going to get he to to the to the degree possible as a man is going to give Trump what he needs and and Trump just and Trump understands that whereas with other politicians or other prime ministers whether it’s Imran Khan or say anybody else for the most part in the world they they are going to balance okay what are the interests of my country versus what it what is Trump asking for right now and I’m going to try to balance those things whereas I don’t think Aimir is doing that is saying what does Trump need and I’m going to give him that I’m or I’m going to tell him I’m going to give him that in order for me to strengthen my own position back at home and that’s and I think Trump very much likes that that would make him his favorite field marshal.

Dr. Pirzada: So how do you then look at the mediation role Pakistan is playing Asimir is playing for Donald Trump who is with Iran. How do you look at that from Washington’s perspective sitting inside?

Mr.Grim: I right and I I think the thing that has made Pakistan useful to Trump and so and so beloved in in a way also made them quite ineffective mediators cuz a mediator has to have credibility with all sides and I think Pakistan very quickly lost credibility particularly with the Iranians because they were willing to kind of say things that the Iranians didn’t believe were true that that the US wanted them to say in order to maybe boost the boost the markets or whatever else it was. So, there were two. So the Iranians have been pretty transparent about being unhappy with with how that has how that has unfolded.

Dr. Pirzada: But they’re still willing to come to Pakistan to exchange documents and proposals through Pakistan. And the foreign minister, the ministry of foreign affairs and the various leaders keep on appreciating and levishing praise on Pakistan’s role. They are not publicly signaling any displeasure with Pakistan apart from the occasional statements from certain Ibrahim Azizi who is the head of the national security of their parliament.

Abbas Araghchi the foreign minister or Ismael bakai the foreign spokesperson or maybe Professor Marandi who’s otherwise a great hawk hasn’t really said negative things on Pakistan right

Mr. Grim: and I think that that’s why why would they is like what’s the what’s the advantage to them of saying something negative at this point I think they’ve floated that they would prefer to have Oman negotiating mediating the talks again but that’s not the highest level problem that they have. I think that they I think the Iranians don’t actually think that Trump is very serious about reaching an agreement and so therefore doesn’t doesn’t matter what kind of mediator you have. if if the party on the other side is not serious,

Dr. Pirzada: are you expecting I mean you said that Iranians think that the Trump is not serious. Are you then expecting another seize of attacks on Iran or you expecting some sort of settlement?

Mr. Grim: If I had to gamble at this point, I would think Trump might go back to war. I hope I’m wrong about that though, but he doesn’t seem willing to kind of accept the hiliation that would come with reaching a deal at this point. , I don’t understand though how in his mind he doesn’t understand that this is it. Like there is no better deal with two more days of bombing or 10 more days of bombing or two months of bombing. Like the best deal he’s going to get is probably now and it’ll get worse every day, and the economy will continue to get worse. The global economy will get worse. But he I think I think it might we might be in a moment where a particular president’s personality disorder is playing as big a role as kind of structural forces would be.

Dr. Pirzada: But there’s another thing in the last 24 hours who’s this prominent Republican from from Kentucky who has been removed in this what is his name? who lost the primary because Thomas Massie, Messi, Thomas Massie and look at the role the Apac played in it and in all the candidates in the primaries who being dislodged to please Trump, Apac is playing a role that makes Trump for dependent on Apac for his own domestic politics which makes it more difficult for him to get up to sort of a deal on Iran.

Mr. Grim: Yeah, that was a huge, huge victory for Apac and the pro-Israel lobby here in the United States. Thomas Massie was the Republican who took the lead on pushing for the release of the Epstein files. He was also quite critical of weapons being sent to Israel. They spent $20 million to beat him. He ended up losing, I think, by about 10,000 votes, which, without that $20 million being spent, he probably hangs on. And so, it sends a signal to any other Republican who’s thinking of stepping out of line that they really should think twice.

Dr. Pirzada: Interesting. So coming back to the cipher, I fully agree with you that this latest story from the drop site was just not about the cipher. In fact, when I saw everyone in Pakistani media and social media japing onto the word cipher, cipher here, it’s proved Pakistan people’s safi holding a press talk and a media briefing on that issue. I wanted to point out to them that the story is worth reading because it gives a panoramic view of the politics of Pakistan for the past three and a half years since since 2022. But then the same story, the panoramic story which you think it should be read also mentions that in June of 2021 the then head of the CIA the director of CIA Bill Burns William Burns arrives in Islamabad. He stays there for one day.

He wants to meet the then prime minister Imran Khan and then the next day the Imran Khan’s office informs him through telephone call that it is against the protocol for the prime minister of Pakistan to meet you. he can only talk to his own counterpart which is the president of the United States.
Don’t you think that in June of 2021 Imran Khan through whatever hisI mean I I I think it was a mistake he set the stage for a confrontation with the most powerful intelligence establishment in the world.

Mr. Grim: Yeah. I wonder if I think we’re going to do some more reporting on that. Do who do you think advised him to do that? What do you think was in making that decision? Cuz, I think you’re right that it set him up to fall.

Dr. Pirzada: I heard when I was in Pakistan before leaving Pakistan in October 2022, I heard about this that the CIA’s establishment in GCC countries because they have a huge establishment across Middle East. They were extremely upset and shocked. They thought that Bill Burns and CIA was sort of hiliated by Imran Khan . So, I went into one of the cabinet minister close to Imran Khan and I asked him that I mean who set him up? I mean was the military I mean he said no General Vajua the then the army chief asked him to meet him but he didn’t want to meet him and so on but but I never believed it. I thought that they presented I suspect I mean I have no way of proving this. I suspect the whole thing was presented to Imran Khan. He was not properly advised. He didn’t have those advisers in foreign policy.

If I were his adviser, I would have definitely fought for the day and saying to it the prime minister, you must meet the director of the CIA. Listen him out. You do not have to agree with him on the basis and drones and everything, but you should not really hiliate him in this way that you said that I don’t go I’m not going to meet. So, I think maybe he was set up. I think maybe the drop site should actually go back to the sources and find out that how it happened.

Mr. Grim: I think we will do that because it is a very interesting moment and a critical moment. So, we will go back and look.

Dr. Pirzada: but this injects a new equation into the whole story in on the cipher because when it says all will be forgiven in March which is 7th March 2022 we now see from June 2021 to March for the past several months something is cooking in Pakistan. The CIA is upset they’re hiliated. The Pakistani military works very closely with Centcom

Mr. Grim: The Saudi stuff going on, the Chinese stuff. Yeah, there was a lot to forgive. So this actually reduces the importance of the cipher, isn’t it? Well, or maybe it increases it because it’s it’s showing how ser how seriously the United States takes the insult of there being a prime minister of pakistan and how excited the United States would be to work with Pakistan in in the event that he’s no longer prime minister.

Dr. Pirzada: Interesting. So looking at your experience because now you have become a sort of a how would you respond to Sadanand Dhe And’s objection that you pro Imran? Like I the idea that I have a dog in the fight of Pakistani politics is to me just absurd. like no offense like that this that is Pakistani politics is for Pakistanis, right? Like the idea that I’m rooting for one particular faction or another is is to me like just divorced from reality. The military or the ISI has like important documents that need to be exposed in the historical record that they should they should send them to me. it’s not it’s not it’s not about favoring or fearing one side or the other.

Dr. Pirzada: So but but then how would you explain that drop site is the only publication that has taken an immense interest in the tribulations of the Pakistani politics over the past 3 plus years and rest of the mainstream legacy media like New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the CNN, the CBS, the MSN now and even by and large the social media, the alternate media in United States has ignored what happened the kind of the the massacre that took place in Pakistan in in November of 2024 the cipher controversy itself the Donald lu hearing in in the house in the senate everything has been ignored apart from drop site no one has covered it right and

Mr. Grim: if if one day drop site’s gone probably they’ll go back to nobody caring period it’s a country of 250 million people it it plays you a significant strategic role in in world politics. We’re lucky enough that we have an audience that gives us freedom to write about whatever we’re interested in and then coincidentally we happen to have some very very good sources throughout Pakistan who are feeding us good information. If we did not have such sources then I don’t think we would go out of our way to try to develop them and say what we really need to do is we really need to find a lot of sources kind of inside of Pakistan who can tell us what’s going on in there. and so some of it is just luck like that we’ve been able to make connections with a whole swath of people in Pakistan who are able to then share documents and information with us. If all of a sudden that started happening in Democratic Republic of Congo then we would report we report on those documents as well. So, if you’re out there in anywhere in the world and you’ve got documents that are exposinh malfeasants or US intervention in ways that have been denied in the past, send them to us and and we’ll be just as interested in in those countries as we are in Pakistan.

Dr. Pirzada: But this sidesteps the second part of the question. Why the mainstream western media or the US media has totally ignored the Pakistani story?

Mr. Grim: I mean, they ignore everybody, they don’t just ignore Pakistan. They don’t cover Iraqi politics. They don’t cover Ecuadorian politics. They don’t cover Brazilian politics. They barely cover United States politics. So I think that’s just kind of the nature of of our of our media.

Dr. Pirzada: Last set of questions in this comprehensive story. You have also mentioned which was previously published as well that when Trump administration came because of the persuasion and lobbying efforts of the Pakistani-American community, the Trump administration wanted to take a slightly different position on Pakistan. And then Marco Rubio as head of the department of state had perhaps opened up a dialogue with Pentagon and CIA that the direction on Pakistan is not true. Then in this story you mentioned but that as it happens Pentagon and CIA won the day. You didn’t describe how they won the day.

Mr. Grim: Well I we don’t know precisely what bureaucratic maneuvers were made. we we but we can see the result. we can all see Richard Grenell who was kind of leading the charge within the state department and worked as Trump’s kind of envoy was sidelined into the administration and that was and that was a that was a significant development there
and what happened

Mr. Grim: well we don’t know we it requires more reporting but the the kind the kind of faction within the government that has always the US government that has always wanted a kind of militaryto military relationship to define the US Pakistan relationship those those people won out with the argu I think the argents were were we’re were clear one we’ve got situation with Iran we can’t be messing around here we’ve got this situation in Gaza. Do you want the most popular Muslim leader in the world to be free and denouncing what the US is doing in Gaza? They might have changed the contours and the context of how that was kind of how that was metabolized in Saudi Arabia or Turkey or elsewhere. and also you got the Russian Ukraine conflict raging on. and so and plus then a conflict with China.

So I think it was always going to be difficult for the kind of values a values-based argent, democracy han rights to Trump all of those concerns material real real politic concerns that I just outlined. And so I think ultimately that’s that’s just building up two more sets of questions.

Dr. Pirzada: So what do you make of the Jeffrey Epstein leaked email which mentions Imran Khan as a 2018 email? I think it was probably and Xi Jinping and Erdogan. What do you make of that?

Mr. Grim: I think it goes back to Imran Khan’s insistence on Pakistani sovereignty and the kind of Epstein worldview requires there not to be self-determination in these countries. to to somebody like Epstein and his class these countries are chess chess pieces to move around on a board. their populations don’t exist as real people. they’re they’re just there to have wealth extracted from them effectively and so I think Imran Khan represented the opposite of that and so I think that’s why and represented a kind of model of it that that Epstein worried other others might follow.

Dr. Pirzada: Last question. Do you think many people feel many Pakistani Americans think that the midterm elections might produce a change in the direction of the Us politics? So there two milestones one coming one is a midterm election second is the presidential election. Do you think a change in towards Pakistan after the midterms in the US system or will there be a change in looking at Pakistan if Trump loses to a democratic candidate in the next presidential election?

Mr. Grim: It it depends on how it goes. It depends if the community can extract any promises from whatever candidate ends up winning. and it depends on how the Iran-US-Israel war unfolds. It depends on how relations are going with China. A lot depends. But yes it’s certainly possible that would be an opportunity for a real reset.

Dr. Pirzada: Ryan, thank you so much. It was a very comprehensive. Thank you so much for finding time. I know how busy you are between children, between family, between job site, between television, between writing. Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate that.

Mr. Grim: thank you.