In Episode 1840 of Cut the Clutter, The Print Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta, talks about big revelations made by American news website Drop Site regarding the Cypher Cable that may hold the reservations the then US government had towards the Pakistan government, led by Imran Khan in 2022, and may have led to his eventual ouster.
Here is the complete transcript, edited for clarity.
Since 2022, or let me say since March 2022, Pakistan’s politics has all moved around. The pivot of Pakistan’s politics has been something called the cypher case.
What is cypher? Cypher means zero. It doesn’t mean it is something that was done by a cypher. Somebody who is a complete cypher. Not like that. Cypher means code. So, something that is written in code is a cyphered document. This was a cypher document that was sent by the then ambassador of Pakistan in Washington on 7th March 2022. The ambassador’s name was Asad Majeed Khan.
He wrote a cyphered document of about two pages, which like all coded cables, diplomatic cables were top secret. It was top secret in the Pakistani system. That cable had a line. That cable was a resume of a conversation that the Pakistani ambassador had with then assistant secretary of state for South Asian and Central Asian affairs, Donald Lu.
There was one line in that cable. It’s about a two-and-a-half-page cable. It talks about Pakistan’s position on Ukraine. Also, the Pakistani ambassador complaining to Donald Lu, that ‘you are attacking us for our position on Ukraine’ and about Imran Khan being in Moscow on the day the invasion took place, that is 24 February, 2022. ‘But you are not questioning India on their abstention, etc.’
Donald Lu goes on to say that the view in Washington is different about India. Even at the Congress the people see India through the prism of the Chinese relations.
All that goes on but there is one line in that cable which is the little weapon of mass destruction. “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, otherwise I think it will be tough going ahead.”
Now this is a quote that the Pakistani ambassador has written reporting on his conversation with Donald Lu. Lu is somebody who’s known in New Delhi very well. He was the deputy chief of mission at the at the US embassy in Delhi from 2010 to 2013. I‘ve had the pleasure of hosting him at home for one of our dinners. A decent gentleman usually not given to any tough language. But in this case, he’s been quoted as saying the above.
Now what happens? Taking you back to 7th March.
This cable is sent to Islamabad. This is the time when Imran Khan is under pressure from his army. The army chief then wasn’t Asim Munir, but Qamar Javed Bajwa. In fact, Bajwa wanted to mend relations with America. This at a time when Imran Khan has particularly ruined the relations. How that played out? I will tell you as I take you through a story that has just dropped, if I may say so, on the American independent news site called Drop Site.
By this time, however, the US-Pakistan relations are really bad. They are so bad and the Pakistani army is so upset about this that it hired By this time, however, the US-Pakistan relations are really bad. They are so bad and the Pakistani army is so upset about this that it hired the former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) station chief in Islamabad as its lobbyist in Washington, behind their prime minister’s back.
A former CIA station chief is hired by the Pakistani army behind the back of its prime minister to lobby for it in Washington. That’s how complicated the situation is and that’s why Imran Khan (I think his judgment was right) thought that this was a conspiracy to pull him down through a vote of confidence, in which his army was also involved.
When this happens, Imran Khan threatens to make this cable public or this cypher public. That’s why in Pakistan, it’s called the cypher case. If you Google ‘the cypher case Pakistan’, you will find the entire story and millions of stories about it.
Because this is the pivot around which Pakistan’s politics, the decline, fall and jailing of Imran Khan, the return of Shehbaz and Nawaz Sharif from abroad, the withdrawal of all the cases, including convictions, against the elder Sharif. The jailing of Imran Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi, then the rise of Asim Munir—his becoming the army chief sort of out of turn, but before that also his removal as the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief sort of prematurely, and then becoming the Field Marshall and the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF).
Munir abolishing the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) is very significant. Again, I will tell you why that is significant, and he becoming the dictator of Pakistan through this bloodless coup and then becoming a darling of US President Donald Trump as well. All of that has happened around this cable.
Now this cable comes by 30th March. Buzz has built up in Islamabad that Imran Khan is going to reveal this cable because he was saying that Americans are leading this conspiracy in which some other forces in Pakistan are involved. In fact, Imran Khan called it the London conspiracy, which was an allusion to Asim Munir after he had got him removed as the ISI chief in 2019. That was also a twist in the story.
In Pakistan, nothing is straight because this is not a political situation. The Pakistani power game is not like any other political power game because power doesn’t rest with politicians. It’s the army, the intelligence agencies, the Americans, and, now, the Chinese as well (also, the Iranians). All of that mixes up, and then you get the story.
Prime Minister Imran Khan arrives in Tehran as a part of his initiative to promote peace and security in the region.
Foreign Minister of Iran Mr. Javad Zarif received Prime Minister Imran Khan at the airport.#PMIKVisitsIran pic.twitter.com/axGIhgqOO4
— Prime Minister's Office (@PakPMO) October 13, 2019
In 2019, this Drop Site story tells, Imran Khan made a visit to Iran. He thought he was going to mend relations with a neighbouring Islamic country. By this time, Imran Khan was also seeing himself as a great Muslim leader. He also made that proposal at the UN General Assembly of an Islamic media channel with Turkey and Malaysia. He was seeing himself as a great leader in the Islamic universe.
At this time, he went to Iran. Accompanying him was Munir, the ISI chief. In that meeting, it’s been reported earlier, but now it’s again been reported by Drop Site that Asim Munir used particularly “undiplomatic language” and annoyed the Iranians. That surprising conduct from Asim Munir came at a time when Imran Khan was trying to improve relations with Iran.
That is now being read in the American media, also in this Drop Site story as evidence that Munir already was in touch with the Americans and was working on behalf of the Americans. So, he did not want (read, the Americans didn’t want) the Pakistan-Iran relationship to get better at that point.
Within a few months after that Munir was removed, this Drop Site story tells—and I have read it elsewhere also including by some Pakistani commentators mostly exiled—that this led to the removal of Munir as the ISI chief in just eight months. That’s almost unprecedented in a country where the ISI chief’s position is so powerful. In fact, almost as far powerful as the army chief because the latter also has the “distraction” of running a large army about 600,000-700,000 strong. The ISI chief just has to run intrigues all the time and also keep the political class under control.
Munir was removed and then another story started parallelly there to which we will come in just a bit because that will involve China and America and the very sensitive relations there and the interplay.
Now, 30th March 2022, within three weeks of this cable having been received in Islamabad, it had become evident that Imran Khan was going to release this cable. If he had released this cable, this would have confirmed his conspiracy theory. This would have weakened those planning a no-confidence motion against him.
This would have also weakened the army because he would have said the army is in cahoots with the Americans. This no-confidence motion that’s coming up, is to bring me down on the demand of the Americans. Anti-Americanism is a very good bandwagon to get on to anywhere in the world, but most of all in Pakistani politics.
To prevent him, his rivals went to the Islamabad High Court on 30th March 2022. He was restrained by the court. On 27th March, in fact, Imran Khan had made his mind clear where he said in a rally that this is a foreign-funded conspiracy and also that that this cypher was going to be or this cable was going to be revealed.
That’s when the “establishment” got into action to prevent this from happening because this would have exposed them and would have cost caused big complications. The high court restrained its own PM from releasing a secret document unheard of in a democracy. A prime minister should be able to release anything he feels like as long as it belongs to his government.
Remember this is not an American cable. This is a Pakistani cable; the original document with all the markings. It’s obviously a leak from Pakistan. It’s not a leak from the Americans because they were not copied on this document. This document was from the Pakistan ambassador in Washington to his government in Islamabad. On 23 May, in fact, Imran Khan had issued a statement demanding that that Donald Lu should be fired.
If you see this document, you can see why Imran Khan would be furious because this document says that Donald Lu, or the Americans in this case, and the Pakistan ambassador says that he’s quite sure that Donald Lu was doing this after discussing it with the White House.
He was also confirming this that when the Pakistani ambassador asked Donald Lu, ‘how come you’re not talking to us about Ukraine but you’re talking to India all the time?’ He said, ‘look we can’t talk to your government right now given the current political turmoil in Pakistan that’s because of the upcoming vote of no-confidence.’
This vote of no-confidence was successful, soon enough Imran Khan lost power and then we know what happened.
Now, if you see this Drop Site story, earlier intercept stories, many other stories which have come out in international media, also in Pakistani media, also what’s been said by many well-known Pakistani journalists, commentators mostly in exile, then you can put this story together.
First of all, there is no doubt that Bill Burns, the then CIA chief, visited Pakistan in June 2021. Dawn reported about it (some archival research shows that Dawn says April, but I think I’m more willing to go with the with the June 2021 deadline).
So, in June 2021, Burns wants to meet the Pakistani prime minister. Imran Khan refuses to meet him. Why? For the same reason that the Nepal prime minister now refused to meet Sergio Gor, or refused to meet any other foreign ministers coming in because he says, ‘I am prime minister I will meet somebody of my stature.’ In this case Imran Khan said, ‘who is CIA chief? He can meet his counterpart; I will meet my counterpart or talk to my counterpart who’s Joe Biden.’
Biden did not like Imran Khan. In fact, Biden came to power just a few months earlier in January that year. He saw Imran Khan as just a usurper; did not take him seriously. Maybe, he was also affected with the bonhomie between Imran Khan and Trump when they met during the UN General Assembly session in September 2019.
That’s when Imran Khan and Donald Trump had gotten along really well and the latter had even raised a lot of eyebrows in India, by saying that he was willing to help resolve the Kashmir dispute. In fact, it’s the last time any American leader of consequence has talked about the Kashmir problem or the Kashmir issue.
In June 2021, Burns was in Islamabad. Because he knew that at some point, America will withdraw from Afghanistan. Also, at some point negotiations will reach some stage with the Taliban. The Americans wanted to protect themselves and until then, they wanted to keep the Taliban in control and protect their regime in Kabul.
So, they wanted territory in Pakistan—facilities and bases especially to be able to carry out drone strikes as they used to do in the earlier days through Pakistan. Imran Khan firstly refused to meet him and after that made it very clear that he was never going to allow his territory to be used for any operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In the same month, Imran Khan spoke to Axios co-founder Jonathan Swan. Axios these days, we see all the time because of Barak Ravid stories. Looks like Trump does nothing without telling him first, or maybe sometimes he tells him stuff but doesn’t do it. But Trump’s stories, mind comes out through Barak Ravid. So, the Axios co-founder interviewed Imran Khan where Khan said on the question of offering facilities to the Americans for operations in Afghanistan, ‘absolutely not’. There is no way we are going to give any bases or any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan. No, absolutely not.
Now within weeks, this (interview) was in July, within weeks Kabul had chaos as we know by 15th of August. Now, this is one of those vagaries of the history of the subcontinent. Two major events which have happened in the region which you can say worked adversely to India’s interest have happened on 15th August. That is the assassination of Mujibur Rahman in Bangladesh in 1975 and then the Taliban takeover in Kabul in 2021. Maybe just a co-incidence.
Co-coincidences are statistically possible although they look sort of odd. Nevertheless, by 15th August, the Taliban had taken over and the American withdrawal was chaotic, reminding people of what had happened in Vietnam. It made Biden look bad. It blighted his presidency and also in many ways contributed to the defeat of the Democrats and the victory of Donald Trump because the Democrats were seen as weak.
Now, the runup before that was actually quite fascinating. When Trump was in power the first time, Pakistan had actively brokered negotiation between him and the Taliban. This is when Trump had his special envoy who continued to be Biden’s special envoy to Afghanistan and to the Doha negotiations in Qatar, Zalmay Khalilzad.
Khalilzad, by the way, after having been very sympathetic to Pakistan on many issues and very sympathetic also to the Taliban has now got completely turned off. He’s really furious that Imran Khan was removed and was jailed. He’s been tweeting in anger against the Pakistani regime today and demanding Imran Khan’s release.
That said, it was also in this period that Pakistani military was getting weary of Imran Khan because they thought he was following a policy of being equidistant between America and China, of neither feeling seeming to be aligned with America nor with China.
That is not something that the Pakistani army wants because they depend on both for different things. And the Pakistani army now thought that this was a formula for Pakistan’s isolation which they did not like. This is when, they hired their own lobbyist in Washington because they wanted to cover that base on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The fact that Imran Khan was scheduled to travel to Moscow was well known. The US wanted him to cancel that trip because they knew that an invasion was coming any day. So again, it’s now been reported that days before the visit, Jake Sullivan, who was then Biden’s National Security Adviser (NSA), he called Moeed Yusuf, his counterpart in Pakistan, advising him to tell the prime minister to cancel his trip.
#Кремль: Владимир Путин встретился с Премьер-министром Пакистана Имран-Ханом, который находится в России с рабочим визитом https://t.co/8wl8UeqmRe pic.twitter.com/0qsntlSaJA
— Президент России (@KremlinRussia) February 24, 2022
But, Imran Khan did not listen. The pictures and videos of Imran Khan shaking hands with Putin on the day of the Ukraine invasion became the abiding image of the US-Pakistan relations of that period and that caused a great deal of damage.
On 9 April, as I told you in the vote of confidence—maybe as Donald Lu had wished—Imran Khan was removed. It was a rigged vote of confidence. Everything in Pakistani democratic process over the past 10-15 years has been rigged. This was the most rigged of all. He was removed in that rigged vote of confidence
Within months, Drop Site reports, Pakistani artillery shells and other munitions were on their way to Ukraine. These supplies were being sent through intermediaries, American intermediary companies. So, Ukraine was not short of ammunition.
Now, this is something which would have also played out in a certain way with the Chinese. It would not have pleased the Chinese because they would have seen this as Pakistan once again getting close to the Americans. Pakistan had already begun to get benefits from this process. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) stabilisation facility of $3 billion, at a time when Pakistan was totally out of foreign exchange, came in July 2023 with American intervention and that was the direct benefit of Pakistan’s shift in policy on Ukraine.
In February 2024, Pakistan rigged its election. How do you rig an election? You tell the most popular party that you are disqualified. You can’t contest. You take away their election symbol. You put their leader in jail. Also, his wife in jail. Lots of people get elected even as Independents with affiliation to that party or loyalty to that party. You don’t even give them registration certificates that they won the election.
So, this was a completely fixed election. In this case, the American administration stayed out of this, because by this time, Pakistan had mended its relationship with the Americans.
In January 2025, Trump gets sworn in. He was still carrying his suspicion of the Pakistanis within his administration. There was a tussle and as often happens with regard to Pakistan, Pakistanis have always maintained very deep professional to professional or inter-institutional relationships with the CIA because they’ve been partners in crime with the CIA for more than half a century now (also, with the Pentagon).
So, in this case, Drop Site tells that there was a tussle between the State Department-led by Marco Rubio and Pentagon and the CIA. And in this argument, Pentagon and the CIA won. And, the Americans once again decided to forgive Pakistan for all their past indiscretions or misdemeanours and start working with them as partners.
There’s a couple of interesting things that come out in these revelations. On 9 April, 2022, on the same day as Imran Khan was removed in that rigged vote of confidence, Pakistan tests a Shaheen 3 missile. This Shaheen 3 has the range of close to 3,000 km. The important thing is that so far, it was understood or presumed that all of Pakistani missiles are aimed at India. This gave Pakistan the range to hit Israel and that got the Americans immediately worried.
Qamar Javed Bajwa, in October that year, came to Washington to mend the relations with the Americans, met all the top advisers and cabinet members; secretaries of state, defence, NSA etc. He committed to them that Pakistan will keep the range of its missiles just short of Israel. It will rein its military, limit its nukes, and also move away from China.
When he came back, now this is a claim in the Drop Site report because they also claimed to have seen Pakistani secret documents and they must have access to some because otherwise this cypher would not have been made public like this. They said on his return, Qamar Bajwa called the commander of the Strategic Planning Division (SPD). In the pre- field marshal era, the SPD used to control the nuclear weapons. The SPD reported to the Joint Chief of Staff Committee (JCSC) chairperson, who in turn reported to the prime minister. So there was a system of checks and balances and multi-level clearances for the use of nuclear weapons in Pakistan. The SPD chief, to be sure, was not answerable to the army chief.
So, Bajwa comes back from Washington and speaks to the SPD chief and gives him these (above mentioned agreed in Washington) instructions. Limit the nukes, keep the missile range short of Israel, etc. The SPD chief refuses to listen because everybody knows that the power situation in Pakistan is changing. Soon there’ll be a new boss. What’s happened subsequently is worth noting.
Subsequently after Munir became the Field Marshal and the CDF, he had the constitution amended, new laws passed, the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee had been abolished because he as the Chief of Defence Forces is automatically the chairman of that committee even if it existed. And, he does not report to any army chief or anybody which means that now all of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon control is with one man, namely Field Marshal Asim Munir. So, to that extent it’s an important point. Whatever system of checks and balances and multi-level clearances were was there for nuclear weapons use in Pakistan, is now gone. It’s all with one man.
What is it that Bajwa told his SPD chief? He said look American experts will come or American delegations will come give them access to some of your nuclear sites so they can verify that we are keeping the promises that I have made. The SPD chief tossed that request. He did not bother.
In the same month, Biden spoke out, which was unusual for him, and he said Pakistan may be the most dangerous nation in the world. They have nuclear weapons whose control is without any cohesion.
This logically follows from the earlier sequence of events that I have listed for you. Now, Munir became the chief on November 2022. How he became the chief is something on which we did an entire episode of Cut The Clutter.
Imran Khan had said that after having been removed as the ISI chief, Munir made a visit to London where he met Nawaz Sharif and hatched the plan to get him out. This is what he called as the London plan.
Now what has happened since Munir came in? Since Munir came in again, according to this analysis in Drop Site and you can see some evidence of from what’s happened on the ground in Pakistan, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has come to a grinding halt.
Nothing is moving in the CPEC. So, is Pakistan distancing itself a little bit from China? Can they afford to? 85% of their weaponry comes from China. Unlikely. But Pakistan can play both sides like this and make the pretence that it’s slowing down its projects with China.
However, in fact, there’s been some slowing down. Of the 90 projects under the CPEC, only 38 have been completed. 23 are under construction. There is no talk about any of the others. Only one of the expressways planned under this, i.e., the Gwadar Eastbay Expressway was completed in June 2022. Since then, no major project is completed.
Main Line 1 (ML-1) which was the main line north to south in Pakistan; its redevelopment or modernisation has been eternally or perpetually deferred. It’s not moving. Looks like the Chinese also at some point have expressed some frustration. Chinese ambassador Jiang Zaidong, at some point, had made his frustrations public saying that Pakistan was not able to protect the Chinese workers after repeated attacks had led to 21 deaths. The Chinese power production plants in Pakistan have owed enormous amounts of money, which Pakistan is not able to pay.
In 2024, I told you Pakistan can play both sides. While pretending to look away from China in 2024—and this to my mind is the biggest revelation in these documents—Pakistan talked to China and said, ‘Look, you’ve built the port of Gwadar, you’re building it. We can give it to you as a permanent military facility. Deep water, beautiful warm waters, the Arabian Sea, next to the Persian Gulf.’ What else can the Chinese ask for?
But Pakistanis wanted something in return. What was this? I will list three things. Number one, indemnity against any retaliatory US action, economic or otherwise, for giving Gwadar as a military base to China. Number two, guaranteeing Pakistan of military aid and modernisation to keep them always abreast with India, if not ahead of India.
And third, and that’s the trickiest and also I would say the most audacious, that is for China to give Pakistan a sea-based nuclear second-strike capability as India have now just built with the Aridhaman series of submarines.
So, a second-strike submarine facility means China should give Pakistan SSBN, or nuclear weapon firing submarines. This one, the Chinese turned down. The Chinese bogged down because they thought that this will bring them into a direct role in proliferation in the subcontinent and the consequences of this internationally will be disproportionate to the benefits they get from having Gwadar as a military base.
These negotiations, Drop Site tells, ended in frustration. The Chinese found the Pakistanis unreasonable and ended the talks on a bitter note. In August 2025, Munir again tried to play both sides when he said, ‘We don’t sacrifice one friend for another.’ But meanwhile, in fact, even earlier, he had not allowed the Chinese to bring more personnel for their CPEC projects. He also sorts of withdrew without formally saying so. He did not let the Chinese bring in their own teams to protect their own personnel.
That was done to please the Americans and Drop Site would say that that contributed more to Donald Trump beginning to like Munir or rediscovering America’s love for Pakistan than the crypto deals with his family, etc, although those also played their role.
In the same period, Imran Khan while he was trying to show that Pakistan was equidistant from America and China and not really tied in with either because he also liked strategic autonomy. He had those notions. He also turned down pressure from Saudi Arabia to sign a mutual defence pact.
All of that got the Pakistani army really upset because they thought Imran Khan was now pushing Pakistan into strategic isolation. They (army) do not see strategic autonomy as something of great value. They want to play these games. So, anything that looks like being equidistant or turning down a demand from Saudi Arabia, which can bring a lot of cash for Pakistan, they will see that as a case of going into strategic isolation.
That is when the die was cast on Imran Khan’s fate. And as we know, one of the earliest agreements signed under Shehbaz/Munir, or let me just say Munir/Munir/Munir/Shehbaz Sharif dispensation, is the mutual defence pact with Saudi Arabia which in any case would not displease the Americans.
This is a short story, therefore of how what started with this cypher or cable on 7th March 2022, ended up changing not just Pakistan’s history but in some ways the subcontinent’s history and also influencing geopolitics next door in Iran, larger West Asia, policy in America, Beijing, and beyond.
(Edited by Tony Rai)