FATF's Ruling Pakistan, PM Imran Khan's Only the "Stooge" He Promised Never To Be

As the Pakistani government goes into overdrive unveiling one major policy change after another to avoid getting blacklisted later this month by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), it becomes clear that Machiavellian international alphabet organizations are really running this country.

From education reforms (government-control of Islamic madrasas) to foreign policies (banning Pakistanis from crossing border to help Kashmiris), major government decisions are being made by the Pakistani government to comply with FATF's long list of "bold steps" Pakistan must take to avoid being considered a haven for terror funding and money laundering. FATF put Pakistan on its greylist last year and gave it 15 months to comply with a 27-point action plan or risk losing aide from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"The FATF can anytime blacklist Pakistan for terror funding," India's defense minister Rajnath Singh said earlier this week. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan accused India of "trying to push us on the FATF blacklist to economically isolate us."

Pakistan should never have agreed to submit to FATF orders in the first place. That way the Pakistani government would be freer to make policies and programs befitting its people without any pressures to oblige to an intergovernmental group created by a few powerful countries. It also wouldn't have to beg countries with voting rights in FATF, like America and Saudi Arabia, for help.

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran Imam Syed Ali Khamenei saw FATF as a trap and advised the Iranian government last year to refuse to submit to its rules and regulations.

"A number of domineering powers gather somewhere in their so-called think tanks and plan something based on their own interests and benefits," Imam Khamenei said. "We don't have to accept these things when we don't know their eventual consequences while we know their potential problems."

Imam Khamenei also said Iran's "Islamic Consulting Assembly is a sensible, prudent, and discerning assembly with a great work force" that could adopt its own policies to combat problems like money laundering.

The Pakistani government could have done the same by following the advice of Imam Khamanei. And it still can if it tells FATF to bug off and starts making decisions befitting Pakistan and not other countries.

Khan should remember what he said in 2014: "We are not slaves of [foreign powers]. We do not polish their shoes. A prime minister like Imran Khan can never be a stooge!"