Not since 1956 when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatened the West with the infamous words, “We will bury you” have world leaders heard the head of a nuclear state brandish its atomic weapons to intimidate the world.

Almost 60 years after Khrushchev said these words at a reception in Moscow while addressing Western ambassadors, the Islamic State of Pakistan was back at the centre of the world’s attention as its prime minister raised the spectre of a nuclear war engulfing the globe.

Distroscale

Last Friday, Imran Khan rose to address a poorly attended hall of the UN General Assembly and in a not-so-disguised threat said, if the world did not pay attention to his penchant for a jihad against neighbouring India over the Indian state of Kashmir, a nuclear war would ensue and engulf the rest of the world:

“If a conventional war starts between the two countries … anything could happen. But supposing a country [Pakistan] seven times smaller than its neighbour [India] is faced with the choice either you surrender, or you fight for your freedom till death? “What will we do? I ask myself this question … and we will fight. … and when a nuclear-armed country fights to the end, it will have consequences far beyond the borders.”

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Khan warned of a “blood bath” in Kashmir, where New Delhi has taken steps to fully integrate the territory with the rest of the country by amending the country’s constitution that hitherto had granted greater autonomy to the region than that given to the other 29 Indian states.

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The Pakistani prime minister positioned himself as leader of the Islamic world and thus having authority to speak on behalf of India’s Kashmiri Muslims. In a provocative remark , Khan posed a rhetorical question: “Would I want to live like that?” Then answering his own question, he declared, “I would pick up a gun.”

And then to claim plausible deniability, he backtracked to say: “I am not threatening here about a nuclear war; it is a worry. It is a test for the United Nations. You are the one who said Kashmir has the right to self-determination. This is not the time for appeasement like that in 1939 in Munich.”

Was Imran Khan equating the world’s largest democracy India with Nazi Germany? Was he making a parallel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Adolf Hitler?

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Outrageous as it may sound, but, yes the man known as ‘Taliban Khan’ did accuse the Indian leader of being a fascist just as Pakistani-Americans on the streets of New York roamed around with posters showing Mr. Modi as Hitler, chanting “Allah O Akbar” as they attacked and browbeat anti-Jihadi exiles from Balochistan and Sindh who were protesting human rights violations inside the Islamic State of Pakistan.

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The threats of nuclear war by Imran Khan were met with a calm response from Indian diplomat Vidisha Maitra. Addressing the General Assembly in her right of reply to Khan, she said: “Prime Minister Imran Khan’s threat of unleashing nuclear devastation, qualifies as brinksmanship, not statesmanship. Even coming from the leader of a country that has monopolized the entire value chain of the industry of terrorism, Prime Minister Khan’s justification of terrorism was brazen and incendiary.”