The Passive Voices

Pakistan’s disgraced Ambassador to the US, commonly believed to be an American Ambassador in Washington, DC was sent home unceremoniously after it was established that he attempted to stage a unique coup against Pakistan’s security establishment with the help of American armed forces. Like experienced and hardened criminals, he has been dodging the prosecution process with the help of his comrades. Misusing the position as Ambassador, he even tried to have inserted a loan conditionality which would make the process of promotions in the armed forces open to American interference. It is now a common knowledge that he facilitated entry of CIA operatives into Pakistan without the mandated security clearance. Before becoming the Ambassador, he was known to be spewing venom against Pakistani armed forces in the US.

Old habits die hard, like they say.

According to a report in The Daily Caller, Mr. Husain Haqqani has urged the American government to take a tougher line on his home country in a remarkably candid speech Wednesday afternoon, saying “Pakistan ends up behaving like Syria while wanting to be treated like Israel,” Haqqani told several dozen journalists, think tankers, opinion makers and government officials at a luncheon in Washington held by the Center for the National Interest.

His essential argument at the luncheon was that America and Pakistan should no longer put up the pretense that they are allies. Haqqani said that it is unrealistic to believe that “endless discussions and chats and what I call the class of narratives will somehow, some day produce a change of thinking either in Washington” or Islamabad. The U.S. isn’t going to be convinced to treat India as an enemy for Pakistan’s sake and Pakistan won’t be convinced to give up its nuclear weapons or end its support for jihadi groups it sees as strategically beneficial for “regional influence” because America wants it to, he said.

Haqqani also said Pakistan needs to form a commission to thoroughly investigate who knew al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan, because “somebody knew.” It is Pakistan’s responsibility to the world to say who did it? Who? Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be the government, it doesn’t have to be the ISI, it doesn’t have to be the military and I say that again and again. It may be private individuals. But whoever it is, we need to come clean on that because that is the only way we will reassure the rest of the world that the Pakistan government and the Pakistan state has its hands clean in relation to this whole thing.

Related articles

• Pakistan and US should end alliance: Hussain Haqqani (nation.com.pk)
• US-Pakistan tensions: Time to stop pretending we are allies? (csmonitor.com)