January 10, 2012 Yahya Hussainy
President Asif Zardari has suffered a trough in civilian-military relations and is having to deal with judicial and media pressures. Husain Haqqani has resigned as ambassador to the United States and is having to answer what are possible criminal charges. Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of the dreaded ISI intelligence service, has come under criticism for his exuberance in investigating civilian leaders without the prime minister’s permission or even knowledge. But the person likely to lose the most as a result of the memo scandal may be the man who started it all: US businessman Musawer Mansoor Ijaz, who lives in Europe and is of Pakistani descent.
Mansoor Ijaz started the ball rolling by claiming in a Financial Times Oped on October 10 that in May he sent a ‘secret memo’ to US Chairman Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen, seeking US support against a possible military coup in the aftermath of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Ijaz later said he was asked to send the memo by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, a scholar and well-known critic of military meddling in Pakistani politics. After many twists and turns, and several changes of statements by Ijaz, the affair has become a sore point between Pakistan’s military and elected civilian leaders.
The Supreme Court (SC) has engaged in legal callisthenics and ordered a fact-finding probe sought by the military, which most legal experts see as an effort to corner Haqqani and President Zardari without due process. The star witness in such a probe would be Ijaz, who says he can prove Haqqani’s connection to the memo by sharing Blackberry messenger exchanges with him. But according to Ijaz, the memo and its contents were not discussed in BBM messages but rather in a telephone conversation, for which he can produce his telephone bill and his hand-written notes.
Everyone understands the military’s motive in pursuing the matter. The generals wanted Haqqani out and if they can get Zardari too, they would like to. For critics of the Pakistan’s military, the judges are only doing the military’s bidding. Haqqani has no option but to deny any role in the matter as, in Pakistan, even thinking of stopping generals from doing something is unacceptable. But what is the motive of Mansoor Ijaz in continuing to press ahead with blaming Haqqani and making this a personal cause? In his writings, Ijaz has criticised the Pakistani military more than anything else. Why then join them in destroying one of their most credible critics?
It is said that Mansoor Ijaz simply wants to prove that he told the truth about the memo in his FT Oped. Being an engineer by training, he thinks his blackberry data coupled with his personal account of what he discussed with Haqqani will prove him an honest man and that would be the end of things. But irrespective of the outcome of the fact-finding probe by the Inquiry Commission set up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, there is no way the flamboyant American businessman of Pakistani descent will come out smelling of roses from the episode. The more he has tried to prove himself right, the more he has got submerged in what he had once described as the “cesspool” of Pakistani domestic politics. The more the saga drags on, the less Mansoor Ijaz would be able to get out of the cesspool.
In an article titled ‘Security chiefs must end Pakistan’s duplicity’ in the Financial Times of May 3, 2011, Mansoor Ijaz described the ISI as Osama bin Laden’s “seditious babysitter.” He wrote, “To put it bluntly, Pakistan’s intelligence service chiefs should once and for all wake up to the reality that every time they try to con the world into thinking they are a bunch of good guys protecting their country, they just get caught with their pants down - each time further eroding the nation’s credibility.”
But on October 22, he was comfortably sitting with the ISI Chief, General Pasha, in a London Hotel sharing details about how Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States put him up to writing the memo to Admiral Mullen seeking US support in containing Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. For them to meet on October 22, contacts between Pasha and Ijaz must have been established a few days earlier.
Mansoor Ijaz started the ball rolling by claiming in a Financial Times Oped on October 10 that in May he sent a ‘secret memo’ to US Chairman Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen, seeking US support against a possible military coup in the aftermath of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Ijaz later said he was asked to send the memo by Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, a scholar and well-known critic of military meddling in Pakistani politics. After many twists and turns, and several changes of statements by Ijaz, the affair has become a sore point between Pakistan’s military and elected civilian leaders.
The Supreme Court (SC) has engaged in legal callisthenics and ordered a fact-finding probe sought by the military, which most legal experts see as an effort to corner Haqqani and President Zardari without due process. The star witness in such a probe would be Ijaz, who says he can prove Haqqani’s connection to the memo by sharing Blackberry messenger exchanges with him. But according to Ijaz, the memo and its contents were not discussed in BBM messages but rather in a telephone conversation, for which he can produce his telephone bill and his hand-written notes.
Everyone understands the military’s motive in pursuing the matter. The generals wanted Haqqani out and if they can get Zardari too, they would like to. For critics of the Pakistan’s military, the judges are only doing the military’s bidding. Haqqani has no option but to deny any role in the matter as, in Pakistan, even thinking of stopping generals from doing something is unacceptable. But what is the motive of Mansoor Ijaz in continuing to press ahead with blaming Haqqani and making this a personal cause? In his writings, Ijaz has criticised the Pakistani military more than anything else. Why then join them in destroying one of their most credible critics?
It is said that Mansoor Ijaz simply wants to prove that he told the truth about the memo in his FT Oped. Being an engineer by training, he thinks his blackberry data coupled with his personal account of what he discussed with Haqqani will prove him an honest man and that would be the end of things. But irrespective of the outcome of the fact-finding probe by the Inquiry Commission set up by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, there is no way the flamboyant American businessman of Pakistani descent will come out smelling of roses from the episode. The more he has tried to prove himself right, the more he has got submerged in what he had once described as the “cesspool” of Pakistani domestic politics. The more the saga drags on, the less Mansoor Ijaz would be able to get out of the cesspool.
In an article titled ‘Security chiefs must end Pakistan’s duplicity’ in the Financial Times of May 3, 2011, Mansoor Ijaz described the ISI as Osama bin Laden’s “seditious babysitter.” He wrote, “To put it bluntly, Pakistan’s intelligence service chiefs should once and for all wake up to the reality that every time they try to con the world into thinking they are a bunch of good guys protecting their country, they just get caught with their pants down - each time further eroding the nation’s credibility.”
But on October 22, he was comfortably sitting with the ISI Chief, General Pasha, in a London Hotel sharing details about how Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States put him up to writing the memo to Admiral Mullen seeking US support in containing Pakistan’s military and intelligence services. For them to meet on October 22, contacts between Pasha and Ijaz must have been established a few days earlier.
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