Muhammad Saeed
Hudson Institute located in the capital city of the US and established by a discernible dispensation for many years is one of the influential and overriding think tanks that academically deals with a range of issues concerning perceived challenges to the US and its strategic allies’ interests around the world. This impressive institute also enjoys good working relationship with a number of Indian think tanks including Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) which generously hosts academics that frequently besmirch Pakistan on inimitable accounts. Multitude of American interests and professed threats in the region of Asia and particularly in South East Asia where Pakistan, India and Afghanistan are located, has understandably enamored Hudson Institute to hire services of certain prospective individuals who could provide preferred and stereotype inputs to the organizations’ leaders and their close associates for making its best use.
For such a fastidious purpose Mr. Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistan Ambassador to the US from 2008 to 2011, has been placed on enduring pay roll to contribute regularly about Pakistan and its ‘wrong doings’. Mr. Haqqani, who feels pompous in calling himself as ‘we Americans’ despite enjoying the exalted ambassadorial status bestowed by Pakistan, leaves no stone unturned to regularly beleaguer Pakistan as a nuclear state and ridicule the country’s leadership as a whole to assure his employers of his fidelity and sustain his value in calculation to attenuate those who hate his country of origin. Mr. Haqqani who writes snippets in preferred tabloid and dedicate statements profusely in favour of India and against Pakistan, is enjoying an exalted portfolio of directorship for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC.
During recent visit to India on January 13, 2016 along with his spouse Ms Farahnaz Isfahani, a former Pakistan Parliamentarian now in self exile to the US, the duo has once again put their own country at trial to vent revulsion against Pakistani society in an effort to principally appease Indians, archrivals of Pakistan. The couple’s voyage to India was primarily to launch Ms Farahnaz’s newly written book, “Purifying the Land of the Pure: Pakistan’s Religious Minorities”, another magnum opus about misdemeanors of Pakistan. On the heels of this event, his rejection of the Defence Minister’s documented and authentic statement in the Parliament about Hussain Haqqani’s acerbic role in the messed up F-16 deal, has yet again relegated the couple to a new low in the eyes of Pakistanis. His wife’s book has too found desired place in Delhi followed by Mr. Haqqani’s master piece book ‘Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States and an Epic History of Misunderstanding’. Content of both these books which describe Pakistan as a country of intolerance is a perfect music to the ears of Congressmen like Dana Rohrabacher and Indian radicals. He is so popular within USG circles that recently he was invited to give testimony before a Congressional Committee where he described what they wanted to hear from him. Mr. Haqqani claimed in his testimony to be speaking for the intelligentsia in Pakistan. He told members of the Congress committee that Pakistan was six times smaller in population and has an economy one tenth the size of India but in the same breath he feared that Pakistan could ‘menace’ India if it is given F-16 aircraft and helicopters or if any kind of nuclear agreement with Pakistan is even considered.
Mr. Haqqani would hardly be forgotten for his untiring efforts related to the year 2011-12 Mullen memo controversy popularly known as Memogate, seeking American direct intervention into Pakistan’s vital national interests. The key actors in this real life intrigue included Mr. Haqqani and his long-time friend Mr. Mansoor Ejaz, a Pakistan origin American, for delivery of a written secret message to Mike Mullen who handed it over to the then National Security Advisor James L. Jones, who carried it by hand to the US President. Consequently Pakistan’s Supreme Court had to open a celestial inquiry into the issue that ultimately called for arrest of Mr. Haqqani through Interpol due to his refusal to return to Pakistan voluntarily. In year 2012 Supreme Court of Pakistan released its indisputably established findings based on forensic investigation of the text messages received on Mr. Mansoor’s Black Berry. It was found that the notorious and injurious memorandum was written by Mr. Haqqani not only to appease Indians but to damage sovereignty of Pakistan, it is a case of treason still on the record of apex court of Pakistan. His denial about his recent lobbying for suspension of war planes to Pakistan Air Force, can hardly influence sane people in Pakistan but surely make those Americans and Indians who make efforts to tutor folks like the Pakistani origin American couple.