“I could be killed by a suicide bomber for being an American lackey,” Haqqani said in an interview this week, referring to one common characterization of him here. “There’s so much hype against me that I could meet the fate of Salman Taseer.”
Taseer was a liberal ruling-party governor who was assassinated one year ago by his own police guard, who disagreed with the politician’s criticism of Pakistan’s controversial anti-blasphemy laws. The accusations circling Haqqani — that he committed treason by engineering a memo asking for American help to rein in Pakistan’s powerful military — provoke similar passions here, his supporters say.
Haqqani’s attorney has offered another reason he must stay inside: The fearsome Pakistani military intelligence agency, she said, might capture and torture him into giving a false statement. And so Haqqani confines himself to an official mansion, offering what might be the starkest illustration yet of the chasm between Pakistan’s embattled civilian government and the military it technically directs.
That gap has only widened as furor over the scandal, known here as “Memogate,” escalates, plunging this volatile nation into deeper crisis. It came to light three months ago when a Pakistani American businessman, Mansoor Ijaz, said he delivered the memo to Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has said he ignored it.
Ijaz later said he wrote the memo on Haqqani’s instructions. Haqqani has denied involvement, and many Pakistani observers initially expected his resignation to quell the commotion. That did not happen.
Officials from the ruling party and some analysts say the saga is aimed at bringing down Pakistan’s U.S.-backed government or triggering the impeachment of President Asif Ali Zardari, who is himself so unpopular that he rarely appears in public. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has suggested a military plot is underway. But many — among them opposition politicians, sectors of the media and the military — are convinced Haqqani arranged the memo on Zardari’s orders, and they are doggedly pursuing the matter.
U.S. senators’ support
On Thursday, U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) issued a statement condemning the “harassment” of Haqqani, whom they called a “principled advocate” for Pakistan.
As ambassador, Haqqani, a former journalist and Boston University professor, was a seemingly tireless man about Washington, combining seductive sound bites and scholarly analysis to crystallize Pakistan’s case on the Hill, in television interviews and at exclusive dinner parties. But in Pakistan, his deft handling of Americans — and his history of switching political sides — was viewed as suspect. Pakistan’s generals saw him as Zardari’s ambassador, not Pakistan’s.
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