The skeletons are tumbling out of the American cupboards sooner than I thought. The ABC News exclusive on the CIA-ISI joint venture to engage the Haqqani network politically is precisely the sort of wheeling-dealing that I had written about as a high probability. Look at the hypocrisy of the US’s regional policies: US took ISI help in contacting the Haqqanis even as it berated Pakistan’s security establishment for mentoring the insurgent group. I have all along maintained that the US-Pakistan rift is about the talks with the Haqqanis and about bringing the insurgents on board rather than to ostracise or eradicate the network itself. The ABC report is here.
The ABC report corroborates what Sirajuddin Haqqani also told the BBC in his latest interview. Siraj revealed that he was offered a post in the Kabul government. Interestingly, he hasn’t been contradicted by any western capital so far. In fact, New York Times picked up the story.
What really upsets me is the egg on Delhi’s face. Delhi fancied that it had one hell of a thing going with the US over Afghanistan and it now transpires that the Americans made fools out of our mandarins. Remember the rhetoric during Barack Obama’s visit to Delhi last October? Obama and the Indian leadership pledged to emancipate the Afghan women! Pray, what ‘indispensable partnership”! Will someone in our government have the guts to give a mouthful to Marc Grossman, US representative on Afghanistan, when he arrives in Delhi shortly?
Coming back to the US’s wheeling-dealing with ISI and the Haqqanis, the one person who could spill the beans and tell the whole story is, perhaps, old pal Raymond Davis, the colourful ‘CIA contractor’. He was reportedly in touch with the insurgent groups in Waziristan. Is it a mere coincidence that he was nabbed on a strange pretext (which could as well be a set-up) and is threatened with trial and imprisonment for manslaughter in Colarado just at this point? I think it smacks of the shameful deal the US intelligence struck with David Headley. Alas, Davis is now a compromised man, and he won’t tell tales.
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