He’s being regarded almost universally as a shady character, even by his supporters, but US national Mansoor Ijaz is doing nothing to dispel that impression. His most recent bombshell (never the full story in one go; always the cheap crime novel) is that the president knew not only about the now famous memo but also about the May 2nd attack in Abbottabad. Both the presidency and the White House have denied the statements. Hussain Haqqani, his target – or, as Ijaz likes to call him, “friend” – has used the latest revelation to point out that his bete noire is nothing but a publicity hound.
Public discourse, however, is very selective in its standards. When it likes someone, nothing can smear the impression; when it hates someone, the best spin can’t cover it up. The media will believe Ijaz. Not because, as discussed above, they like him but because they hate our erstwhile ambassador more.
Ask not whether it is implausible that an ambassador as shrewd and as well-entrenched in the US as Haqqani would entrust a person like Ijaz to pass sensitive information to the American military command. Ask whether it is possible? If it is, it is what must have happened. The burden of proof here is Haqqani’s lot. Guilty till proven innocent. Former FIA chief Tariq Khosa’s refusal to be the one-man commission constituted by the apex court to look into the affair isn’t exactly a spanner in the works; the mood of the powers that be is clear. It won’t matter who carries out the investigation.
The fear that this neo-McCarthyism won’t stop at Haqqani is not entirely unfounded. PML(N) supremo Nawaz Sharif’s new, post-exile avatar as a principled pro-democracy statesman is being questioned ever since his party filed for a petition in the supreme court over the issue. Though the third-force bogeyman has been used more than it was worth by the PPP government to cover up for its own bad governance, is this the final act of the boy-crying-wolf tale?
