Mr Haqqani was once the blue-eyed member of Nawaz Sharif’s team in Punjab
VIRGINIA, USA: According to a story in The Express Tribune dated December 9, 2015, Mr Husain Haqqani, our former ambassador to the US, recently told a Congressional panel that the US should not provide F-16s to Pakistan. Earlier, he had written an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing against the sale of helicopters to Pakistan. These F-16s and helicopters are certainly not the opening chapter of Pakistan-US defence cooperation which has a long history, even for these specific aircraft. What is most puzzling is the fact that the last delivery of F-16s to Pakistan took place under his watch as Pakistan’s ambassador to the US. Moreover, his theory on US aid being a delusion in pursuing US objectives is another puzzle since Reuters in May 2011 quoted him as complaining, “US spent much more in Afghanistan than it did in Pakistan. So were there cracks through which things fell through? Absolutely.”
This is not the only somersault that Mr Haqqani has undertaken. He was once the blue-eyed member of Nawaz Sharif’s team in Punjab. Perhaps, that justified his interview to Shekhar Gupta in 1989 when he termed the late Benazir Bhutto’s term in office a “disaster” and called her a “non-native leader creating enthusiasm of things like Pierre Cardin while ignoring bread and butter issues”.
We have certainly not yet seen the season finale of his drama.
Naila Ahmad Yousafzai
Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2016.
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