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The Mansoor Ijaz Matrix

Wajahat.S.Khan on 30, Jan 2012 | 7 Comments | in Category: Debate Desk

Wajahat.S.Khan

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Modern militaries call it net-centricity: the ability to look at and control a battle-space as an interconnected entity where primary approaches as well as several alternatives could all lead to the desired objective, along with achieving other collateral results. As Memogate stalemates, a theoretical resupply is in order, as such an approach could be relevant for understanding the man and the plan that is Mansoor Ijaz.

Exhaustive is the analysis that Ijaz is a rogue freelancer – a knavish diva who moonlights in raunchy videos, frequents strip clubs and hacks for Fox News – and thus makes a good living of distasteful means. Also done to death is the theory that Pakistan’s highest elected officials are essentially guilty, for why would they not take on the high rise of the Financial Times and recover those Blackberrys by now?

However, two under-represented approaches to Memogate – that Ijaz works for Langley and/or the Fortress on 7th Avenue – need to be revisited under the auspices of a netcentric logic. Here’s how.

Option 1 – Mansoor Ijaz is a CIA agent: If you were the Central Intelligence Agency, Ijaz could serve a larger, peaceful purpose. Given the volatility you’ve been experiencing with your Pakistani counterpart of late, he could be the deliverer of the olive branch you would extend to the ISI.

Think of the possibilities: Every grad student in Washington knows that the honourable Husain Haqqani was tough on the Pakistani military. At dinner parties and power lunches, Haqqani was overheard privately sniping at, if not taking on, the Pakistani brass. Though he was a sober defender of the order in public, Haqqani was reputedly tongue-in-cheek about the army, especially regarding the intellect levels of the warriors of Rawalpindi. He was oft quoted for a popular introductory quip: “No relation to the other Haqqani”, referring to Sirajauddin and gang.

Thus, as the CIA, you and every other operator in DC know that Pakistan’s khakis are displeased at Haqqani. And in the aftermath of the Raymond Davis/OBL turbulence, they’re also displeased with you. And in the larger scheme of things, you see that the Haqqanis of the world will rotate out and the PakMils of the world will stick around in permanence.

Thus, you deliver a guy who’s already at the end of his diplomatic cycle and of little use to you, considering he’s so disconnected with the stakeholder muscle in his own country. As for making Pakistan’s elected government look bad and get pressured, so what? What good have they done of late for you?

Now, the operational linkages for packing off the GHQ’s major Washingtonian irritant through a well-imagined counter-coup could be of several varieties: Ijaz would get recruited and approach Haqqani to deliver the idea. Or a senior/known/trusted Pak-centric agent would deliver the idea to Haqqani in Washington (or even the ‘highest authority’ in Pakistan), suggesting Ijaz be the deliverer of such and such memo as he can be easily disclaimed and bashed, given his dubious history (as well as the ‘Orange Flag’ your analysts have given him for his inability of being a heavyweight).

Either way, someone in the Pakistani government’s chain of command would buy the idea, after which Ijaz would deliver, and then go public with the memo. Alternatively, Ijaz would still go public if no one brought the idea but if he had enough circumstantial evidence to prove that he was discussing such matters with important Pakistani government officials. The bottom-line: the man closest in circumstantially evident proximity to Ijaz (Haqqani) and the man high on the GHQ’s Unhappy List (Haqqani) would overlap and blip red, and effectively be served to Pindi in time for Thanksgiving.

Alternatively, if you’re the CIA and want to teach those PakMil good-for-nothings a lesson, you follow the same strategy but hope that the ISI/GHQ bite. In this case, your psychoanalysts project that the minute your man Ijaz goes public, General Kayani of the Baloch Regiment and General Pasha of the Frontier Force Regiment shed the decorum of their combined seven stars, become the good old chaps of the infantry and declare war on their own system.

Suddenly, the already scandalised and cornered PakMil now becomes the coup-making nuclearised Republican Guard of South Asia – a hated, suppressive entity that you can bash with sanctions under the Leahy Amendment and wither into nothingness with international isolation (as recommended by your own Bruce Riedel). Not bad for a few months’ work! And yes, you cover your own government’s tracks by ensuring that Ijaz goes public at a time when the two ‘recipients’ of the memo, James Jones and Mike Mullen, have honourably retired from their positions and don’t necessarily need to be defended/spoken for by the White House or its arms. Game, set and a sitting-duck PakMil.

Option 2 – Mansoor Ijaz is an ISI agent: As the Inter-Services Intelligence, you’ve expected better from Haqqani in all these years. You haven’t forgiven him for that darned book he wrote about you loving the mullahs more than you should have, and he has taken the high road of civilian development versus the tunnel for military funding with the entire Kerry-Lugar-Berman saga.

In your perspective of his ‘patriotism’, you would rather have Sachin Tendulkar as your ambassador to Washington. So you hire Ijaz, a publicity hound who’s tried to squeeze your foreign office in the past for jet deals after the Brown Amendment/played at convincing Benazir Bhutto of imaginary coups involving military intelligence/attempted to ink a ceasefire pact between the Kashmiri Mujahideen and the Indians/maintained that you have the right to keep your nuclear weapons after the AQ Khan debacle/connected Daniel Pearl with Khalid Khwaja etc. Thus, you know that Ijaz has been wishy-washy about his opinions and goes where the action (or the money) is.

So you engage him with a similar strategy to the CIA: Ijaz goes public at a politically opportune time for you to start pressuring this government for a variety of reasons, but the leading among them being that you don’t want Haqqani in the driver’s seat in Washington any longer as you begin to redefine your ‘red lines’ with D C. Nor do you want him about in Islamabad where, prior to Memogate, word had started to flow that the good ambassador had been green-lit as prime minister material for the next government or maybe even this one).

Thus, at the end of the day, you come across as looking good: Mature enough to not fire from the hip and launch a coup, and sober enough to let the honourable justices of the Supreme Court figure out what to do with the memo, as the law so requires.

Either way, a sleepy kleptocratic government and its ambassador look bad, shaken and stirred: always a good drink to order at the bar of spooky dreams.

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