Haqqani has vehemently denied having had anything to do with the memo, but he has been recalled, made to resign and is forced to live, according to him, in fear of his life. Put it more bluntly, he doesn’t want to let his name included in the long list of ‘missing persons’ in the country.

The existence of the confidential memo came to light in October and claimed Haqqani scalp a month later. Financial Times of London published in October an op-ed by Mansoor Ijaz, who is known as a shadowy Pakistani-American businessman. He wrote that he had helped deliver the memo from Haqqani to Admiral Mike Mullen, then the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Written in the days immediately following the Washington’s May 2 summary execution of Osama Bin Laden, the controversial memo warned that the Pakistani military was incensed by the illegal raid and could be on the verge of forcing the PPP-led civilian government from power. It urged Admiral Mullen to convey a strong message to Pakistan’s chief of army staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the director-general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, to “end their brinkmanship aimed at bringing down the civilian apparatus.”

Former US national security advisor James Jones has said that he personally delivered the memo to Admiral Mullen. Mullen initially denied any knowledge of the memo, but later admitted he did see it, but did not believe it to be credible. By implication, the message is that the US did not act on the memo.

The memo offers a six-point plan under which Pakistan would make a new strategic shift to accommodate US interests, including ceding the US the right to conduct military operations inside Pakistan. In exchange, the US would maintain pressure on the Pakistani military to prevent it from carrying out a coup against the Zardari- Gilani government.

Memogate, as the memo scandal is called, has erupted just as relations between Washington and Islamabad have again descended into crisis. On November 26, NATO helicopters bombed two military posts near Salala on the Pakistan side of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. More than two dozen Pakistani soldiers were killed, sparking protests throughout the country.

On Tuesday, Nov 29, General Martin Dempsey, Mullen’s successor as the head of the US military, admitted that the US relationship with Pakistan is “the worst it’s ever been,” but refused to apologize for the assault. A day earlier, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani warned that there would be “no more business as usual” with Washington.

While it is not entirely clear whether Haqqani authored the memo, or that he did so under orders from President Zardari, the former ambassador’s forced resignation on November 22 suggests that the allegations against him have some basis in fact. On November 24, the government appointed former Information Minister Sherry Rahman as the new envoy to the US.

Pakistan’s military and intelligence apparatus has always been suspicious of Haqqani. The former journalist has long been critical of the ISI and its links with militant Islamist groups. Following Ijaz’s disclosure of the memo, the military pressured the government to make Haqqani face an inquiry.

Going by what the media reported in Pakistan, often quoting Ijaz and deep throats, ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha has confirmed the authenticity of the memo; he had a long meeting with Ijaz in London on October 22. While Pasha apprised the army chief of this meeting, he did not keep the Prime Minister in the loop.

Haqqani has vehemently denied Ijaz’s story from start to finish, accusing the businessman of setting him up while seeking to increase tension between Washington and Islamabad. The scandal raises many questions. For example, why would Haqqani use Ijaz to deliver the memo, when he himself enjoyed direct access to the highest levels of the US government? And what motivated Ijaz’s decision to suddenly expose Haqqani in his op-ed for the Financial Times after first delivering the memo?

There is no doubt the memo affair is bound up with the ongoing power struggle between the Pakistani military and the civilian government over who manages relations with the US. Moreover, repeated US violations of Pakistani sovereignty and increasingly explicit threats against the country have exacerbated divisions within the Pakistani bourgeoisie. One possibility is that the Pakistani military or ISI got wind of the secret memo and misattributed its source so as to get rid of Haqqani and intensify pressure on the PPP-led civilian government.

For former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, whose party Pakistan Muslim League (N), is disparate to return to the good books of the establishment, the Memogate scandal has come in handy. He is using the opportunity to posture as a defender of Pakistani sovereignty and curry favor with the military, and hopes in the process to blunt whatever edge cricketer –playboy turned politician Imran Khan has as the perceived blue boy of the establishment.

On November 23, Nawaz Sharif filed a petition in the Supreme Court requesting it to investigate Memogate calling it ‘dreadful conspiracy’ against Pakistan’s armed forces. “The culprits exhibiting grave disloyalty to the state and the people of Pakistan and who are found guilty of the crimes should be brought to book,” he said. He is not the only petitioner in the case. Others have also filed the case in public interest. The talk of the town in Lahore is that Nawaz had received a proper ‘brief’. President Zardari, General Kayani and ISI chief Shuja Pasha are amongst the respondents.  Their replies will decide the direction of the probe, and the veracity of Ijaz’s claims. For the present this much can be said with certainty- Pakistani equation has been disturbed.

The Pakistan military has a decades-long client-patron partnership with US strategic interests with Washington emerging as a part of the trinity – Army, America and Saudi Arabia deciding the destiny of Pakistan. Often enough Washington acted alone as the arbiter of political destinies and vetted the appointment of army chiefs.  When Gen Pervez Musharraf launched the Kargil war against India, prime minister of the day, Nawaz Sharif air dashed to the White House for a ‘bail out’.

Present army chief Gen Kayani made the mandatory rounds of Washington before his own appointment to the top post by Gen Musharraf, who had fine tuned the Pak-US military equation after 9/11.   Since coming to power in 2008, Zardari and his PPP have sought to win Washington’s favor, hoping to persuade it to help reduce the military’s political power by proving itself a more eager and reliable ally in prosecuting the Af-Pak War.

The Obama administration and Pentagon have nonetheless shown that, whatever their frictions with Rawalpindi GHQ, they view it as their preferred partner because of its decades-long record of serving US geo-political interests in the region. Also because they see the GHQ as a more dependable bulwark that knows the art of keeping under check the religious groups.

The PPP’s courting of Washington as a counterweight to the military is not new though. During the 1980s, Benazir Bhutto, Zardari’s assassinated wife and daughter of PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, held negotiations with the Reagan administration as opposition to General Zia’s regime grew. She promised full support to the US drive to overthrow the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul. And, lived up to the promise. The Taliban is a creation of her government with the ISI using the madrasas as resource centers.

When lawyers led opposition to the US-backed Musharraf dictatorship was at its height, Bhutto courted the Bush administration and pledged that the PPP would pursue the Afghan war more aggressively than the Musharraf regime. Ultimately, a tentative deal was struck, with the PPP enabling Musharraf to stage his “re-election” as president, but it fell apart when elements in Musharraf’s camp reneged and instead orchestrated Bhutto’s assassination.

Zardari and the PPP government have nonetheless made good on Bhutto’s promises to the Bush administration, escalating counter-insurgency operations far beyond anything seen under Gen Musharraf. Extension of Gen Kayani’s term and of his Sancho Panza, Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pashas Kayani was a part of the ‘old’ deal.

Who will blink first – Kayani or Zardari? It is possible that while the family loyalist- Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Reza Gilani does the tough talking, Zardari will keep the channels with the GHQ and Pentagon open for any exigency. He knows that the judiciary particularly the Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Ifthikar Chaudhry is against him and that the army chief has a direct line with the CJP. Zardari-Chaudhry animosity dates back to the days immediately after the judges’ movement against the CJP sack by Musharraf regime. After he assumed office, Zardari reappointed the Musharraf victims in the high courts and Supreme Court but tried to resist the reinstatement of Chaudhry for a while. That stand off born out of fear of the unknown has come to haunt President Zardari.

WHAT DID THE MEMO SAY …

The memo begins by warning that the bin Laden raid has sparked a severe political crisis and that both the military intelligence apparatus and the civilian government are accusing each other of being responsible for the raid and its consequences. “Civilians cannot withstand much more of the hard pressure being delivered from the Army to succumb to wholesale changes,” states the memo. “If civilians are forced from power, Pakistan becomes a sanctuary for UBL [Bin Laden]’s legacy and potentially the platform for far more rapid spread of al Qaeda’s brand of fanaticism and terror. A unique window of opportunity exists for the civilians to gain the upper hand over army and intelligence directorates due to their complicity in the UBL matter.”

The memo requests Washington’s direct intervention in conveying a strong message to General Kayani that the military must refrain from ousting the civilian government. “Should you be willing to do so,” says the memo, Washington’s political/military backing would result in a “wholesale revamp[ing] of the civilian government” with “the national security adviser and other national security officials” replaced by “trusted advisers that include ex-military and civilian leaders favorably viewed by Washington.”

The memo offers an array of policy concessions to placate Washington. In addition to a new national security team committed to advancing US interests in Pakistan and the region, it promises: ordering an independent inquiry to investigate allegations that Pakistan harbored and provided assistance to Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda operatives; handing over those left in the leadership of Al Qaeda and other militant groups operating on Pakistani soil, or giving US military forces a “green light” to conduct the necessary operations to capture or kill them; and eliminating “Section S” of the ISI, which has been accused of maintaining close relations with the Afghan Taliban.

The memo also says Islamabad would be willing to give the US unprecedented oversight over the country’s nuclear weapons program.

WHAT DID IJAZ SAY……
Mansoor Ijaz has done some hatchet jobs for the Pakistani establishment and the US administration in the past. “A self-proclaimed investment banker and a political gadabout, Ijaz has dubious claims as a player in conflict resolution going back to the Bill Clinton era”, a media report said after Ijaz hit the headlines. He is also buddies with James Woolsey, a former CIA director.

In his Financial Times op-ed, Ijaz wrote that he had drafted the Memo President Zardari’s instructions with assistance from Haqqani.

“The embarrassment of bin Laden being found on Pakistani soil had humiliated Mr. Zardari’s weak civilian government to such an extent that the president feared a military takeover was imminent,” wrote Ijaz. “He (Zardari) needed an American fist on his army chief’s desk to end any misguided notions of a coup—and fast.”

He stated that a “senior Pakistani diplomat,” later revealed to be Haqqani, contacted him with an urgent request a week after the US raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.

Ijaz wrote that General Kayani and Pakistan’s troops were “demoralized” by the ease with which the US had violated the country’s sovereignty. He claimed that both the army and the ISI were attempting to scapegoat Zardari.
    
Ijaz stated that Haqqani made it clear to him that the message was to be delivered to Admiral Mullen, a “time-tested friend” of Pakistan, who could forcefully convey the message to both US President Barack Obama and General Kayani.

“In a flurry of phone calls and emails over two days,” wrote Ijaz in the Financial Times, “a memorandum was crafted that included a critical offer from the Pakistani president to the Obama administration.”