Husain Haqqani kaun hain aur Khan kyun unhein PTI govt giraanay ka zimmedaar samajhtay hain?
Husain Haqqani, a name we have often heard but most recently has been in limelight since Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan blamed him for being a key figure behind the foreign conspiracy to remove him from power as prime minister.
So the question remains; who is Haqqani, and why is he the recent target of Khan’s blame game?
Who is Hussain Haqqani?
Haqqani is Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States of America (USA), serving from 2008 to 2011. He currently serves as Director of South and Central Asia at Hudson Institute.
Haqqani was a central character in the Memogate controversy wherein, in May 2011, it was claimed that he played a central role in the drafting of a memo of a message from the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government which was seeking the Obama administration’s support to reign in the Pakistan military after the Osama bin Laden raid in Abbottabad. The controversy eventually led to Haqqani resigning as ambassador and significantly weakening the PPP government.
Why does Khan blame Haqqani for his ouster?
After one year of being ousted from power, Khan blamed Haqqani for conspiring with Gen Bajwa and removing his government.
Background:
In January, Khan accused former Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General (retd) Qamar Javed Bajwa of hiring the services of Haqqani for lobbying in the US while he was army chief. He also said Haqqani launched a campaign against him and had been promoting the former army chief in the US.
Last year in December, it was reported that a former CIA station manager in Islamabad, Robert Grenier, and Pakistan’s former ambassador to the US, Haqqani, were hired to lobby for PTI in Washington. Soon this information changed course and many PTI insiders claimed that these men were lobbying against their own government and played a key role in bringing it down.
According to media reports PTI officials in the US also claimed that both men — Grenier and Haqqani — were working for a senior figure in the military establishment. Dawn reported that the two men were hired to lobby by a Pakistani government official, Iftikhar Durrani, who had served as a special assistant to then-prime minister Imran Khan.
Journalist Waqas Ahmed claimed in December 2022 that Haqqani met a top Pakistani official in Dubai months before the PTI government was toppled, but the former ambassador denied the claim. The meeting which Ahmed reported was allegedly with the then COAS Gen Bajwa.
Backing Ahmed’s claims, PTI’s Senior Vice President Shireen Marzari said that the Haqqani-Bajwa files, now in public, clearly indicated that the whole project of regime change conspiracy was done covertly, and that “Haqqani was hired to undermine the PTI government.”
What does Haqqani say about Khan’s blame game?
The former ambassador has finally addressed the allegations on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’. “It is stupid to say that I ended his [Imran Khan] government. I am neither a lobbyist nor have I received any payment in this regard. I have good relations with people in the US,” he said.
Stating firmly that the US does not need him to evaluate Imran Khan’s image, Haqqani said, “My research is related to the politics in Pakistan.”
Calling out Khan for having paranoid delusions, Haqqani said that the PTI chief says things without any proof and if he has evidence, he should very much bring it to light rather just blaming people.
“I don’t take U-turns like Khan sahib,” said Haqqani, adding that a lot of people contact think tanks in the US for research. He added that the role of lobbies, journalists and scholars are different from each other.
Pointing out that Khan even called him a traitor because of his stance, Hussain Haqqani stressed that the former Premier was removed from power through the votes of 174 members of the assembly and that he has “nothing to do with any of these MNAs”.
In the last 26 years, Haqqani said Khan created his anti-American image, adding, “I did not stand on a container and swore at anyone, later asking for forgiveness.”
The former ambassador further said that Gen (retd) Bajwa and his organisation convinced the nation for many years that his opinion is “anti-Pakistan”.
“You [Khan] should accept the vote of no-confidence why are you dragging me into it,” asked Haqqani on the show. “I haven’t been to Pakistan for 11 years and if someone came to meet me then they should be questioned,” said Haqqani regarding the meeting with Gen Bajwa, adding that he himself was appearing on a Pakistani news channel after 11 years.