Sherry Rehman, liberal lawmaker,

is Pakistan’s new U.S. envoy

Pakistan named a liberal female lawmaker as its new ambassador to the United States on Wednesday, swiftly filling a crucial diplomatic vacancy created amid a scandal that highlighted civil-military tensions.

The appointment of Sherry Rehman, a prominent former journalist known for her human rights work, surprised observers who expected a choice with a more obvious stamp of approval from the powerful military.

Rehman is a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party who was close to the late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, and she is one of Pakistan’s few loud voices against intolerance and the nation’s anti-blasphemy laws


Rehman will replace Husain Haqqani, who resigned Tuesday night after allegations he devised a confidential memo that asked Washington to reign in Pakistan’s military and promised reforms that would please the United States.

The memo was written following the U.S. raid on a Pakistani compound that killed Osama bin Laden, and dealt a deep blow to the already shaky trust between Washington and Islamabad.

Haqqani denied involvement in the memo but said he would step down to help calm a swelling scandal that was imperiling the civilian government and deepening Pakistan’s civil-military divide.

The ambassadorial post is crucial to Pakistan and the United States, mutually suspicious allies whose relationship has nosedived this year.

The United States has given billions of dollars in civilian and military aid to Pakistan, whose cooperation is key to the war in Afghanistan. But Uncle Sam is viewed as a mercurial bully in Pakistan, particularly by the military, which largely controls foreign and security policy.

The army regarded Haqqani as an untrustworthy intimate of the Americans and of the unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari.

Unlike Haqqani, Rehman is viewed as close to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, not Zardari. Rehman was appointed federal information minister when the civilian government took office in 2008, but she resigned the following year in protest over curbs on the media.


Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s newly-appointed ambassador to the U.S., is well known among Indians for her role in trying to forge better relations between the hostile neighbors over the last few years.


After standing down as a information minister in 2009, Ms. Rehman has lent much of her time to the Jinnah Institute, a think tank she founded. One of the institute’s main preoccupations has been setting up dialogues between Indian and Pakistani journalists and analysts, the latest in Bangkok in October.

These discussions – knows as “track two diplomacy” – have not led to a peace breakthrough between India and Pakistan. But their participants say they are helping pave the way for better relations.

There have been some signs recently that things are improving, including Pakistan’s decision to normalize trade relations with India and New Delhi’s support of E.U. trade concessions for Pakistan, while progress on more-complex issues like Kashmir remains far off.

India will be watching to see whether Ms. Rehman’s profile means she will be less jumpy about India’s moves to develop its relations with Afghanistan, a country which Pakistan’s generals see as within their sphere of influence.

India’s recent decision to increase its training of Afghanistan security personnel has caused some unease in Pakistan. As U.S. ambassador, Ms. Rehman will be able to decide whether to try and push the U.S. to rein in Indian influence in Afghanistan or whether to leave the matter alone.

Of course, she will face pressure from Pakistan’s powerful military to follow its line on the matter, and the GHQ remains firmly anti-Indian.

A report the Jinnah Institute co-published in August shows that perhaps Ms. Rehman, while a friend of India, will also likely be a staunch defender of Pakistan’s objectives in Afghanistan.

The report laid out the views of Pakistani generals, former military officers, journalists and former diplomats over how Afghanistan should look after the international coalition’s withdrawal. It underlined the fear among participants of rising Indian influence in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s desire to see a negotiated settlement between the U.S. and the Taliban, with Pakistani involvement.

Pakistan ambassador to the United States resigns


Husain Haqqani's decision to resign makes him the first casualty in a scandal over an alleged memo to the U.S. that has exposed the growing chasm between Pakistan's civilian government and military.

Memogate claims its first victim

The resignation of Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani was perhaps what was needed to close the chapter on the ‘memogate’ controversy. While he maintained that he had no role in authoring or sending the said secret memo, the government and (let’s not beat about the bush) the military thought otherwise. One version of events has it that the prime minister asked for the resignation, so that any independent inquiry that were to follow would be outside the possible influence of the ambassador. Haqqani, however announced on the microblogging site Twitter that he had offered his resignation and asked the government to accept it. However, until an independent inquiry is conducted, as indeed should be the case, one won’t be able to comment on Haqqani’s role in the whole affair.


The immediate impact for Pakistan will be a vacuum in Washington DC, arguably the most important foreign capital for Pakistan (as would be for most other nations). Haqqani’s shoes, however, may be difficult to fill because if anything, he was good at his job and was reputed to have direct access to senior Congressional leaders as well as top officials in the Obama administration. He was also well-connected in the think-tank and lobbying circuit, which was certainly an asset given the nature of his role.

As for the other protagonist in ‘memogate’, Mansoor Ijaz, reportedly he is no angel either. Certain questions surrounding his role need answers as well. For instance, what made him go public with his claims on the memo and its authorship? Why did he see fit to meet, as reported in a section of the media (and not denied) with the head of the ISI and present the ‘evidence’ to him? Wouldn’t it have been better to submit this before an inquiry or the prime minister? Of course, if the memo was indeed sent, it was a very ham-handed and downright silly way of reining in the country’s powerful military. The principle, that a democratic nation’s military be subordinate and under the control of an elected civilian government is something that needs to be implemented in Pakistan as well but that will happen only if our elected governments get the foresight and the courage to go about doing this in the correct way: that is, through their electorate and by rallying popular support to this just cause.