The piece in question today is by Mr Mansoor Ijaz, and the author takes no time letting readers know his agenda in the title of his column, ‘Time to take on Pakistan’s jihadist spies’.

ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism that has become a cornerstone of Pakistan’s foreign policy. The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting down the political and financial support that sustains an organ of the Pakistani state that undermines global antiterrorism efforts at every turn.

But Mr Ijaz is not here to bury the ISI only. Actually, he’s brought a little bit for everyone’s tastes, and he cleverly begins his column not by attacking ISI head on, but by telling a most incredible tale about the civilians also.

According to Mansoor Ijaz,

Early on May 9, a week after US Special Forces stormed the hideout of Osama bin Laden and killed him, a senior Pakistani diplomat telephoned me with an urgent request. Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president, needed to communicate a message to White House national security officials that would bypass Pakistan’s military and intelligence channels.

The message? “He needed an American fist on his army chief’s desk to end any misguided notions of a coup – and fast”.

That’s right. Fearing an imminent coup, Pakistan’s president wanted to get a message to the President Barack Obama. So he called a diplomat and asked him to call…Mansoor Ijaz? Even Nicholas Schmidle had the humility not to name himself as the killer of Osama bin Laden.

If Nicholas Schmidle was writing the screenplay for Hollywood’s next war thriller, though, Mr Ijaz has penned a worthy sequel.

In a flurry of phone calls and emails over two days a memorandum was crafted that included a critical offer from the Pakistani president to the Obama administration: “The new national security team will eliminate Section S of the ISI charged with maintaining relations to the Taliban, Haqqani network, etc. This will dramatically improve relations with Afghanistan.”

The memo was delivered to Admiral Mullen at 14.00 hours on May 10. A meeting between him and Pakistani national security officials took place the next day at the White House. Pakistan’s military and intelligence chiefs, it seems, neither heeded the warning, nor acted on the admiral’s advice.

Not only was Mr Ijaz the preferred messenger between President Zardari and President Obama, but he was also closely tuned in to the high-level military and intelligence discussions that were carried out over the next days. Amazing, no?

Before we go any further into this exciting tale, perhaps we should pause for a moment to ask, just who is Mansoor Ijaz?

According to his by line, Mansoor Ijaz is an American of Pakistani ancestry who “negotiated Sudan’s offer of counter-terrorism assistance to the Clinton administration”. Apparently, Mansoor Ijaz is not Pakistan’s Nicholas Schmidle, he’s Pakistan’s James Bond!

Writing for an American newspaper in 2001, Mansoor Ijaz claimed that “President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates”. And how does Mr Ijaz know about this high-level American intelligence failure? “I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities”.

Mr Ijaz claimed in 2001 that he was secretly negotiating between the governments of Sudan and the United States. Unfortunately, America’s National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States says otherwise.

Sudan’s minister of defense, Fatih Erwa, has claimed that Sudan offered to hand Bin Ladin over to the United States. The Commission has found no credible evidence that this was so. Ambassador Carney had instructions only to push the Sudanese to expel Bin Ladin. Ambassador Carney had no legal basis to ask for more from the Sudanese since, at the time, there was no indictment out-standing.

In 2001, though, Mansoor Ijaz was not a humble “American of Pakistani Ancestry” who secretly negotiated between foreign governments. At that time, his by line identified him as “a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company”.

Mansoor Ijaz is not a passive investor. Writing about his alleged links with Sudan in the 1990s, The Washington Post reporter David B. Ottaway noted that Mr Ijaz uses politics to advance his financial interests¹.

Wealthy and well-connected, Ijaz was more than willing to pitch in. By Election Day in November, he had raised $525,000 for the Democratic cause, including $250,000 from his personal funds and $200,000 donated by guests at a fund-raising reception for Vice President Gore at Ijaz’s New York penthouse in September, according to Federal Election Commission records, White House documents and Ijaz.

Now Ijaz is trying to reap what he has sown. Having earned access to the Clinton administration through his fund-raising prowess, Ijaz has met with a succession of senior officials in the White House, State Department and Congress to further his business interests through changes in U.S. policy toward Islamic countries, particularly Sudan, a government long accused of sanctioning international terrorism.

A 2006 by line appearing in The National Review gives little more information about Mansoor Ijaz’s ‘business interests’.

Mansoor Ijaz is chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York private equity firm developing homeland-security technologies related to Internet security, air and seaport-cargo security, and airship-surveillance technologies.

In addition to investing heavily in both politicians and security technologies, Mansoor Ijaz finds the time to write rather prolifically. Benador Associations, a PR firm representing Mansoor Ijaz as an ‘expert’, was also involved in managing media in the lead up to the 1992 invasion of Iraq.

The newly-formed Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) sits at the center of the PR campaign, which is coordinated closely with other groups that are actively promoting an attack on Iraq, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Project for a New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Hudson Institute, Hoover Institute, and the clients of media relations firm Benador Associations.

CLI sends its message to American citizens through meetings with newspaper editorial boards and journalists, framing the debate and providing background materials written by a close-knit web of supporters. CLI also works closely with Condoleezza Rice and other administration officials to sponsor foreign policy briefings and dinners.

Nor is this the first time that Mansoor Ijaz has written about the need for America to take on the ISI. Writing in June of this year, Mansoor Ijaz wrote a piece strikingly similar to his latest:

The time has come for America to take the lead in shutting off the political and financial support that gives life to an organ of the Pakistani state dedicated to undermining global anti-terror efforts. The ISI embodies the scourge of radicalism and Islamist terror that emanates from the soil it runs roughshod over.

No mention then of the author acting as secret liaison between Islamabad and Washington, though. Perhaps he forgot? One thing Mansoor Ijaz did remember back in June is that not only did he negotiate with Sudan and the US, “He was also involved in the negotiation of the ceasefire in Kashmir between militants backed by ISI and Pakistan’s armed forces and Indian security forces in August 2000″. Is there no crisis that Mansoor Ijaz has not either created or solved?

Actually, the ISI is not Mr Ijaz’s only recommended target. Recently, writing for The Washington Post, Mansoor Ijaz encouraged Obama “to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty at every future opportunity it gets”. His credentials when trying to create this crisis, though, were that he was not only involved in negotiations between Kashmiri militants and Indian security forces, he “was the joint author of the blueprint for a ceasefire”. No, I’m not making this up.

Mansoor Ijaz is, like James Bond, an ‘International Man of Mystery’. In the 1990s, Mansoor Ijaz carried out secret negotiations between the government and Sudan and President Clinton to give Osama bin Laden to the Americans, but Washington wouldn’t listen. In 2000, he secretly negotiated a ceasefire between Kashmiri militants and Indian forces. And, once he remembered that he forgot, he was a secret messenger between Islamabad and Washington following the Abbottabad operation. His missions were so secret that nobody knew about them but him.

Mansoor Ijaz is also, like Nicholas Schmidle, a storyteller. In 1999, he told News Hour that “his father was a founder of the Pakistani nuclear program”. In 2004, he recited a tearful memory of how his father could not “fulfill his dream of helping his country become a peaceful nuclear power”.

In 2007, Mansoor Ijaz wrote that Benazir Bhutto, “looted the treasury, sparked conflict with India in Kashmir to cover her financial misdeeds and ignored the fundamental needs — jobs, education, basic healthcare — of her people”, and said that “Pakistan requires a revolution, not a bunch of has-been, corrupt politicians who self-servingly and halfheartedly claim they want to fix what they themselves tore apart.” After her death a few months later, his story took a different tone.

“But I firmly believe that she loved Pakistan, and for all her faults, had returned there this time to turn a new page in its troubled political history. We should remember her for her courage to stand up in the face of incalculable odds to bring some semblance of sanity to the disaster that Pakistan has become.”

His latest revelations come at a curious time. Just when America’s and Pakistan’s agencies appear to be turning around what was a souring relationship, along comes Mansoor Ijaz who remembers what he had forgotten the last time he wrote the same article attacking ISI – that they were sold out by the civilians in Islamabad.

It’s hard to question a man who wrote in 2003 that “the growing body of publicly available evidence offers sufficient proof of Baghdad’s mendacious designs to warrant the immediate use of force”. But maybe this time, before anyone rushes to judgment, we ought to ask for a little more proof.

¹. Ottaway, David B. ‘Democratic Fund-Raiser Pursues Agenda on Sudan’. The Washington Post. 29 April 1997.

In a piece published by The News (Jang Group), Aijaz Zaka claims that all signs point to an imminent attack on Pakistan by American forces.

Only two months ago, Aijaz was singing a different tune. After Osama bin Laden was killed in the Abbottabad opertion, Aijaz wrote a piece for The News that started by denying that Osama was responsible (even though Osama himself confessed to the attack), and then said that now American President Barack Obama has an opportunity to “turn the page” and start fresh with the Islamic world.

Obama has a momentous opportunity to turn the page on America’s disastrous decade and make a fresh start with the Muslim world. He has repeatedly talked about seeking “a new way forward” with the Islamic world. It’s time to show he means it. The so-called Islamic extremism as represented by the likes of Bin Laden is merely a symptom of a far serious disease. And the source of the disease lies elsewhere – in the Middle East. Obama would drive home this message when he hosts Israel’s Netanyahu later this month, if he really believes in what he says.

It should be noted here that Obama did exactly as Aijaz wished, telling Israel’s Netanyahu that he should pull back to the 1967 borders. The American president even went further stating clearly that “The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”

In light of these facts, we might expect Aijaz Zaka to praise Obama! But actually Obama is not mentioned in his latest piece at all. Rather, Aijaz reaches back in time to dust off the relic of “Bush’s Crusaders”. Nevermind the facts, though, they are inconvenient to this “crazy, outrageous idea” that Aijaz has concocted in his mind.

And this isn’t the only inconsistency in Aijaz’s analysis. In May he wrote that “the departure of one long isolated and ailing figure changes nothing”. Today, Aijaz sees the raid on Osama’s compound in a much more sinister light.

The US military-industrial establishment, the Israeli lobby and Muslim-bashers on the Hill have been looking for an excuse to take the war to Pakistan, the only Muslim state with a nuclear arsenal. And they got it when Osama bin Laden was conveniently discovered, not in a cold cave along the Afghan frontier but living cheek-by-jowl with Pakistan’s elite military academy.

That’s right – the OBL raid was a precursor to a war on Pakistan! Nevermind that the raid was months ago and since then America actually has less personnel in Pakistan. According to Aijaz, a war has been in the works for some time. Further evidence for this can be found in the US withholding $800 Million in military aid and Adm Mullen accusing ISI of being in cahoots with terrorists.

Only, there are a few problems here also.

First, if the OBL raid was just an excuse to invade Pakistan…why haven’t the Americans invaded? In fact, ever since that day American officials including President Obama and Adm Mullen have gone out of their way to praise Pakistan and say that there is no evidence of complicity.

Second, the Americans continue to say that the $800 Million is only on hold – not cut – until the trainings that the money was meant to pay for resume. Otherwise the rest of the the $2.7 Billion is still flowing to Pakistan military. Are we to believe that the US is funding the Army it is preparing to fight?

Third, despite the sensational newspaper headlines, Amd Mullen never blamed ISI for killing Saleem Shahzad. Though it remains a mystery to many journalists, the fact is that American officials post unedited transcripts of their statements on government websites – a very helpful tool for fact checkers and something editors may want to start actually using. In this case, we can look at what Adm Mullen actually said about Saleem Shahzad…

Q: Admiral Mullen, you said, I haven’t seen anything to disabuse those reports. Which reports? The reports that the – the journalist killed, or the reports that the ISI was involved?

ADM. MULLEN: The reports that – the reports that the – that he was killed and that there were government officials who sanctioned that.

Q: Actually, the reports said that the ISI did it. Is that what you’re talking about?

ADM. MULLEN: The – this is the – The New York Times report?

Q: Just this Times story a couple of days ago – the ISI effectively murdered him.

ADM. MULLEN: Yeah. And I haven’t – I haven’t seen anything where I could confirm that.

Q: (Wait a minute ?).

MODERATOR: That it was the ISI?

ADM. MULLEN: That it was the ISI.

Q: You haven’t seen anything that can confirm that?

ADM. MULLEN: Yeah.

Q: But you said – but you had said, now you couldn’t disabuse the report.

ADM. MULLEN: I – in specifically identifying who did it, you know, I just – I just don’t have that. I haven’t seen anything –

Q: But it was the – but it was the government.

ADM. MULLEN: Yeah, that it was sanctioned by the government, yeah.

Q: So your answer do that is that you can’t – OK. It’s the opposite of whatever I said originally.

ADM. MULLEN: No, no, no, no. I mean, they did – I have not seen anything to disabuse the report that the government knew about this. I cannot – you know, I would not be able to walk in and say, you know, here’s the string of evidence I have to confirm it.

Further, Adm Mullen’s statements about ISI were that he told Dawn, “It is fairly well known that ISI had a relationship with the Haqqani network”. This is certainly different that how it was sensationalised by Aijaz Zaka. Also, here is a photo of formder DG ISI Gen Hamid Gul with Jalaluddin Haqqani.

ISPR recently reported that present DG ISI Gen Pasha visited the US and reported that relations between the two powers are improving despite media sensationalism.

He said a range of issues was discussed in a congenial environment to improve mutual understanding between the two sides. Contrary to the speculative reporting in a section of the press, the USPR DG said neither doubts were raised nor aspersions cast on the functioning of the ISI and both sides focused on the way forward.

Aijaz also suggests that the arrest of Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai this week “is part of the plot”. According to Aijaz Khan, Dr Fai was arrested “for lobbying for the Pakistani government in a city where every other guy is a lobbyist”. Actually, according to Dawn, Dr Fai was arrested for acting as a front organisation for the ISI. Whether or not we are sympathetic with Dr Fai, do we really expect the Americans to allow foreign agents to operate in their capital? Imagine if someone was caught running a CIA front organisation in Islamabad. Would Aijaz Khan be so forgiving then?

It appears that Aijaz Khan is twisting the facts in order to present the Americans as a bogey. Ironically, turning to the Business page of the same newspaper that features Aijaz Khan’s latest screed, readers will see the following headline: ‘United States top trading partner of Pakistan. Let me tell you, this is a strange way to prepare for war.

Aijaz concludes his piece by saying that, “I’m no sucker for conspiracy theories, but I wish for once this was merely a conspiracy theory of idle pundits.”

Sir, your wish is granted.

Stratfor research does not support The Nation's claims

Only two days after their failed attempt to blame the government for problems at the Oil & Gas Development Company (OGDCL), The Nation’s editorial writers published a new hyper-dramatic editorial declaring that the US is targeting Pakistan. After reviewing the evidence used by The Nation as well as actually reading the news this morning, it has become obvious that The Nation failed once again to do their homework before they published a sensational – and misinformed – editorial.

The Nation’s editorial, “US targets Pakistan,” is based on a new article by the American think tank “Stratfor” titled “Annual Forecast 2010″ and is available for free by email. We were unsurprised to read the article and learn that it does not support the claims made by The Nation’s editorialists. Additionally, news reports today include new information from the American White House and American military chief Admiral Mike Mullen that directly contradict The Nation’s claims. Once again, The Nation has failed to do its homework.

To begin with, the think tank Stratfor is not part of the American government. Rather, according to their “About Us” page on their website, Stratfor is a private company that “provides an audience of decision-makers and sophisticated news consumers in the U.S. and around the world with unique insights into political, economic, and military developments.”

So, what does the US government and military say about plans to target Pakistan? Today’s Dawn reports that the Americans plan no direct military intervention in Pakistan.

The White House and the US military chief indicated on Wednesday that there would be no direct military intervention in countries like Pakistan or Yemen where Al Qaeda seemed to have established its bases.

…

“I’ve been to Pakistan one time before I took this job over, and I just made my 14th trip over the last couple of years just to give you an indication of the need to understand, the need to be there, the need to try to see challenges through other people’s eyes and not just take the American view from here in Washington,” he said.

This hardly sounds like the words of a military commander on the brink of invasion. Before The Nation decided that the Americans were knocking at Pakistan’s door, perhaps they should have rung them up to ask.

The original source of The Nation’s claims, however, is the Stratfor article titled, “Annual Forecast 2010.” We are publishing at the bottom of this piece the relevant portion in its entirety so that you may read and decide for yourself, but readers can also get the full paper for free by clicking here.

First, the Stratfor article does not say that the US is targeting Pakistan or that there will be a ground invasion of US troops into Pakistan, which The Nation’s editorial implies. What is says is that the military efforts being carried out in cooperation by US and Pakistani militaries may increase as more jihadis try to invade Pakistan while fleeing from Afghanistan, and that this would present some difficulties since the military efforts are unpopular already. In fact, the entire scenario is based on the US targeting Afghanistan with the Obama plan, not Pakistan.

Even The Nation says that this is the case in their own editorial:

“Officials in Pakistan also continue to express concern over the US troop surge in Afghanistan which they feel will not serve any meaningful purpose but will push more militants into Pakistan, thereby expanding the war further across the border into Pakistan’s FATA area.”

Which is it? Is the US secretly planning to target Pakistan? Or is the Obama plan going to increase the number of jihadis in FATA? The Nation’s logic makes no sense, and appears to be based on a predetermined political message rather than actual facts. The Nation says that “it now appears that the US intends to shift the centre of gravity of the war from Afghanistan to Pakistan,” but the Stratfor article that they provide as evidence says no such thing. The Nation’s editorialists have simply made this up.

Second, The Nation mischaracterizes the story as coming ‘in the wake of news that Americans in Pakistan are effectively operating outside of the law…’ This is simply not true. The article by Stratfor is clearly referring to the difficulty of anti-militant operations in Pakistan because both the US and the jihadis are unpopular: “U.S. efforts in Afghanistan (to say nothing of Pakistan) are already deeply unpopular.”

Third, The Nation also mischaracterizes what the Stratfor article says about relations with India. Unlike The Nation’s claim that Stratfor believes Pakistan’s assumed dependency on the US compels us to give in to American demands, the article actually clearly states that the US and Pakistan have their own interests and they both need to work in cooperation to find a way to engage with each other on fair terms. The Nation suggests that the US plan is to try to manipulate Pakistan, but the article they use as evidence says the exact opposite.

Fourth, The Nation says that “the US is aggravating the imbalance between Pakistan and India and actively encouraging the Indian leadership to up the hostile ante against Pakistan.” Their evidence for this is the recent statements by Indian military chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor. Perhaps The Nation staff does not know that Gen. Kapoor is not the American military chief and does not work for the Americans. In fact, The Nation’s allegation that Gen. Kapoor’s statements have any relation to America are simply conjured from thin air as there is no evidence of this at all. At this point, The Nation appears to be simply making things up for no reason.

The Nation concludes with the misleading assertion that “US aggressive designs towards Pakistan are becoming increasingly covert.” Nothing in the Stratfor article referenced by The Nation supports this claim. Actually, quite the opposite. The article quoted by The Nation calls for greater cooperation between US and Pakistani militaries.

Whatever your opinion about the current military and security situation in Pakistan, the fact is that The Nation’s editorial is once again not supported by the facts. Rather, it is simply a hodge-podge of unsupported conspiracy theories and make believe. Paranoid delusions might be entertaining, but they are not facts.

Perhaps The Nation thought that they could get away with this trickery because nobody would actually check their facts. They were wrong. A newspaper that claims to be “the most respected publication in English, with firm and constructive views, and excellent news coverage” should do a better job of getting their facts correct before they post alarmist and sensationalist editorials.

UPDATE: We received a request from Stratfor to remove the article that we had posted here as this is only supposed to be available to their membership. Actually, I think you can still get the full paper for free by clicking here. We recommend that you retrieve the paper directly from the Stratfor website so that you can read and judge for yourself.