Husain Haqqani on Pakistan: "The World's Most Dangerous Place"

Husain Haqqani, one of Pakistan’s most highly regarded diplomats and a close adviser to the late Benazir Bhutto, will talk to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council about the fraught ties between the US and Pakistan, “the world’s most dangerous place” in the words of The Economist magazine.  Haqqani’s own career, which spans from being Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington to his current quasi-exile from Pakistan, is graphic evidence of the perils that exist in the US-Pakistan relationship.

With its nuclear weapons, powerful military and intelligence agencies, and deep ties to the Afghan Taliban – not to mention the fact that Osama bin Laden chose Pakistan as his refuge - Pakistan poses numerous challenges to the US.  It is a country Washington finds very hard to deal with, but at the same time cannot ignore.  The Pakistanis, for their part, resent the US drone war in their tribal territories, and see Washington as a source of humiliation to their sovereignty after being close allies in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan three decades ago.  

Haqqani was Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington from 2008 until 2011, and was widely credited with improving relations between the two countries, when he was suddenly forced to resign in a bizarre and never fully explained scandal - termed “Memogate”.  A Pakistani-American accused Haqqani of writing a note destined for the then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm Mike Mullen calling for US help to make changes in the Pakistani military and intelligence services.  Haqqani strongly denied any involvement in the supposed plot, but was forced to step down.  He has consistently been a strong proponent of democracy in Pakistan, and a critic of the involvement of the military and the intelligence agencies in politics in Islamabad.

Haqqani now chooses not to go back to Pakisan, and is a professor at Boston University and Director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute.  He is the author of Magnificent Delusions, Pakistan, the United States and an Epic History of Misunderstanding. He received his BA and MA in international relations from Karachi University.