Pak discomfiture

The issue at hand is not precedence and propriety. The real question is whether a seasoned diplomat like Blackwill can at all be charged with as predictable a failing as 8220;going native8221;? The president of the United States is unlikely to pick a greenhorn orientalist capable of going gaga over curry and peppers as a plenipotentiary to as important a capital as New Delhi, that too at a time when he has terrorism and the bomb on his mind! Ambassador Blackwill is from among the 8220;best and brightest8221; in the Bush team.

Admittedly, one must not make much of a muchness of Islambad speaking out of turn and put it down to the bitter taste of truth hurting where it ought to. However, it would be interesting to speculate as to why a senior official of a seasoned administration such as the one in Islamabad thought it fit to rib Blackwill thus, especially since the latter is not going into retirement or academia but has landed directly in the White House.

Perhaps Islamabad hopes to exploit the internal rivalries within the Bush administration, hurting Blackwill to gain brownie points with his detractors in the US State Department. The State Department has never felt too comfortable with Blackwill, given his direct access to the US president, and he has heartily reciprocated their dislike.

The State Department has had a cosy relationship with General Musharraf. So some clever official in Islamabad may have thought it smart to exploit the turf battles and personality clashes within Washington DC8217;s beltway to put Blackwill on a back foot.

Mercifully, the US does not have a gullible political and diplomatic leadership that could fall for such transparent trickery. In any case, the real issue is not 8220;why8221; Ambassador Blackwill said what he said in his farewell speeches and television interview before leaving New Delhi 8212; whether it was because he went native and was touched by localitis 8212; but the veracity of 8220;what8221; he said.

What he said were facts. Facts as known to a senior US official. Islamabad must deal with these facts, not the motives that helped place those facts in the public domain.