The US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, has told his staff that he is leaving Islamabad, after serving just over 18 months in a country that has proved to be one of Washington’s most challenging and difficult partners in the world.
Munter, a career diplomat, reportedly did not see eye-to-eye with Washington, where the Obama administration has taken a tough line on a once-storied ally. Some media reports suggested that Munter ”simply wasn’t a good fit with the Pakistani government – and perhaps not with the Obama administration as well.”
But Pakistani commentators said among Obama administration officials, Munter was perhaps the most inclined to accommodate Pakistani concerns with regards to hot button issues such as Drone attacks and the Pakistani demand for a US apology over the Salala attack. During his 18+ months in Islamabad, Munter navigated some treacherous diplomatic terrain, including the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, punitive Drone attacks, and a stand-off over Nato supply route following the Salala attack in which American forces decimated 26 Pakistani soldiers. The incidents lacerated U.S-Pakistan ties already under strain over attacks originating from Pakistan on the interests of U.S and its allies in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
With ties straining to the point of rupture, Munter appeared to take a soft, diplomatic line over the Hafiz Saeed bounty issue last week in what is often termed in diplomatic circles as localitis or clientitis, a crude term for a sympathetic hearing for the host country, as many envoys are bound to do. He was reported telling the Pakistani media that the U.S government did not announce any bounty or head money on Saeed and the matter had been misreported.
While Munter was technically correct (the U.S announced a bounty for information leading to arrest and conviction of Hafiz Saeed and not one for his ”head”), he appeared to reel back Washington’s tough approach that was later spelled out by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Kolkata on Monday, when she bluntly upbraided Pakistan for not taking any action against the alleged Mumbai attack mastermind.
But a blog which first reported the matter said Munter’s departure was not related to any particular policy dispute with Washington or Islamabad.
Among the names being bandied around to succeed Munter is Richard Olson, like Munter a career foreign service officer. In fact, the last 16 U.S ambassadors to Pakistan have been FSOs, unlike with neighboring India, which has had a mix of FSOs and political appointees.
The just-arrived envoy in New Delhi, Nancy Jo Powell, is the first FSO after Frank Wisner in 1993-1995, who was followed by Richard Celeste, Robert Blackwill, David Mulford, and Timothy Roemer, all political appointees. Pakistan’s last political appointee was Joseph Farland in 1969.
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