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A FORMER ambassador with close ties to the Clintons, who helped build diplomatic links to the Taliban in the 1990s and became a lobbyist for Pakistan before returning to the US government, is being investigated as a possible spy.
The Washington home of Robin Raphel, 67, and her State Department office have been searched by FBI counterintelligence agents.
She has not been charged with any offence, but her security clearances have been revoked and her contract allowed to expire.
Raphel’s demise has been celebrated in India, which has long denounced her as pro-Pakistan, and fuelled a number of rumours and conspiracy theories about her alleged activities. Over the years, opponents have called her “Lady Taliban” and “The Bird”.
In Islamabad, however, there was dismay at the abrupt end of the career of the few diplomats regarded as sympathetic to Pakistan. The case has potential echoes of the plot of Homeland, the television drama about the CIA, in which the husband of the US ambassador to Pakistan is recruited by the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Raphel first met Bill Clinton in the late 1960s when she was studying at Cambridge and he was a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford. She briefly served in the CIA before becoming a diplomat.
She married and later divorced Arnold Raphel, the American ambassador to Pakistan who was killed along with President Zia ul-Haq in 1988 when their plane mysteriously crashed shortly after takeoff from Bahawalpur in Punjab.
When Clinton was elected US president in 1992, he appointed Raphel to the new post of assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, leapfrogging a number of more experienced diplomatic hands.
In his definitive 2004 book Ghost Wars, about the CIA and Afghanistan, Steve Coll wrote that Raphel was relatively junior for the job and “apart from her personal history with the president” had few connections at the White House.
“Blue-eyed, blonde, and statuesque, she was an elegant, bright woman with an upper-crust air, and she was a serious equestrian,” he added.
In her assistant secretary role, Raphel met Taliban leaders, including Mullah Muhammad Omar, in 1996 in an attempt to persuade the Afghan government to support an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.
She urged the world to engage with the extreme Islamist regime, saying “they are indigenous, they have demonstrated their staying power ... It is not in the interests of Afghanistan or any of us here that the Taliban be isolated”.
Raphel was appointed US ambassador to Tunisia by Clinton in 1997. She retired from the State Department in 2005 and became a lobbyist for Cassidy and Associates, which carries out extensive work on behalf of Pakistan.
After Obama’s election and despite his rules banning the so-called “revolving door” between lobbying firms and the government, Raphel was taken on by the US embassy in Pakistan, which hired her to help administer billions of dollars of development aid to the country.
Barely a month after Raphel left the firm, Cassidy and Associates began lobbying her on Pakistan issues. According to disclosure records, Cassidy and Associates held talks with her about the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act and “aid priorities and funding mechanisms for development in Pakistan”.
Raphel returned to Washington in 2009 after being appointed by Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, as a senior adviser on Pakistan issues for Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One detractor in Washington said: “There was a ruthless ambition to her and too much flirting with and charming of men.
“It was just unprofessional and portrayed a zeal to get ahead fast rather than rely on pure ability. I know her women contemporaries found it tawdry.”
A spokesman for Raphel said she was co-operating with investigators but had not been told the “scope or nature, or that she is the target of” any investigation.
Friends said they believed she had been the victim of an unfortunate mix-up and that the FBI investigation related to the removal of classified documents from her office, which might have been inadvertent.
A western intelligence source suggested Raphel’s second marriage had broken down and added: “It remains to be seen how serious this is, but the indications are that it could be highly embarrassing for Obama and, more particularly, the Clintons.”
Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian
The Washington home of Robin Raphel, 67, and her State Department office have been searched by FBI counterintelligence agents.
She has not been charged with any offence, but her security clearances have been revoked and her contract allowed to expire.
Raphel’s demise has been celebrated in India, which has long denounced her as pro-Pakistan, and fuelled a number of rumours and conspiracy theories about her alleged activities. Over the years, opponents have called her “Lady Taliban” and “The Bird”.
In Islamabad, however, there was dismay at the abrupt end of the career of the few diplomats regarded as sympathetic to Pakistan. The case has potential echoes of the plot of Homeland, the television drama about the CIA, in which the husband of the US ambassador to Pakistan is recruited by the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Raphel first met Bill Clinton in the late 1960s when she was studying at Cambridge and he was a Rhodes Scholar at University College, Oxford. She briefly served in the CIA before becoming a diplomat.
She married and later divorced Arnold Raphel, the American ambassador to Pakistan who was killed along with President Zia ul-Haq in 1988 when their plane mysteriously crashed shortly after takeoff from Bahawalpur in Punjab.
When Clinton was elected US president in 1992, he appointed Raphel to the new post of assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, leapfrogging a number of more experienced diplomatic hands.
In his definitive 2004 book Ghost Wars, about the CIA and Afghanistan, Steve Coll wrote that Raphel was relatively junior for the job and “apart from her personal history with the president” had few connections at the White House.
“Blue-eyed, blonde, and statuesque, she was an elegant, bright woman with an upper-crust air, and she was a serious equestrian,” he added.
In her assistant secretary role, Raphel met Taliban leaders, including Mullah Muhammad Omar, in 1996 in an attempt to persuade the Afghan government to support an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.
She urged the world to engage with the extreme Islamist regime, saying “they are indigenous, they have demonstrated their staying power ... It is not in the interests of Afghanistan or any of us here that the Taliban be isolated”.
Raphel was appointed US ambassador to Tunisia by Clinton in 1997. She retired from the State Department in 2005 and became a lobbyist for Cassidy and Associates, which carries out extensive work on behalf of Pakistan.
After Obama’s election and despite his rules banning the so-called “revolving door” between lobbying firms and the government, Raphel was taken on by the US embassy in Pakistan, which hired her to help administer billions of dollars of development aid to the country.
Barely a month after Raphel left the firm, Cassidy and Associates began lobbying her on Pakistan issues. According to disclosure records, Cassidy and Associates held talks with her about the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act and “aid priorities and funding mechanisms for development in Pakistan”.
Raphel returned to Washington in 2009 after being appointed by Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, as a senior adviser on Pakistan issues for Richard Holbrooke, the State Department’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One detractor in Washington said: “There was a ruthless ambition to her and too much flirting with and charming of men.
“It was just unprofessional and portrayed a zeal to get ahead fast rather than rely on pure ability. I know her women contemporaries found it tawdry.”
A spokesman for Raphel said she was co-operating with investigators but had not been told the “scope or nature, or that she is the target of” any investigation.
Friends said they believed she had been the victim of an unfortunate mix-up and that the FBI investigation related to the removal of classified documents from her office, which might have been inadvertent.
A western intelligence source suggested Raphel’s second marriage had broken down and added: “It remains to be seen how serious this is, but the indications are that it could be highly embarrassing for Obama and, more particularly, the Clintons.”
Cookies must be enabled. | The Australian
