THE PLANK APRIL 16, 2009
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David Ignatius says the army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, was the hidden glue holding together Pakistan's political system last month. I don't know much about Kiyani, but two mixed facts jump out from this bio. One, he trained at the U.S. General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth (good--that means he can relate to U.S. military officials). Two, he recently led the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency (bad: the radical-coddling ISI is at the root of our problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan). But it appears that Joint Chiefs chairman Mike Mullen likes and trusts Kiyani, whom he calls "a courageous leader" and "the right guy at the right time," which is comforting--assuming he's being sincere.
--Michael Crowley
4 comments
This most certainly is a guy who'd never make it through a metal detector.
- kevincollins
April 16, 2009 at 11:40am
He was selected by former president Mushareff I think - does that have vibrations?
- jemerk
April 16, 2009 at 2:16pm
WaPo : Holbrooke and Jacob J. "Jack" Lew, deputy secretary of state for management and resources
- Anonymous
April 24, 2009 at 10:13am
Despite multiple photo-ops and briefings it's hard to know what was really accomplished today with
- Anonymous
May 6, 2009 at 10:17pm