Life for many members of Washington’s diplomatic corps is, one imagines, pretty much a picnic. For example, the ambassador fromBarbados generally faces no career-threatening crises. Nor does the ambassador from Luxembourg.
Others have trickier assignments. The ambassador from Yemen, Abdulwahab Abdulla al-Hajjri, can’t be having an easy time lately, especially since his brother-in-law is his country’s beleaguered and despised president. The ambassador from Bahrain, Houda Nonoo, is in the supremely odd position of being a Jewish woman representing a Sunni Muslim monarchy that oppresses a Shiite majority.
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The ambassador with the hardest job in Washington is undoubtedly Pakistan’s Husain Haqqani, a skilled and wily diplomat who faces the near-impossible task of representing a country that Washington considers at once a crucial ally and a treacherous adversary.
A one-time Islamist turned pro-democracy Americaphile, Haqqani is seen by many in his own country as an American toady. But some of his critics, including
