Secret Pakistani-U.S. memo offering overthrow of military leadership revealed

Josh Rogin in Foreign Policy:

The Cable has obtained the document at the center of the “memo-gate” controversy, sent allegedly from the highest echelons of Pakistani's civilian leadership to Adm. Michael Mullen in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The memo offered to reshape Pakistan's national security leadership, cleaning house of elements within the powerful military and intelligence agencies that have supported Islamic radicals and the Taliban, drastically altering Pakistani foreign policy — and requesting U.S. help to avoid a military coup.

The Cable confirmed that the memo is authentic and that it was received by Mullen. The Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani — the rumored author of the memo — has offered to resign over what has become a full-fledged scandal in Islamabad. The Cable spoke this evening to the man at the center of the controversy and the conduit of the memo, Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz.

“Civilians cannot withstand much more of the hard pressure being delivered from the Army to succumb to wholesale changes,” reads the memo, sent to Mullen via an unidentified U.S. interlocutor by Ijaz.

More here.