Robin Raphel's connection with Islamic countries have been long.
She was a teacher in a woman's college in Iran in the 1970s.
She was with the CIA and with a diplomatic cover in Islamabad with USAID. The CIA connection with USAID requires no elaboration .
It maybe noted that she is fluent in Urdu.
Her appointment as Political Counsellor at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India was in Aug 1991 and she served till August 1993.
The task of the Political Counsellor (PC) is to analyse the host country political and economic developments and their potential impact on the interests of the Nation of the PC. In short, it is almost an undercover assignment to not only gauge the host nation's potential but also to influence the powers that be in the host nation to be favourable to PC's Nation. Obviously, she must have been short-changed by Indian contacts that she wanted to build and hence her animosity.
She has a stormy relationship with the MEA. These are some aspect of her ire:
Raphel said that from the time of former Foreign Secretary J N (Mani) Dixit and others, while the MEA had tried to pull rank on her and prevent her from meeting with the prime ministers, foreign ministers and others, she had developed a rapport with the Indian people, politicians, Opposition figures and the intelligentsia. "I do actually think I command quite a lot of respect from them because I know the country, I know the issues," and have "a certain passion about it, which comes through, and people respect that. People respect people who stick with an issue."
"And I have worked very hard to hew a line between India and Pakistan and people have not tried to understand that," she said. "Indians have not wished to understand that and I heard such nonsense from the MEA. They don't get it. They never understood about the Brown Amendment (initiated by the State Department and introduced by former Republican Senator Hank Brown that provided for a waiver of the Pressler Amendment and led to the transfer of $368 million in sophisticated weaponry to Pakistan in 1996)."
"In India, I like the colour and the texture and the sensuality of the place and the interestingness of the people, except the bureaucrats, who in my experience are not worth the time of day."
"and I talk straight and at the end of the day most people appreciate that. I don't suck up to anybody, and I mean not to anybody at home or abroad. That's not my style, and in India where there's a bit of tradition of obsequiousness, they get a little confused about that."
Robin Raphel, the American Indian diplomats hated - Rediff.com India News
Raphel's emphasis on providing Pakistan with Military aid, siding with Pakistan on Kashmir issue and construction of oil line in Afghanistan for supply to Pakistan made her deeply unpopular within the Indian establishment, despite being stationed in New Delhi in her early career. Her early characterization, as a State Department official, of Kashmir a
Her husband, Arnold Lewis Raphel, was the Ambassador to Pakistan in 1987 and continued till August 17, 1988. when he was killed in the aircraft blast with Zia Haq. He was, like his wife Robin fluent in Urdu. Apparently, the tenures of the Urdu speaking genial Raphels does indicate the CIA and the State Dept gameplan to infiltrate, influence and bag Pakistan into the US bag of trophies.
Clinton appointed Raphel as the first Assistant Secretary of State in 1993. Interesting the post was created to focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. And the mission was to check the stability of their democracies, nuclear proliferation, energy access, Islamist and Taliban extremism, poverty and women's rights issues. It gave her ample opportunities to interact with various individuals of position or of pro US disposition, pseudo intellectuals, and gather 'inside' information, as also influence the local mindset and subvert the Govts.
This indicates that Clinton is actually a slim customer and no angel.
The long association and exposure with the Islamist country surely must have influenced Raphel's mindset to be pro Islamist nations.
And who knows if sexual preference may have also had a role to play.
She was instrumental in orchestrating the State Department's opening of diplomatic relations with the Taliban shortly after its takeover of Kabul.
Raphel openly spoke in favour of a proposed pipeline project by Unocal Corporation, an American oil company, on trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in April and August 1996
Robin Raphel served as the US Ambassador to Tunisia and in 1997.