In retrospect, it seems that the hysterical media campaign in India supported by our intelligence agency to the effect that an al-Qaeda takeover in Maldives was imminent inadvisably hustled the South Block despite the sound advice being rendered by the Indian High Commissioner in Male. To what extent, the “public diplomacy” of the American embassy in Delhi also had a hand in the whipping up of hysteria is difficult to tell, but the bylines of the Indians who went viral make one strongly suspect that the US encouraged the campaign in the Indian media.
Indeed, it suited the US to whip up the frenzy over an al-Qaeda takeover in Male because that would provide the perfect alibi for its intervention. The repeated visits by Assistant Secretary Robert Blake since then, who is incidentally a rare diplomat-specialist in the region to undertake such an operation, fall in place.