ISI’s Bout with Obama Envoys

According to media report Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha has refused to meet Obama’s high-ranking envoys, Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen, who were probably going to discuss ISI’s links with Taliban.

In Pakistan, such a bold gesture towards Americans is some act that can only be done by an ISI chief, not the president, the prime minister, or even the army chief. Head of this labyrinthine security agency is Lt Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha, accused by Americans to be training, funding and equipping Taliban militants despite counter-efforts carried out by the government of United States and President Asif Ali Zardari. But all these criticisms have not intimidated the Lieutenant General and he defiantly rejects Obama’s envoy’s request for a meeting. Even army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani has supported and rejected the criticisms against Pakistan’s intelligence system in his visit with Holbrooke and Mullen.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) is the army’s mastermind and strategist, while the Pakistani army itself plays the most influential role in the country’s politics. No one exactly knows about the organizational structure of ISI and except for the name of its director, little is known about this mysterious organization. The quasi-underground system is nominally under the control of the army chief, who is supposed to be a subordinate of the president. However, these are all technicalities. No one in Pakistan believes that the government and president have full control over the army or the army chief could personally make a decision about ISI.

Myths surround the history of ISI: for years everybody has been talking about a secret organization called Inter-Services Intelligence agency which is behind all the strategic decisions in Pakistan. The most famous political byword in Pakistan is that governments rise and fall, but it is the ISI generals who rule over the country. It is said that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated with their wink, that they decide which government should come and which should go. They are believed to be the key masterminds who brought Soviet Army to its knees in Afghanistan and without their nod neither war nor peace with India is achievable. Everyone believes that ISI gives the final word for rise and fall of governments in Pakistan. It must be a coterie of strategist generals that have contrived and implemented Pakistan’s intricate policies against Afghanistan and India within the last three decades and nowadays, it is ISI and not Zardari who decides which side is worth cooperating: United States or Taliban?

And that’s why so desperately, the Americans say that while Zardari’s government cooperates with them, ISI provides Baitullah Mahsud (the Taliban commander in Pakistan) with sensitive information. During the last two years, Mahsud has slipped away from Pakistan’s security forces, just because despite locating his hideouts, all security operations to seize the militant leader have come out or failed a few hours before they have begun. Americans also believe Mahsud’s assassination of Bhutto was backed by ISI senior officials.

It seems that now even the Americans know that defeating Taliban would be an arduous –if not impossible- mission without Pasha and folk’s consent.