By Momin Iftikhar
With the smoothly whizzing major engines of international media at their command, the US has considerable power of conducting no holds barred dirty campaigns in pursuit of its national objectives. This power is at full display, in all its perfidy, as the US focuses on the endgame in Afghanistan where despite the much-heralded surge , a convincing American comeback seems as distant as ever. Following a spate of derogatory articles in major US papers, the latest fusillade has come from the Guardian in UK which, with exquisite timings, has released the extracts from WikiLeaks, alleging that the US ranks the ISI alongside al-Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
The campaign against the ISI has been rumbling in the corridors of US powers for quite some times now. It started with muffled accusations that there were rogue elements within its ranks who were surreptitiously supporting Afghan Taliban factions who were at cross purposes to the US strategy in Afghanistan. This propaganda has continued for considerable time now oblivious of the fact that no agency worth its salt can allow things to come to such a level of deterioration because without effective and unimpeachable institutionalized controls, placed over conduct of operations, no agency can exercise its designated mandate. Knuckles seem to be off now with Mike Mullen stating these stark accusations, sitting right in Islamabad in his choreographed interviews to the local media.
Intelligence agencies, the world over are a covert instrument for conduct of state policies in the realm of foreign affairs. In this regard the ISI is no different from the CIA; it has its own national interests foremost and at priority one while it plans and conducts its operations. In this context, while there may be common grounds (interests) where cooperation may be possible but inevitably there would be areas of discord where a clash of interest is bound to arise. As the situation in Afghanistan turns murky with the US dithering over which route to adopt at a number of fast approaching policy forks, the adverse implications for Pakistan are obvious. The propaganda tirade against the ISI is indicative of the clash of Pak-US interests in Afghanistan and a US desire to turn the agency totally subservient to its own interests and desires. This situation calls for serious deliberations upon the consequences of losing our national sovereignty over vital organs of national defence. A failure to do so will unleash catastrophic consequences in relations to our capability of shaping the course of future events in line with our national priorities.
The Raymond Davis affair is a watershed that defines the degree to which the CIA wants Pakistan to succumb while defining the terms of intelligence cooperation. That a CIA contractor, whom President Obama called our diplomat in Islamabad could kill two men in broad daylight in one of the busiest intersections of Lahore and then get away scot-free has bared the extent of CIA unaccounted operations inside Pakistan and the degree of immunity it wants to enjoy. It also indicated how ruthless intelligence operations can be and the extent to which the US moral values are prominent through their absence in shaping of CIA operations. This is a unique situation where the US wants to conduct carte blanche operations on Pakistani territory without restraints; a scenario that perhaps can t be replicated anywhere else in the world. The CIA has gradually expanded its envelope to Pakistan s detriment, and the ISI must do its duty to arrest the situation from further deterioration, notwithstanding the ire that comes forth from the US propaganda machinery.
Conduct of the drone strikes campaign by the CIA, with bare minimum intelligence sharing with the ISI, has also emerged as a caveat where the US agency is overstepping limits. There was a leak in the press recently that boasted of the CIA having developed spy rings in Fata to support the drone attacks independent of interference from the ISI. It ought to be noted though that the brazen and cavalier manner in which the CIA is conducting the drone strikes, unmindful of the tremendous loss of innocent lives, is causing a strong backlash in Pakistan. The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan registers an upsurge in tandem with the frequency of drone strikes, a lamentable and sad phenomenon in which victims on both locations happen to be innocent Pakistanis paying the price for CIA arrogance and lack of respect for human life. The ISI needs to circumscribe the liberty of action demanded, and exercised, by the CIA to counter the trigger happiness of CIA operators which bear an unacceptable price tag for Pakistan. The irresponsible and un-accounted for manner, in which the CIA drone campaign spills innocent blood, makes it a fit case for earning the epithet of a terrorist agency by CIA itself.
The CIA s brouhaha against the ISI maintaining contact with Haqqani faction is pointless as well. An intelligence outfit needs to be in touch with a wide spectrum of entities across the political divide. The CIA is known to be maintaining contacts with all shades of organizations on both sides of the Pak Afghan border, including Taliban leadership, and should not grudge similar practices by the ISI. If Haqqani is causing difficulties for the US military why don t they corner him using their formidable spy rings in combination with awesome technological prowess of which the drones are but one manifest. If they can t seal the Afghan border to stop infiltration by Haqqani led insurgents how do they expect the Pakistan Army and ISI to do it for them when Pakistan has already shed more blood in two years than the combined US casualties in Afghanistan over the span of last ten years.
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