If it is the usual ‘stay-the-course’ agenda, then any selected general can run the agency.
KARACHI: This is with reference to a report published on your website on March 11 which said that Pakistan was going to extend the term of the present ISI chief. Two-and-a-half years is a long enough a period for the director-general of the ISI to bring about a meaningful change in the way the organisation works. If it is the usual ‘stay-the-course’ agenda, then any selected general can run the agency.
Many professional and able officers have held this appointment for a far shorter time period and in much more difficult circumstances. They were not indispensible and were changed. The continuity and extension in General Pasha’s tenure may have everything to do with his close association with the army chief. However, it would be fair to say that surely the present government and the Americans must be extremely satisfied with the present working of the ISI for its chief to get an extension.
In July 2008, after the Indian embassy was bombed in Kabul, US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen and then CIA deputy director Stephen Kappes visited Pakistan on July 12 and, in meetings with the military and political leadership, presented evidence of Pakistani intelligence’s involvement in the bombing. The prime minister who was to visit Washington and meet President George W Bush in two weeks time issued a notification which placed the ISI under the control of the interior ministry. However, this notification was rescinded within 24 hours and this gave a clear signal to all concerned that the country’s political leadership could neither control nor reform the ISI.
By the same logic, if General Pasha does get the extension (it has yet to be formally announced), then it will not be unfair to assume that the civilian leadership today has a say in policy matters being implemented by the agency and that the Americans are pretty happy with it.
Lt-col (retd) Muhammad Ali Ehsan
Published in The Express Tribune, March 13th, 2011.
