Intelligence matters

At a time when cooperation is essential, both Pakistan and the US seem hell bent on confrontation.

There is a rule in politics that you should never believe anything until it is officially denied. During Director-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha’s recent visit to Washington to meet acting CIA Director Michael Morrell and AfPak representative Mark Grossman, Gen Pasha insisted that the US-Pakistan relationship was alive and well and both sides denied that intelligence-sharing had come to a halt. That they had to issue such denials in the first place is a sign of just how poor relations between the two spy agencies have become, a deterioration that cannot be papered over by any number of official statements. The only slight positive sign is that both sides are continuing talks to air their disputes and concerns rather than declaring the relationship dead. But that is a small comfort when one considers how both the CIA and the ISI need each other to effectively defeat the militants.

Here are the main points of contention. The CIA seems convinced that the ISI is playing both sides and, to test this theory, gave the Pakistani spy agency information about a militant hideout in North Waziristan. They then watched as the ISI raided the house only after the militants had been warned and had cleared the area. The ISI is concerned that the Americans are violating Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty, a concern that has only amplified after the May 2 Abbottabad raid. It may sound unduly pessimistic, but this is an impasse that will be very difficult to end. When it comes to the hunt for terrorists, the US considers our sovereignty disposable. And the ISI doesn’t need to actually be playing both sides; as long as the US believes that it is doing so, it will not trust the spy agency one bit and intelligence-sharing will be minimal.

These talks aside, neither country is making moves that inspire much confidence. The decision by the US to cut $800 million in military aid to Pakistan is likely to achieve nothing other than further convince the military and the ISI to go it alone. At a time when cooperation rather than retaliation is called for, both Pakistan and the US seem hell bent on confrontation.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.