ISI in the news

IT was an odd sight. The PPP and PML-N, political rivals par excellence, are rarely ever on the same page. Yet on Thursday Prime Minister Gilani and opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar appeared to have been reading from the same script — and stranger yet, in defence of an organisation for which neither could have much love lost. The ISI, the prime minister and the opposition leader told parliament, is a great national institution and will be protected at all costs. From their sterling defence of the seemingly omnipotent spy agency, it appeared as if the political leaders were declaring the ISI to be a national treasure. But no ordinary national treasure is the ISI, and who better to know that than the prime minister and Chaudhry Nisar whose parties have suffered at the hands of the security establishment more than most in recent times. Politics really is a dark and mysterious art sometimes.

On a more serious note, however, the recent headlines concerning the ISI chief raise two important points. First, why does the agency keep appearing in the headlines time and again, almost always in a negative way? Conspiracy theorists and ‘patriots’ and ‘nationalists’ will of course claim it is all a grand conspiracy to undermine Pakistan, its security interests and possibly even the country’s physical existence. But is this necessarily so? Could reasonable and rational people not have some reasonable and rational grounds for disagreeing with the policies the security establishment is pursuing? The world over there are fierce disagreements within states over issues of foreign policy and national security strategies; why must such disagreements here be reduced to patriotic vs unpatriotic?

Second, dragging a serving, or even retired, ISI official into a court case in New York has the unwelcome potential to further exacerbate tensions between the US and Pakistan, and this at a time when tensions over Afghanistan are already on the rise. The civil suit in question may be a private one brought by American relatives of victims of the Mumbai attacks, but surely the US government can take some diplomatic or legal steps to reassure Pakistan. After all, if the court had summoned the spy chief of another country, say Britain or even Israel, would Washington not have pursued a diplomatic course to defuse the situation? This is the kind of intervention that is needed at the moment.