HISTORY, geography, and domestic politics have all helped mold Pakistan into a large question mark for its neighbors, its allies, and itself. Intermittent military rule has had its role in this identity crisis, as have Pakistan's major political parties, with their feudal structures and their corruption. At least as destabilizing, though, have been the entanglements of Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, known as ISI, with the Taliban and other Islamist extremists.
Pakistan must be encouraged to sever the ISI from radical groups that the agency cultivated in the past. This is a matter of self-preservation. As The
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence originally cultivated the Afghan Taliban and homegrown militants for strategic purposes. Both were meant primarily to provide Pakistan with proxy forces against India. After Soviet forces left Afghanistan, and America brusquely lost interest in the region, the ISI backed the Taliban to counter Indian influence in Afghanistan and give Pakistan more room to respond to any threat from India.
Islamist radicals under ISI tutelage could be sheltered in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan while preparing forays into Indian-ruled Kashmir. The ISI's manipulation of jihadists served its purposes until Sept. 11, 2001, after which the Bush administration demanded that President Pervez Musharraf choose between the Taliban and the US war on terror.
Since then, Pakistan's strategic interests have begun to change. It is true that the $10 billion in mostly military aid Musharraf procured from Washington has been spent largely on weapons more suitable to fighting India than uprooting Al Qaeda. But the alliance with America has compelled the ISI to cut loose most of its radical Islamist proteges, particularly those who tried to kill Musharraf.
For Pakistan to achieve stability, Musharraf will have to permit free and fair elections next month. He will have to allow the revival of a free press and an independent judiciary. But Pakistan's security services will also have to act, without ambivalence, to penetrate, divide, and destroy the jihadist monster it once helped midwife.
America can help by altering the security outlook of Pakistan's leadership. Above all, this means taking an active diplomatic role in resolving Pakistan's conflict with India. This will require settling the Kashmir dispute, preferably by a referendum that offers three options to residents of Indian-controlled Kashmir: stay in India, be part of Pakistan, or become independent.
Only when India and Pakistan are reconciled can Pakistan resolve its identity crisis.
