On a day when President Obama announced his administration’s strategy (which has many merits) for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Admiral Mike Mullen reminds us of one of America’s most daunting challenges: the Pakistani intelligence services’ relationship with al Qaeda and the Taliban. In an interview on CNN, the nation’s top military officer said there are “indications” that some within the ISI are supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda. “There are certainly indications that’s the case,” Admiral Mullen said. “Fundamentally that’s one of the things that has to change.” Indeed, it does. But the question has always been how and why will it change? For example, the publicly-released version of CENTCOM’s new plan says much about Pakistan and the importance of turning back the jihadists’ advances, but it is short on details when it comes to how, specifically, this can be accomplished. There is no explicit mention of the ISI’s duplicitous role in all of this: The intelligence agency is tenuously allied with America in what was previously known as the “war on terror” and yet deeply involved with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as many other Pakistani-based extremist/terrorist organizations. The Bush administration did not make much of this in its public statements either, taking whatever help it could get from the troubled Pakistani nation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. So, the Obama administration’s reticence to include this fundamental fact in CENTCOM’s new Af/Pak White Paper and its public comments is certainly not surprising. Yet, Mullen’s comments hit on one of the central fault lines in this war. One of America’s most important allies is also allied with America’s enemies. This split personality is one of the fundamental dilemmas U.S. policymakers face. And there is no easy or obvious way to solve it. Still, it is refreshing to see Mullen state the obvious — something that many of America’s leaders rarely say publicly: Pakistan’s intelligence service is sleeping with the enemy.
