Pakistan: Supporter or spoiler?
By HARRIET ISOM

12/20/2009:If Afghanistan is daunting for U.S. policy makers, neighboring Pakistan is an equal, if not a more troubling dilemma. Its cooperation is required to deny sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda in the lawless frontier area with Afghanistan. Its own internal stability as a nuclear nation is essential.

But as an ally, Pakistan is a mixed bag. It is helping us in some realms but pursuing its own agenda in others, particularly in its stubborn animus with India. It harbors throughout the country an even scarier array of extremist jihadists than Afghanistan. Their siren call is expanding through the Internet, as just attested by five Americans arrested in Pakistan as they allegedly sought contact with jihadist groups.

Since independence, Pakistan's government has shifted between the military and civilians, but the latter have always been weak, including today under the elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, husband of the assassinated Benazir Bhutto.

The real power remains with the military; and they, not the civilian government, hold the reins on Pakistan's nuclear weapons. We talk a lot about corruption in the Karzai regime in Afghanistan, but Pakistan too is rated as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. President Zardari himself is tainted, and the just renewed possibility of legal action against him only hinders his influence and survivability.

Indeed, public malaise in Pakistan is widespread. A recent survey by the British Council found a majority of young Pakistanis in despair. The public education system is so abysmal that only 40 percent of children are enrolled in school. Jobs are very scarce. And three-quarters of those polled identified themselves primarily as Muslims first and Pakistanis, second. Only a third thought democracy was the best system for Pakistan.

Small wonder then that militant groups in Pakistan draw in both the educated and the uneducated with slogans of jihad.

Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), plays its own unique role. After the Soviets went home in 1989 and the U.S. lost interest in Afghanistan, ISI supported the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and Pakistan was one of only three governments to recognize it. Still today, elements of ISI are reported secretly helping the Afghan Taliban.

Why? Because Pakistan is determined to keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan (India supports President Karzai) and foresees a benefit from that connection if the U.S. withdraws from Afghanistan.

Another factor is that Pakistan has long used the jihadists to battle India over disputed territory in Kashmir. The two countries were finally holding talks to resolve the Kashmir issue when last fall Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group from the central Pakistan province of Punjab, undertook a devastating attack on the city of Mumbai, India. The talks came to a screeching halt, with India suspicious that elements of Pakistan's military and ISI had helped organize the attack.

There is a startling American connection. An American citizen from Chicago has just been arrested for allegedly making numerous reconnaissance trips for Lashkar to Mumbai, posing as a businessman, to survey the targets. Moreover, he was reported helping with a plot for a Lashkar attack in Denmark against the newspaper which published cartoons that caused an uproar in the Muslim world.

It is another indication that the goals and international outreach of these Pakistani jihadist organizations are expanding. I would reckon that the threat of Lashkar is now at least equal to al-Qaeda.

Then there is Pakistan's wild west frontier with Afghanistan. Those isolated provinces have been harboring a whole array of jihadists - the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaeda, an assortment of militant warlords and, since 2001, a Pakistani Taliban. Moreover, what the press dubs "the Punjabi Taliban" have begun coming over to fight in Afghanistan.

Foreign jihadists from the Persian Gulf states, north Africa, Uzbekistan and elsewhere are plentiful in this area as well, and are thought to supply the suicide bombers.

The Pakistani Taliban has concentrated its attention on expansion into other areas of Pakistan such as the Swat Valley and in recent weeks has launched daring and well planned bomb and suicide attacks on major Pakistani cities, including key military installations.

The U.S. and other allies have long been trying to convince Pakistan that the jihadists are a threat to Pakistan itself. But Pakistan's military has been loath to divert too many troops from the eastern frontier with Kashmir to the western sector with Afghanistan.

Under great pressure from the U.S., and increasingly having to admit the damaging thrust of the Pakistani Taliban, the Pakistan military has finally launched a well publicized military attack on South Waziristan Province. Typical of the fighting in this region which produces little body count, however, the Taliban has dispersed into the rugged terrain and gone north.

And while the U.S. wants Pakistan to fight the multiple Taliban factions, Pakistani officials have reportedly balked at pursuing the Afghan Taliban or the potent Haqqani network.

Our relations with Pakistan are prickly and anti-American sentiment is rising. There is public rage when U.S. drone attacks against jihadi leaders kill civilians as well. Pakistanis seem to fear in general that the U.S. is planning to take them over and deprive them of their nuclear weapons. They badgered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her October visit over what would seem a very generous $7.5 billion aid package to underpin Pakistan's economy and civilian institutions. The Pakistani attitude was that its strings reflected American arrogance.

And, very troubling, was a report this week of a government campaign to harass American diplomats and to deny us hundreds of visas for aid and technical workers.

On Dec. 10, I found of interest an op-ed piece by Pakistan's President Zardari in the New York Times entitled "How to Mend Fences with Pakistan". While assuring us that Pakistan wants to defeat the militants, he defends Pakistan's concern about India in Kashmir. He suggests that the U.S. step in to mediate the Kashmir dispute. But no U.S. administration has thus far wanted to step into this hornet's nest. The U.S. response to Zardari is that this is a bilateral issue to be resolved between Pakistan and India with the active involvement of the people of Kashmir.

So the answer to the question of whether Pakistan is friend or foe of the U.S. is that it is both - and it necessitates our most nimble diplomacy.

Ambassador Harriet Isom grew up in Pendleton and has retired to the family ranch. She was a career diplomat serving in Asia and Africa from 1961 to 1996.