In July, U.S. military officials presented Pakistani officials with evidence linking the covert arm of the Pakistani military, known as Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with a pro-Taliban network in Afghanistan that had bombed the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7.
Other evidence presented included information that the ISI has given advanced warning to militants of pending missile strikes.
“There is good evidence that elements of the ISI have re-engaged with the Taliban,” said one senior NATO defense official, quoted by McClatchy Newspapers. Pakistani officials denied the allegations.
One question that perplexes many Americans is why Pakistan would fund militant groups like the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, when the stability of Pakistan is threatened by their allies in Pakistan.
One major reason is that Pakistani officials fear that moving against the Taliban in Pakistan will provoke attacks by that group and its allies inside Pakistan, which is presently battling militant violence.
Like the Iranians, Pakistan uses proxies to project its power beyond its borders. These have mostly been militant groups such as those who fought Indian forces over control of the state of Kashmir, as well as those who fought the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s.
Pakistan also feels threatened by U.S. pursuit of a strategic relationship with India, Pakistan’s longtime enemy with which it has fought three wars, including a recent nuclear cooperation pact between the two.
Pakistani officials worry that Washington is building up India as a bulwark in the region, while thinking that American interest in their own country is short-term.
Likewise, Pakistan feels threatened by increasing Indian influence in Afghanistan, including a $750 million aid package by the Indian government, and construction of a highway that will transport Indian goods coming through Iranian ports. These factors converge to encourage Pakistani use of militants against India.
“Pakistan over the last several years has increasingly come to believe that it is being encircled by India and a U.S.-India-Afghan axis,” said Seth Jones, an expert with the RAND Corporation, a policy institute.
Thus, the Pakistanis have incentive to fund the Taliban in Afghanistan to keep India off-balance. This also explains why the Pakistani government has moved only against Arab and Central Asian elements of al-Qaida in its Northwestern Frontier Province, but not against the Taliban in Balochistan province.
It explains the Pakistani government’s failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. Doing so would likely inflame militants to confront the Pakistani government even more aggressively.
Pakistani military leaders — who do not answer to the civilian leadership — will likely continue to fund militants as long as American foreign policy towards India conflicts with what Pakistan perceives as its security needs.
“One thing we never understood is that India has always been the major threat for Pakistan,” former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain told the McClatchy Newspapers.
Thus, the next American president will inherit a complex situation involving a dysfunctional Pakistani government. Neither presidential candidate has come clean with the American people about the lack of good options.
There also remains the possibility that Pakistan could devolve into civil war, raising the possibility that the Taliban will take Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, and gain access to its nuclear arsenal.
Christopher Herrin is a graduate Religious Studies major and a columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.