The truck bombing at the Islamabad Marriot which has killed at least 60 people, and is said to have been targeted against senior CIA officials visiting the Pakistani capital, has been universally attributed to Al Qaeda. That is entirely possible, and even likely. But this is a good time to maintain skepticism. We — the U.S. – are neck deep in a conflict with a significant, powerful rogue element of the Pakistani state: their military intelligence unit — ISI (InterServices Intelligence). ISI has spent much of the past seven years playing the U.S. off against the Taliban/Al Qaeda factions in Afghanistan, with which it has an incestuous relationship. The Qaeda/Taliban forces in the tribal areas and over the border in Afghanistan would not be supplied without the co-operation of ISI — which maintains the loyalty of many religiously radical Pakistanis.
If, indeed, Osama bin Laden in hiding in Waziristan or Baluchistan, it is a sure bet that he does so with co-operation, by commission or omission, of ISI. This has all come to the surface recently. And we are assured that David Petraeus is on it. Perhaps he will be as effective here, in this tangled, writhing viper pit, as he was in the far more innocent (!) straightforward, insurgency in Iraq. We can only hope.
It is a sure bet that the new Prime Minister, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, will have as much control over ISI as his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, did in her years as P.M. That is to say, whatever good intentions he has for democracy, and for co-operation with the U.S. and Afghanistan, he governs at their pleasure. Real civilian rule will require radical, almost impossible changes in Pakistan’s internal politics. Indeed, this blast might just as well have been ISI’s welcome to Mr. Zardari. In any case, no matter who drove the truck, it is hard to imagine that the rag-tag forces of Al Qaeda could have gotten that far without help from some arm of ISI. The U.S. is increasingly in an impossible position, since it can hardly attack an ally. But that ally is simultaneously the enemy. Good luck General Petraeus.