US-Pakistan Partnership Rapidly Unraveling

The U.S. fight against Islamic militants hiding out in Pakistan’s failed border region suffered another serious setback this week. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pakistan has asked the CIA to halt all drone attacks on its territory – a move that would drastically alter U.S. strategic planning in Afghanistan, if conceded. Officials quoted in the report have also suggested that the Pakistani government is seeking a significant disclosure of classified information on U.S. clandestine ground operations inside the country.

---

Both requests are seen as a determined pushback from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence community (ISI), which has been under considerable public pressure since the release of formerly jailed CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who was charged with the killing of two Pakistani men in Lahore on January 27. Together, these developments have added major tension to what is a rapidly unraveling partnership between the two countries intelligence agencies. Currently, the CIA is struggling to adjust to increasingly public statements from Pakistani officials about the drone program, which is classified. Most recently, Pakistan’s Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, called a suspected March 17 strike in North Waziristan-killing a reported 40 people- a “carelessly and callously targeted” attack. But while the Pakistani government has moved to criticize the CIA’s covert drone campaign, it does so without acknowledging the tremendous failings of its own counter-terrorism program. Part of the need for CIA intervention and involvement in Pakistan is, after all, the continued movement of Pakistani terrorist groups Lashkar-e-Taib, the Haqqani network and the Tehrik-e-Taliban in and out of Afghanistan. This week, CIA director Leon Panetta met with Pakistani ISI head Ahmed Shuja Pasha at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia in a bid to renegotiate the tone and terms of their partnership. Relations between the two have deteriorated significantly since Pasha was declared a defendant in a New York civil case that cited the Pakistani ISI as complicit in the 2008 Mumbai Terrorist attacks in India. After the meeting, CIA officials declared, expectedly, that the partnering agencies remain on “solid footing.” At present, however, there are no indications that the CIA has plans to alter its drone program as per Pakistan’s request. Though they have conceded to Pasha a protection guaranteeing he will not have to testify at the New York trial, it cannot be ruled out that the greater Pakistani intelligence community, which has been variously accused of abetting international terrorism, will not continue their attempts to leverage the deteriorating situation for their strategic benefit.