Well, the world and his dog knows the role of Pakistan's ISI in fermenting Islamist terror around the world, many times helped and abetted by western intelligence agencies. It was after 9/11 that the pressure came really on this agency to stop being bad boys. Well, that has proven impossible because it is running counter to its primary objective, which is to keep the military government in power and the national security/ideology of Pakistan. I mean, do you seriously expect the ISI to turn all its Islamist friends in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir (India) over to USA, Afghanistan or India?
Now the current push by USA to have General Musharraf as the President and Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister is also destined for tears. It was the ISI which helped and abetted her father's death, and then drove her out of office twice. What has changed? Nothing. And the stupid various western intelligence agencies are being led around by their noses.
Here's a research article which delves deeper into this aspect by giving a good history of the agency and the current operations. I quote the conclusion in its entirety.
This article has explored the nature and operations of the ISI and has argued that in supporting Pakistan's ruling elite and in pursuit of Pakistan's geostrategic interests the ISI has promoted an agenda of Sunni Islamism in Pakistan and of pan-Islamist jihad abroad. In the post-9/11 era the trajectory of this strategy has put Pakistan increasingly at odds with the West, a point underlined by Pakistan's strong support of the Taliban, even as the United States and NATO battle Taliban forces, and by the resurgence of Al Qaeda.
Whether under tight Pakistani government control, as Musharraf asserts, or not, the ISI's support for pan-Islamist jihad threatens Western interests in Afghanistan, in the Southern Caucus, and across South Asia, whereas the ISI's support for Sunni Islamism in Pakistan and its repression of political alternatives and of civil society is closing down political space in the country, fueling instability and the risk of state disintegration. There is a growing concern, expressed even by cautious voices, that the forces created or empowered by the ISI over the past two decades in particular, are forging ever stronger links and may yet rise to challenge for control of Pakistan itself.
Six years after the War on Terrorism began Pakistan has emerged as "the new Afghanistan," the hub, as Negroponte put it, from which Al Qaeda has been able to regenerate and reassert at least some of its lethal global influence. With grave new trends evident in Pakistan, reliance on the Janus-faced ISI is failing and a Western rethink of its intelligence strategy toward Pakistan is now imperative.
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Gregory, Shaun, "The ISI and the War on Terrorism, PY - 2007, VL - 30, IS - 12, SP - 1013-1031
AB - Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI] plays an ambiguous role in the War on Terrorism. An important ally for Western intelligence with whom it has very close links, the ISI also has a long history of involvement in supporting and promoting terrorism in the name of Pakistan's geostrategic interests. This article explores the nature of the ISI and its aims and objectives in the post-9/11 era. It argues that the focus of the ISI's actions are to shore up Pakistan's ruling elite and to destabilize Pakistan's enemies by the promotion of Sunni Islamism at home and of pan-Islamist jihad abroad. The ISI's strategy, however, deeply conflicts with that of the West, a point underlined by the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban almost six years after the War on Terrorism began. With grave new trends evident in Pakistan, reliance on the ISI is failing and a Western rethink of its intelligence strategy toward Pakistan is now imperative.
[T]he ISI is a disciplined force, for 27 years they have been doing what the government [of Pakistan] has been telling them.—President Pervez Musharraf, interview, London Times, 28 September 2006
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