The ISI syndrome. Not only do Pakistan`s politicians have it, Americans have it too. Difficulties in the `quash terror` context here are linked to its hidden hand.

Since there are precedents of both Pakistani and American politicians forging working linkages with the phantom one cannot be dismissive.

In 2009 global media has a reiterative take on the ISI. Either some of its retired personnel are hand in glove with terrorist Taliban harassing Nato and its Af-Pak allies; or the existent functional ISI is playing a dastardly double game with its Am-Af Nato allies; or (still worse) Pakistan`s supreme command does not know and cannot control its own ISI.

Although Pakistanis have seen the ISI play filthy clandestine politics locally with collaborative politicians, it is hard for them to credit their agencies out for the kill as seen in the wave of terrorist attacks battering Pakistan. Implosive terrorist convulsions or destructive chaos with a view to reweaving the country`s social fabric are hardly what Pakistanis would be promoting. The ISI is connected with the army which is at once our country`s defence line and most viable federal institution (post lateral-entry policies have fragmented the bureaucracy).

The barrage of international analyses and news-leaks, essentially badmouthing army personnel and abilities, has set ordinary Pakistanis to reasoning why and wondering if Am-Af et al may have a Pakistan-specific covert scenario of their own, complete with a cast of infiltrators or uncontrollable rogues such as they scent in the ISI. Where `they` see the ISI helping Taliban terror every which way, `we` see the CIA using it to re-delineate borders to suit its own regional purposes.

Nobody minimises acute provincial and ethnic grievances valid enough to have spurred nationalist and secessionist movements. Our Islamic Republic is on record as having lost its entire eastern wing, but through sadly spontaneous crass stupidity, not chosen sponsorship of the Mukti Bahini or alienated guerilla warriors.

Cross-border terrorism is a regional threat; but in that context neither India nor Afghanistan can address Pakistan from a moral high ground. Nor for that matter can America in its Af-Pak context, not just because of things like extraordinary rendition, but because of its obtuseness in being dismissive of collateral damage and deaf to its resonances. Some of the many affected by it seek to strike back in their impotence. Pakistan`s reluctance to meet internal problems arising from collateral damage should not be misconstrued as sympathy for terrorist kin. For Pakistan to be treating Pakistanis as callously as America feels free to treat them alienates the citizenry from the government and indeed has made terrorism more a Pakistan-specific problem.

Abetted or un-abetted then by a misguided ISI and `jihadists`, is Pakistan`s wave of terror punishment from Al Qaeda? Why not? But to stop at that is a gross over-simplification. Pakistan ignores more nuanced evaluations of its present distress at its own peril. What were the Taliban and what are they becoming?

Pre-9/11 the Taliban were the closest thing to law and order in Afghanistan. The draconian fundamentalist government was recognised by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Post-9/11 and the US-led liberation of Afghanistan from native oppression, the Taliban were deemed scotched. Afghans have always sought and found refuge in bordering Pakistan; and undeniably the Afghan Taliban have recouped enough to embarrass the world`s greatest military power.

Where does the funding come from? With Afghans one has to concede fighting expertise is genetic — but how are they being nurtured and sustained? How much is official Pakistan to be castigated for tribal hospitality and its mores?

We would come a long way if we collectively acknowledged some madressahs or welfare centres dotted through Pakistan have been consciously misused and funded to facilitate terrorist attacks on perceived enemies. Other madressahs and pedagogues at mosques, bent on safeguarding and propagating their approved norms, coincidentally promote militant intolerance of other conventions.But this phenomenon has to be juxtaposed with a confrontation seized upon by Gen Ziaul Haq, much before the USSR entered Afghanistan and the CIA baptised itself in the waters of jihad, between the democratic tradition and Islam — with ZA Bhutto and himself equally miscast as their respective champions.

Neither the secular nor the Islamic protagonist is innocent of power-lust. And cultural externalities, though indicative, are not unfailing indices of the degree of enlightened moderation in Islamic or democratic political convictions — particularly in a society as hypocritical as ours. This perspective should help us understand today why the secular ANP recommends Nizam-i-Adl in Swat. It should also help us understand why condemnation of it or equating it with capitulation to Talibanism may have ulterior motives.

The PNA movement against ZAB was first a protest against his electoral and democratic deviancies. It was rapidly compounded by urban bourgeois condemnation of the `key-club` lifestyle of the fashionable and politically favoured elite. Fixated on political victory the opponents could offer nothing more than mere demagoguery. Thus, Bhutto glibly declared Friday a holiday if the people wanted Islamisation he would give it to them. The PNA`s Mufti Mahmud`s held aloft the Quran for manifesto and constitution. Retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan had set the tone initially by saying he would like to hang Bhutto. Gen Zia seized upon the ambiance to construct the paradigm that people wanted fundamentalist Islamic government and that was his popular mandate.

Where Bhutto`s political vagaries had distorted perceptions and responses to social democracy, Zia`s politics distorted the perception of Islam. The damage caused by the assault on our religious psyche is the deeper offence, but we need to recognise both Bhutto and Zia sought to use the army for their own political purposes.

Today, for Pakistan`s civil society the struggle is for a clear distinction between the civil and the military factor in our governance. But for the executive arm of Pakistan`s government the approach to the military factor is much murkier. The same can be said about attitudes to the legislature and the judiciary. And right across the board, religion has become a deeply divisive factor emotionally, intellectually, and politically.

In some its practice evidences compulsive aspects abhorrent in Islam. Pakistan today is fighting fascisms that wear a civil democratic mask; that come in religious guise; and in the guise of the army as guarantor of national security.

Disruptive violence is a characteristic of all; and they can still intertwine in bewildering inconsistent alliances and antagonisms, vying for first place at the political high table to glut off the rotten fruits of corruption.

Deal-politics have gained an international dimension. Even reference to the UN is fractious in Pakistan`s national politics, whether about Benazir`s assassination or the incendiary killing of Baloch nationalists. Terrorism as Nato understands it is not Pakistan`s sole or most urgent priority — unless the West is using it as a pretext to pursue a concomitant regional agenda a little more complex than dealing with Al Qaeda-friendly Taliban aides.