By: Srijan Sharma

Pakistan’s intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) probably the only intelligence organization in the world that enjoys limitless power or degree in every branch of state machinery in Pakistan.  Pakistan is currently on the verge of crisis with civil war threats looming all around. In such a scenario where Pakistan’s civilian leadership has failed, the military is now coming in the prime focus to rescuing Pakistan and Amid all these, Pakistan’s Army and ISI have played their cards by arresting ISI’s former Chief Faiz Hameed in old property case.

The Arrest and Political Gambling of ISI

Downfall episode of ISI’s one-time powerful boss Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed (Retd) is testament to the fact that ISI and Pakistan Army are setting an example, or to be more appropriate consequences of short-circuiting Pakistan’s deep state plans especially in country’s political and economic domains. Like General Zia-ul-Haq is credited for rise of Nawaz Sharif, Faiz was credited for Imran Khan’s rise. Setting political rise of Pakistan politician is straight experiment from Pakistan’s ISI playbook to keep the market democracy in practice and controlling the government from behind the doors.  However, when these political puppets go in defiance, they suffer either assassination or political coup.

The similar story happened with Nawaz Sharif when Parvez Musharaf took over and Imran Khan paid the price for steering the foreign policy wheels against the wishes of Pakistan Army and ISI especially those clandestine networks with the West. ISI’s gamble with Pakistan politics paints unfortunate picture as the Army not only puts state in an instable position but it too faces the dangers of strong divide within the forces. 

The assassination of Zia-ul-Haq in a mysterious plane crash, which still is a disputed issue, shows that the Army’s strongholds can be weakened from the inside when the Army gets divided into two groups, according to one of the conspiracy theories. Similarly, the present Pakistan Army Chief faces the threat of being targeted from within. The arrest of the former ISI chief also demonstrates General Asim Munir’s advanced deterrence within the ranks. But by this time, Pakistan Army’s gambling habit had made a long-lasting impact within the ranks in fueling their power ambitions and fragile egos, which sets them in a position to sometimes question the omnipresent powers of the Chief of Army Staff and the ISI Chief. The cracks within the Pakistan deep state show the fears of them creating a more complicated struggle that will severely impact civil-military relations in Pakistan, stoking another wave of fears of political instabilities.

The Omnipresence of ISI

When we closely pay attention to the working of ISI, we will see that there is no other prime intelligence agency other than ISI in Pakistan. ISI is responsible for both external and internal security and hence getting a wide range of area to exercise its power both inside and outside the state which essentially gives rise to a  sense of centralization of power to one authority and once a state’s authority or agency start enjoying wide powers without any limiting hand over it then the chances of that agency or authority being omnipresent in the state affairs will increase and might try to override political leadership decisions and exercise considerable amount of influence for their benefits.

The same notion of omnipresence applies in Pakistan. ISI as an omnipresent agency in Pakistan is a classic one as since decades. ISI had a major role to play in Pakistan politics, a major chunk of politics in Pakistan was governed by military rulers and one such ruler Zia-Ul Haq had extensively contributed to strengthening the ISI’s grip on Pakistan’s politics by suppressing the Pakistan’s Peoples Party and Benazir Bhutto (former PM of Pakistan). Zia-ul-Haq made ISI his yardstick to fulfil his political interest to remain in power and neutralize those who sought power in Pakistan politics.

Political Color and Internal and External Posture of ISI

Gradually as politics in Pakistan progresses and being the yardstick of many leaders ISI transformed itself from an intelligence agency to a political machine gun which can be used by various leaderships to capture the power and defeat any uprisings or possibility of counter capturing of power in Pakistan politics. All this has politically coloured the agency and created an unwritten charter for ISI to interfere or operate in politics and state affairs in the name of internal security and install friendly regimes in Pakistan. On the other hand, ISI’s external posture is mostly India centric.  To establish ISI’s role in Pakistan politics more concretely we need to look upon one prominent incident in Pakistan in the 1990s.

Mehran Bank Scandal

The Mehran Bank Scandal exposed the abuse of public funds by the military and intelligence agencies to manipulate political change in the country. The bank proved to be a hub for ISI and foreign intelligence agencies and politicians collaborated illegally with each other against other elected leaders. The prime objective of ISI through the Mehran Bank was to destabilise the government that was hostile to them (ISI) and establish a friendly government to ISI or leaders who favoured ISI’s interests.

Why ISI became overpowerful or jurisdiction less?

State’s Perspective

When we talk about intelligence agencies becoming supreme or limitless or discuss the cause behind the transformation of the intelligence agency to a supreme state authority then somewhere in the loop the state itself is responsible for making it or its failure to cap the intelligence agency powers and absenting the “Power from above” concept or any governing authority/ Demarcations of duties which limits their power or limits them from going beyond their jurisdiction.  Why other intelligence agencies especially those of West enjoys limited authority in their respective states? The answer is straight: there is a limit to their power, and their duties are well defined. These intelligence agencies also enjoy creamy powers when it comes to tackling the threat and exercising their powers in the national security domain, but they always cautiously exercise power. 

Intelligence Agency’s Perspective

The rationale behind an intelligence agency become overpowerful or limitless from an agency’s perspective is to seek power/hunger of power or wherever the intelligence agency feels that civilian government are incompetent to hold power. This kind of feeling generates when the democratic structure of a country starts to fall. Even the intelligence hardliners in ISI do not support the concept of democracy much or the bureaucracy and security of a country loses its faith in their political leaders.

This is exactly the case with ISI as it feels that it is the competent power to rule the country or exercise its influence over political decisions because civilian leaders are incompetent to hold power and further ISI also believes in marginalizing other civilian authorities or intelligence agencies which could become powerful with patronage from an elected government. One more reason why ISI is sticking like glue with the internal politics of Pakistan is the absence of a genuine external threat to Pakistan. Pakistan’s false propaganda and its India centric threat perception make the general population of Pakistan believe that there is an actual existence of a threat from India but in reality, India has never exercised force unnecessary until unless provoked. But this real notion is always in denial from Pakistan’s side to nurture a false notion that shows genuine external threat to Pakistan.