Some ally

PREVENTING AFGHANISTAN from falling to a resurgent Taliban must be a top priority for the Bush administration and the new Congress in the next two years. To succeed, more will have to be asked of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. .

Despite Pakistan’s claim to have stopped supporting the Taliban after its 2001 ouster, the evidence is now overwhelming that the Pakistani security service -- the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI -- and probably the senior military leadership are tolerating, if not backing, Taliban forces. Washington has been turning a blind eye to this problem, reluctantly concluding that there is no alternative but to support the flawed but friendly Musharraf as the only practical bulwark against a radical Islamist takeover of a crucial nuclear state.

Islamabad is clearly hedging against what it sees as a hostile, pro-India government in Kabul and an inevitable Western abandonment of Afghanistan by keeping its old Taliban ally as a viable option. The respected Jane’s Intelligence Digest last week cited independent reports confirming what Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been fuming about for months: ISI-sponsored Taliban training camps and jihadist madrasas have multiplied along the Afghan-Pakistani border. Moreover, we now know that the agreement the Pakistani government signed with tribal leaders in North Waziristan on Sept. 5 sold out Afghan and U.S. interests.

Musharraf told Washington that under the deal, tribal leaders promised to call a halt to the cross-border attacks into Afghanistan in return for the Pakistani army withdrawing from the tribal areas to its bases. Perhaps he didn’t expect his Western friends to read the agreement in the original Urdu. According to those who have, Islamabad’s official representative signed an agreement not just with Waziristan tribal leaders but with the “local mujahedin” -- a vague term -- and with the Taliban. The agreement spells the plural of the word “Taliban,” which means students, in the Arabic way, as “Talaba” -- a ruse that the Pakistanis are using to claim that they didn’t actually inhale.

In fact, if President Bush has any red lines left, he should be furious that Pakistan is legitimizing the very Taliban it has pledged to eradicate. It should come as no surprise, we should add, that the Taliban has not kept its part of the bargain. Attacks have multiplied since the deal was signed.

Musharraf tried to make amends by ordering airstrikes on one Taliban-run madrasa last week, triggering a bloodbath and angry protests against the United States. But it will take far more to persuade the American public and Congress of the wisdom of providing Pakistan with $3 billion in military and other aid each year while Pakistani territory, tribal or not, gives sanctuary to Taliban fighters who kill U.S. and NATO soldiers and destabilize the Afghan government.