RETURN OF THE ISI: More bad news about Pakistan:

The U.S. State Department praised the Pakistani elections as “an important milestone in the ongoing transition to democracy.” One of the Bush administration’s ranking national security officials confided privately, “better to have the crazies in than out of government.”

But the reality is, that to call Pakistan an ally in the war against terrorism has become an oxymoron. Rehman and his cohort Sami ul-Haq were the tutors to most of Taliban’s top leadership. Two years ago, Omar and bin Laden delivered joint commencement addresses at the University for the Education of Truth — one of Pakistan’s principal Islamic seminaries or madrasas — in the township of Akora Khattak near the border city of Peshawar. Then, Pakistani and Afghan mujahedin or holy warriors came and went as they pleased across the porous frontier.

Now Taliban cadres are free again to come and go without fear of arrest. Because the Oct. 10 elections also gave control of the regional governments of two of Pakistan’s four provinces — Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan — to those who guard the friends of the prophet. The entire length of the Pak-Afghan frontier is now once again the dominion of anti-American religious extremists. . . .

Some 300 ISI officers who had been working with Taliban prior to 9/11 and were transferred to regular army units have now been returned to the intelligence agency. NWFP and Baluchistan are once again privileged sanctuaries for al Qaida — a clear and present danger for president Bush’s war on terror.

Hmm. I’m not as pessimistic as this analysis, yet, but it’s a reason to keep our relations with India close. In a worst-case scenario, it may take a U.S. / Indian effort to clean out Pakistan and Afghanistan. Though if Saudi Arabia is neutralized the rest will probably take care of itself, and if Saudi Arabia isn’t neutralized then successes elsewhere won’t matter. Saud Delenda Est!