There are friendly foreign governments. There are no friendly foreign Intelligence Agencies

The Pakistani ISI's intelligence establishment have been playing us for fools.

Of course they were leading us on.  Another old diplomatic saying explains: There are no permanent allies.  There are only permanent interests.  We don't have the same interests as the ISI.  They've inherited The Great Game.

The history of south Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century was the "Great Game" between the British Empire and Tsarist Russia.  Russia was expanding rapidly into the 'stans: Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.  The Widow of Windsor got Pakistan (then part of the Jewel in Her Crown).  A No Man's Land between these Empire was Afghanistan.

While the British tried to make a protectorate of Afghanistan, it came out badly.  Kipling wrote eloquently about the struggles and losses facing the Tommys in that Graveyard of Empires.

With the breakup of the Indian province into Pakistan and India proper in 1947, Pakistan inherited the Great Game of keeping Afghanistan as a protectorate and buffer state.  That has continued to this day.  This is Islamism in a minor key, playing accompaniment to Great Game empire building.

And so of course the ISI plays rope-a-dope with us.  They give up as little as possible, to get as much as possible in return.  I actually can't blame them, and if I were in their shoes, I'd likely play the same Game as they play.

And so it's unsurprising that bin Laden was holed up only a few hundred yards from a Pakistani Army base.  It's no wonder that they built a mansion for him, in a city filled with retired Army generals and a military academy feeding cadets into the ISI itself.  bin Laden almost certainly was there - and not in the lawless Northwestern Territories - so that they could keep him on ice until they could get enough for him.

The question is how much they got from us for him.

They're not our friends.  They're not our enemies, either.  They're a foreign Intelligence Agency, and so the rules are trust but verify.  Or as the NSA likes to say, in God we trust; all others we monitor.

The implications are that we cannot destroy the Taliban, without expending considerable blood and treasure in Pakistan.  They see the Taliban as kinda-sorta clients: they'll let us hurt them, but not destroy them.

But remember that Pakistan is a member of the Nuclear Club.  That's also annoying, but there's not a lot we can do about it.

As to me, I've been monitoring The Gormogons.  I expect high value intelligence analysis to appear there.

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