PARIS -- There have been reports recently in the American press concerning the probability that the government of Pakistan has traded nuclear secrets and maybe even technology with Iran. Such disclosures were welcomed by those of us here in France who consider ourselves part of the "anti-anti-American society" and who have long wondered why the United States doesn't seem more concerned with the character of its major ally in the war against terrorism.

As an observer of Pakistan for more than 30 years -- I first went to the region in 1971 as a war correspondent covering the conflict between India and Pakistan over Bangladesh -- I have seen the government become ever more degraded as it fell from the hands of the Bhuttos to military leaders such as Pervez Musharraf and then to the point where now -- as the Daniel Pearl affair showed -- it is doubtful that the executive branch of the country's government is fully in charge. Is it known in the West that President Musharraf himself had to cancel several trips to Karachi, the economic capital of his own country, for safety reasons?

My last few visits, including one on a diplomatic mission for France following the Afghan war and several more as part of my investigation into the death of journalist Daniel Pearl, brought this point home and gave me a full sense of who really runs things there. What has become obvious is the tremendous power of the ISI, Pakistan's secret service -- so dreaded by average citizens that they rarely speak its name but refer to it instead as the "three letters" -- and the deep infiltration of this powerful organization by militant fundamentalists and jihadists.[...]