Some of the missions involve extraordinary cooperation. For example, the former high-level intelligence official told me that an American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts. [In 2003, the IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency disclosed that Iran had been secretly receiving nuclear technology from Pakistan for more than a decade, and had withheld that information from inspectors.]

The American task force, aided by the information from Pakistan, has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations. The task force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices - known as sniffers - capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs. Getting such evidence is a pressing concern for the Bush administration. The former high-level intelligence official told me, "They don't want to make any WMD [weapons of mass destruction] intelligence mistakes, as in Iraq. The Republicans can't have two of those. There's no education in the second kick of a mule." The official added that the government of [General] Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, has won a high price for its cooperation - American assurance that Pakistan will not have to hand over A Q Khan, known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, to the IAEA or to any other international authorities for questioning.

For two decades, Khan has been linked to a vast consortium of nuclear-black-market activities. Last year, Musharraf professed to be shocked when Khan, in the face of overwhelming evidence, "confessed" to his activities. A few days later, Musharraf pardoned him, and so far he has refused to allow the IAEA or American intelligence to interview him. Khan is now said to be living under house arrest in a villa in Islamabad. "It's a deal - a trade-off," the former high-level intelligence official explained. "Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A Q Khan guys go." It's the neo-conservatives' version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the anti-terrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation. The agreement comes at a time when Musharraf, according to a former high-level Pakistani diplomat, has authorized the expansion of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons arsenal. "Pakistan still needs parts and supplies, and needs to buy them in the clandestine market," the former diplomat said. "The US has done nothing to stop it."

Effective covert action demands bases from which one could relay broadcasts and telecasts, disseminate printed propaganda, interact with dissident elements inside Iran without their having to travel to the West for this purpose, and train the surrogates in clandestine operations. The CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] was hoping to use Iraqi and Pakistani territory for this purpose. The deterioration in the internal security situation in Iraq has ruled out the use of its territory for the present. As a result, the importance of Pakistan has increased many fold in the CIA's perception. That is why the CIA strongly advised its government to tickle the ego of General Pervez Musharraf by receiving him in Camp David instead of in Washington and to shower him with the kind of honors no other Pakistani leader had received before - not even Zia ul-Haq during the Afghan war of the 1980s. Since his last bilateral visit to the US in February last year, Musharraf has already ordered his Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to covertly collaborate with the US intelligence agencies for the collection of intelligence about Iran.

It was unhappiness over this, which led to the resignation of Abdul Sattar, his foreign minister, ostensibly on health grounds. During the recent visit of Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq, director general of the ISI, to Washington, the subject of expanding this cooperation was reportedly further discussed. According to unconfirmed reports, James Woolsey, former director of the CIA under Clinton, who has been acting as adviser to the Iranian monarchist groups, had called on Haq. This subject is expected to be on the top of the agenda for Musharraf's talks with Bush. It is said that the CIA is interested in re-activating the Sunni Balochis in Iran against the Tehran regime and in shifting the MEK (Mujahideen-e-Khalq) dregs presently in Iraq to Pakistani Balochistan so that they could operate from there without causing embarrassment to the US occupation authority in Baghdad.

Pakistani sources claim that while Musharraf may be inclined to allow the relaying of clandestine broadcasts and telecasts from Pakistani territory, he is against re-activating the Iranian Balochis which could boomerang on Pakistan's Balochistan and shifting the MEK dregs to Balochistan. The Bush administration is expected to dangle before him the lollipop of another debt write-off and F-16 aircraft if he went the whole hog in becoming the US's covert frontline ally against Iran. The unhappiness over Musharraf's perceived willingness to collaborate with the USA against Iran is not confined to Pakistan's Foreign Office. Some army officers, such as General Mohammad Aziz, a fundamentalist Kashmiri officer belonging to the Sudan tribe of Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK),(since retired) have also reportedly expressed their misgivings during discussions at the GHQ. Aziz is presently chairman, Chiefs of Staff Committee.

They have also referred to the dangers of its causing alienation among the Shi'ites in the armed forces. The Pakistan Air Force, in particular, has a large number of Shi'ites at the lower and middle levels in the cadres of technicians. It is reported that he has reassured them by projecting that his present intelligence collaboration with the US was against the terrorists operating from Iranian territory and not against the Iranian regime. He has described it as part of the war against international terrorism by the international coalition under the UN Security Council Resolution No 1373. He has reportedly reiterated that he would not agree to any other cooperation, which may be directed against the clerical regime. But their concerns have not subsided. They have noted that since the recent visit of Ehsanul Haq to the US, Musharraf's enthusiasm for a gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan has decreased. Musharraf wants to go down in Pakistan's history as the leader who achieved Pakistan's objective in Jammu & Kashmir. If he calculates that by collaborating with the US to bring down the Tehran regime, he might achieve this objective, he may not hesitate to do so. New Delhi and Tehran should be prepared for surprises.