Obama's Reasonable Suspicion of Pakistan

Despite former president Pervez Musharraf’s pledge to comply with all seven demands, Pakistan did not break from the Taliban. Instead, Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment allowed the Taliban to regroup on the Pakistani side of the border. And given recent events, it is clear that American officials are concerned that some within the Pakistani government never really did help us “destroy Osama bin Laden.” Quite the opposite, they may have helped hide him.

Undoubtedly, the Pakistani government provided crucial assistance to the American government in the aftermath of 9/11. Woodward says that Powell viewed the Bush administration’s demands as “a pitcher’s brushback pitch to a particularly dangerous batter – high, fast and hard to the head.”

Some in the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment may have decided to crowd the plate regardless.

Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.