As details of the US-Pakistan deal on capturing Bin Laden emerge, the statement on unstinted cooperation by Pakistani dictator Musharraf sounds ever more hollow. In return for allowing use of air space to the US, Pakistan has demanded US intervention in Kashmir and exclusion of India and Israel from the forces that will hunt down Bin Laden.

Pakistani demands for exclusion of India and Israel have a clear motive: protection of Pakistan’s own anti-west terrorist network and its nuclear arsenal. Pakistani terrorism has resulted in 30,000 deaths and 350,000 homeless Hindus in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistani nuclear threats have deterred India from attacking Pakistani terrorist bases.

Israel itself has long feared Pakistani nuclear capability, and would like to thwart transfer of Pakistani nuclear technology to anti-Israel extremists. Such an event would hinder Israel’s fight against terrorism much as Indian hands have been tied in the last decade.

Pakistani demands for US intervention in Kashmir suggest a likely scenario once Bin Laden is captured and US anguish over September 11 has subsided. Unfettered Pakistani terrorists will escalate attacks in Kashmir, and Pakistan will demand Kashmir in return for its help to the US against Bin Laden.

Americans made a deal once before with Islamic militants to defeat the Soviet Empire; the result was a global terrorist explosion and loss of more than five thousand innocent lives in World Trade Center explosions. The new deal with Pakistan is a reward for its leading role in global terrorism, and yet another myopic case of the US sleeping with the enemy.