ABSTRACT
ISI’s power over domestic and foreign policy peaked during the Musharraf and Zardari presidencies. Even as it was waging covert wars in neighboring countries, ISI was also rigging elections, intimidating and bribing politicians, illegally incarcerating and torturing dissidents, not to mention silencing critics – sometimes literally. As we have seen over the course of this study, numerous promises have been made by military and civilian leaders to dismantle ISI’s Internal Wing, yet these promises have never been kept. It is difficult to imagine an enduring, healthy democracy emerging in Pakistan’s future unless ISI and MI are either stripped of their domestic powers or, in the case of ISI, disbanded altogether.
