ISI chief ranks 17th in Time’s 100 most influential people

Pasha is described as a Pakistani patriot and American partner.

This year’s TIME 100 includes artists and activists,reformers and researchers,heads of state and captains of industry.

Within weeks of Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha’s becoming head of Pakistan’s top intelligence agency,ISI,in 2008,terrorist attacks in Mumbai seriously roiled already stressed US-Pakistani relations, former CIA director Michael Hayden wrote in Time.

Pasha,59,has grown progressively more suspicious of the US motives and staying power. The arrest of a US government contractor in Lahore has led to acrimony. And larger changes in Pakistanthe growth of fundamentalism,nationalism and anti-Americanismhave squeezed the space in which any ISI chief can cooperate with the US. Pasha,a Pakistani patriot and American partner,now must find these two roles even more difficult to reconcileand at a time when much of US counter-terrorism success depends on exactly that, he added.

Egypts youth leader Wael Ghonim tops the TIME 100 list,in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds the 8th position,US Vice President Joe Biden is at number 14,US First Lady Michelle Obama at 22,French President Nicolas Sarkozy at 32,British Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton at 40 and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at 43.

The list also includes Saif al-Islam Gaddafi,son of Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi,at number 47,Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni at 52 and Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani at 61. Indian Right to Information (RTI) activist Aruna Roy and Wipro head Azim Premji have also made it to the list.