if the three as allah army america have long defined pakistan the wikileaks revelations may underline how much the us towers above the other two in the countrys affairs the leaked us diplomatic cables show the extent of american involvement in pakistani politics leaving its ruling elite redfaced pakistans political leaders are seen to have asked former us ambassador in islamabad anne patterson for advice for favours and for help with their pet hates so much so that even maulana fazlur rehman general secretary of the jamiat ulemaeislam and a bitter critic of us imperialism lobbied the american ambassador for help with becoming prime minister so is any of this any more than idle gossip yes says pakistani analyst shereen mazari the revelations have aggravated mistrust between the state and the nation she said to a pakistani tv channel and underlined a terrible truth for pakistan and the wider world american ambassadors in islamabad are no less than viceroys but stephen cohen authoritative american expert on the south asia region says none of this is new i discuss this in my book on pakistan published in 2004 before patterson went there and in fact every us ambassador that i talked to complained that they were being dragged into pakistani politics by politicians and even the military he said cohen may have a point the wikileaks disclosures may not be strictly new but they are a revelation to the wider world for instance the us ambassadors good offices were used last year to resolve the judicial crisis that threatened to destabilise pakistans fledgling civilian government led by president asif ali zardari thousands of lawyers supported by the main opposition parties had marched to islamabad seeking the return to office of chief justice iftikhar chaudhry then there was the cable that recorded the astonishing leak to the us embassy by pakistans former national security adviser mahmud durrani of intelligence agency isis private briefing to parliamentarians experts say wikileaks may have for the first time told many truths pakistans allpowerful army would have wanted to stay hidden army chief ashfaq parvez kayani is seen to have allowed us special forces to operate within pakistan and is also reported to have discussed with the americans zardaris resignation and a possible replacement frontier gandhis grandson asfandyar wali khan meanwhile zardari is revealed to have told ambassador patterson that he feared a coup and had made provision for his sister to be named president if he were assassinated that is the stuff of politics what of the ordinary pakistanis response to the leaked cables observers say the man on the street is outraged by revelations the pakistani leadership quietly acquiesced to the highly unpopular drone attacks prime minister yousaf raza gilani who tabled a parliamentary resolution condemning the attacks is quoted to have privately told the americans he doesnt really care and well protest in the national assembly and then ignore it kamran rehmat editor of the islamabad dateline daily says