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[Spearhead Research]

Spearhead Analysis—25.08.09


Present and Future Concerns


Not too long ago Pakistan was being given six months to implosion. Fears were being voiced about a Taliban onslaught on its capital Islamabad with grave consequences for its nukes. Some kind of social upheaval was being predicted by forces sympathetic to the Taliban. Pakistan was being called a failed state, or failing state or more kindly a ‘stressed state’. Not any more.

A determined military operation backed by political resolve, public and media support and coordinated with US/ISAF operations in Afghanistan has pushed the Taliban insurgents out of Swat, Mohmand and Bajaur---the northern part of FATA called Malakand. The Khyber has been secured and NATO logistics and Afghan trade flows without interruption. Further south the Bannu and DI Khan areas have been made safer and the noose is being tightened around the insurgent Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan. The insurgent leadership is either dead, dying, arrested or on the run with reports of in-fighting within the many groups. There is no talk of peace agreements---just the resolve to eliminate the threat that had challenged the writ of the state. A generally peaceful election has highlighted the centrality of Pakistan to the stability of Afghanistan and the strife that could result from a premature US/NATO pullout under their own domestic pressures.

The economy is showing the first signs of a possible recovery. There is no doubt that the reason is IMF recipes, record remittances from abroad and the support from the US. A ‘friends of Pakistan’ event is being held in Turkey and another is scheduled for New York late next month. Moody’s and Standard and Poor have moved Pakistan’s ratings up a notch. The President is in China specifically to invite Chinese investment into Pakistan. The US has pledged to help Pakistan with its energy and water problems. All this is happening without a long term strategic plan for recovery and stabilization. Such a plan if it should ever be made would include threat reduction, bilateral relations with neighbors, securing borders, internal security from extremists and criminals, response to social sector issues like health care, education, food and water security and above all it would stress capacity building for diplomacy, economic and financial reform, counter insurgency and governance. The plan could be for ten, twenty or thirty years but it has to be realistic with guarantees for continuity. Pakistan could then expect massive support from the world.

How are we responding to the changing environment? New political issues are being raised and each leads to attacks and counter attacks with revelations about past events to target each other and institutions that are trying to reform by breaking with the past. The urge for the limelight is helping the media enormously as it raises issues and creates controversies. Corruption –especially ongoing and impending corruption—is a hot topic and is forcing the government to respond. With no real shortage of food in the country Pakistanis are aghast at TV images of people clamoring for staples like flour and sugar---the result of price gouging and the manipulation of supply and demand. Existing tax payers and businesses are being harassed instead of being encouraged and new ones created. Those actually helping and supporting us are being vilified without considering the facts. Effective governance would make the government response proactive rather than reactive and target those who are undermining it.

There are perceptions that need to be addressed. The fears of an insidious US takeover through embassy and consulate expansion, infiltration of a ‘thousand US Marines’ and creation of bases within the country---all without the knowledge of the Foreign Office! The perception that India, aided and abetted by the US and Afghanistan, is engaged in the destabilization of Baluchistan and that the Pakistan military is fighting an insurgency tailored and designed to involve it in its western border areas inextricably. The fear, perhaps justified, that Pakistan is inexorably headed towards a bleak future because of a water shortage that could lead to serious food shortages and even famine. These perceptions and others exist and gain ground because of a lack of discernible urgency, an absence of centralized power and an obsession with issues that for the majority are non-issues given the insecurity and problems that dog their day to day existence. Unless these matters are forcefully tackled Pakistan will remain mired in controversies of its own making. Instead of battling the structures created at such enormous cost the effort should be to strengthen these structures and institutions for the future.

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[Junaid Raza]

It is always good to read positive opinions / articles on Pakistan. Hope is needed to continue our struggle as a nation and as individuals.

But it is equally important to realize that changes will be slow. Especially positive changes. With too many complications at many fronts, it is just not possible for Pakistan to recover from its ailment in the next few years.

Today as we have gotten over the shock that Asif Zardari is our president, Rehman Malik is our interior minister, so many other people that we had never in our wildest imagination thought would be running our country, I feel things settling down. It might not be how I wanted it to be, but at least things are not scattered.

I, like so many other Pakistanis, have accepted that we are a country at war, I have accepted that we have a major problem with energy and water infrastructure, I have accepted that we have a nerve wrecking population crisis and I have accepted that food crisis is already here.

At least I know where my country and I stand. I know the capabilities, integrity and sincerity of our national leadership. Hence I have lowered my hopes and expectations to a level where bare minimum existence may be my goal in life. But for many people in Pakistan, even bare minimum is a not affordable. Its shocking how we see poor, hungry and tired people standing in lines for wheat. How they fight to get hold of food to feed their families and themselves. Is this bare minimum or even less?

Today everything is out in the open thanks to the media channels. No leader can deny that he or she was not aware of something. Yet this has had no affect. Our leadership has turned a blind eye towards the miseries of the common people. I know that all of the problems cannot be rectified but the leadership can lower their luxurious life styles by few million dollars a month just to make the less fortunate common people at least think that their elected leaders are doing something.

But I still see some hope that our leadership will by some miracle do something for the country and its people. I still have hope that the traitors amongst us would be caught red handed and then we will start crawling towards the right direction. I don't think that I will see a prosperous and happy Pakistan, but I do hope that my children and grand children would live in a better Pakistan.