Illusion of Democracy In Balochistan By Asghar Soomro: New Age Islam's Selection, 17 January 2018
New Age Islam Edit Bureau
17 January 2018
• Illusion Of Democracy In Balochistan
By Asghar Soomro
• Pity the Nation
By Muhammad Hamid Zaman
• Asking For a Favour
By Rafia Zakaria
• American Radical
By Mahir Ali
• If Wishes Were Horses
By Mirza Shahnawaz Agha
• Marriages of Conveniences Fail
By Mansoor Akbar Kundi
• Life after Bumpy Trumpy Tweet
By Iqbal Khan
Compiled By New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Illusion of Democracy in Balochistan
By Asghar Soomro
January 16, 2018
Following Abdul Quddus Bizenjo’s election as the third chief minister of Balochistan in four years, it would be useful to review his credentials largely in terms of popularity and acceptability. Before we congratulate him, we must see how many votes he bagged in the general election held in 2013? Out of a total of 57,656 registered votes in the constituency, Bizenjo secured just 544 votes, which is slightly above one per cent. Is it enough mandate?
In terms of democratic yardsticks, the legislator from Awaran district is perhaps not even eligible for a seat of a councillor, let alone MPA or the chief minister for that matter! Within days of his election as CM, Bizenjo joined the Pakistan Peoples Party. The reason behind the abysmally low turnout was owing to the boycott by separatist-minded Baloch nationalist parties in the area. Does his election represent the aspirations of the people who are disgruntled and disillusioned, and caught between democratic and non-democratic forces?
It is evident from the turnout in Awaran that nationalist groups wield considerable influence there. So, is it a prudent approach to ignore them and move on? Surely, one should have explored ways and means to bring them to the negotiating table? Egos shouldn’t come in the way when we attempt to resolve a sensitive and volatile issue.
The general election results in Awaran also raise serious questions about the effectiveness of the Election Commission. How can it declare a candidate successful on the basis of one percentage votes? Instead of accepting the poll results, the Election Commission should have declared it null and void because such a candidate cannot be a true representative of the area. The Election Commission must answer as to why it chose to remain silent and indifferent to the said poll results.
Though Balochistan is a troubled and complex province, our rulers tend to adopt the same approach yet naively expect a better outcome. Decades-long mishandling of the province has resulted in worsening of the situation and creation of new kind of problems. It seems that policymakers and those “forces” which decide the fate of the province behind the curtains still don’t realise the gravity of the situation as well as the shortcomings of their strategy. Bizenjo is arguably the weakest CM compared with his predecessors, Sardar Sanaullah Zehri and Dr Abdul Malik Baloch, in terms of votes and party position in the assembly. Despite allocating Rs34 billion for maintaining law and order, almost half of the social sector development budget, the provincial government has failed to address the issue and bring sustainable peace to Balochistan.
The first coalition government under Dr Abdul Malik Baloch left a trail of gloom and doom which was rife with corruption scandals, nepotism and conflicts with the bureaucracy, all these issues rendered him ineffective. The same farcical scenes were replayed when Sardar Sanaullah Zehri was in the saddle. As a result, the shadow of corruption and favoritism continued to dominate the political scene in Balochistan and major issues remained unresolved. Under Bizenjo, things are unlikely to change drastically. Keeping in view the weak civilian setup, it is not very difficult to predict what the newly elected CM will be able to deliver in the remaining few months.
One wonders what is then a sustainable and effective solution to Balochistan’s problems? The system of governance will not improve by installing weak and hand-picked leaders. The province needs a greater and genuine participation of public in the democratic process. At the moment Balochistan has the lowest turnout in the country — 40.48%. Moreover, if one excludes the percentage of rigging then it will further go down. It is high time for “the decision-makers” to revisit their strategy thoroughly vis-à-vis Balochistan. The province badly requires real leaders with a full mandate of the public, not hand-picked ones.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1609445/6-illusion-democracy-balochistan/
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Pity the Nation
By Muhammad Hamid Zaman
January 16, 2018
“Pity the nation that does not raise its voice save when it walks in a funeral,” said Khalil Gibran over a century ago. The prophetic words about a society like ours hold true as we mourn Zainab. Had Gibran been living amongst us today, he may have said to pity the nation where the murderers roam free and the rulers find the grieving parents blameworthy. He may have said, to pity the nation where rape is forgotten, for it is not a crime but a land dispute. Or he may have said to pity the nation where millions are spent on security, but a young girl is not secure. He may have said to pity the nation that finds the tools, but lacks the will to save a child. Or perhaps to pity the nation where the eagerness among folks is not about real issues, but about private lives of its famous.
The tragedy in Kasur is unbearable to imagine even for a second. The immediate response in any decent person is anger about how could this happen to this girl whose smile is angelic. It is also a desire to protect others, boys and girls, from the monsters lurking in the shadows. Yet, not once has the government in Punjab said that it won’t let this happen again. The response is impulsive and reactive, not proactive and determined. We have been told time and again how modern the police force is becoming, how new cameras, gadgets and apps, big data and machine learning is changing the face of the police, but none of that mattered in the case of Zainab and countless others we never get to hear about. It is because gadgets, data and cameras are no cures for a lack of empathy, incompetence and a missing desire to solve the core issues that make our children vulnerable.
Before we forget Zainab and bury her under news about whether someone would get married or not, or whether the food at Karachi Eat is worth waiting in line, let us ask in earnest not to only catch the perpetrators of this crime, but also how do we protect the Zainabs in every city, neighbourhood and street. The goal should not just be to solve a crime, but also to protect society from a future one.
This dark episode is also a time for reflection for who we are. Zainab’s tragedy reminded us that there are monsters living among our midst, but it also showed the deeply flawed, and morally bankrupt society that we live in and contribute to. It showed that our politicians are incapable of giving an honest, sincere statement that is kind without trying to score a political victory. It showed that the minister of law in Punjab lacks fundamental decency to acknowledge that there is more work to be done in protecting children. Instead, at this time of grief, pain and agony, he deflects the blame on the parents. It shows the complete lack of empathy by the reporters who thrust a mic in the face of the family shattered by unimaginable pain and ask them questions such as ‘please tell us some nice stories about Zainab’.
In the day after the story broke, Nadeem Farooq Paracha wrote on Twitter that “The condition of the society can be measured by the manner in which it behaves towards its children, women, minority groups and the kind of crimes it commits. I’ll leave it to you to decide the condition of the society we are all a part of.” I think we all know the answer to this. The real question is that do we want to do something to change it? Or are we at a point where one might say, to pity the nation that kills, maims and burns, but resists with all its might to change its ways.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1609428/6-pity-the-nation-2/
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Asking For a Favour
By Rafia Zakaria
January 17, 2018
IN a recent article for the New York Times, Adam Grant, a professor at the Wharton Business School (which recently beat Harvard for the top spot among US business schools), recounted a curious incident. After interviewing a top venture capital investor on stage, Grant announced to the audience that he would be taking questions for the guest. He also instructed the audience not to present pitches trying to interest the investor in the various business ventures the audience members might have. Despite this, the very first person who was handed the mic proceeded to do just that, trying to get a favour and get the investor interested in his venture.
In his essay, Grant used the example to open up a wider discussion on ‘networking’, the practice of getting to know people, however superficially, as a means of getting ahead. In Grant’s view, ‘knowing people’ is perhaps not as important as it is imagined to be.
Grant’s point requires particular discussion in Pakistan. Getting to know people for the purpose of asking favours has been a mainstay of the way things are done in the country. It follows that those interested in getting ahead, those with ambition, are eager to ‘make contacts’ and do the sort of mingling that will get them where they want. If Grant thought that the audience member at his event was somewhat aggressive, ignoring specific instructions not to push business ideas at the speaker, he would be appalled at some of the aggressive tactics at play in Pakistan, where even basic etiquette when it comes to asking for a favour is missing.
Knowing people’ is perhaps not as important as it is imagined to be.
When people who are important or even perceived as important attend public events, they are often mobbed by requests for favours. If they cannot be got a hold of in person and if their telephone numbers or emails are available on the internet, the line for ‘asking a favour’ is imagined open. Requests pour in for information, research materials, jobs, books and money. Underneath all of them seems to be the belief that the person who is asking for the favour has the right to be heard and really deserves to be. Considerations of propriety or tact and politeness or good behaviour are pushed to the side.
The truth is that annoying or harassing someone or demanding things from them is unlikely to allow an individual to get what he or she wants. Just like the man who got up and started to use the moment to get the investor interested in his business, or the person who asks for a CEO’s email in an elevator, or the individual who interrupts a conversation or a meal or a meeting, everyone seems to believe that simply being heard, pushing through and past others, is the key to success.
Undoubtedly, Pakistan is replete with examples of nepotism and the misuse of family connections to push sons and nieces ahead in life. Beyond that factor, which has remained a constant over many decades, increased urbanisation and growth has meant that the business environment is opening up. All businesses, even the nepotistic family-owned establishments full of uncles and cousins, do in the end require people who actually know how to do the job, not simply those who are there because of a favour. This last point bears repeating (and was substantiated by Grant in his own essay).
Networking, one’s skill in asking for favours, getting access, the email or phone number or time of an important person, can only get one so far. Ultimately, it is the skill of actually doing a great job that determines progress and success.
For all those people who are starting their careers, for students, interns and assistants, a few basic facts require repeating. First off (and it is sad that this has to be said, but it does), it pays to be nice. People would be surprised to see how many professors get letters demanding access to research, definitions, books, articles, etc. Many, if not most, do not bother to connect the request with the professor’s work; they simply demand this or that. It seems bizarre, but it is a habit, the ‘asking for a favour’ habit, without any consideration of the time or effort that is being demanded.
Second, actual mentors are valuable; they should be cherished and cultivated. The one or two people who actually know the individual and his or her work are far more valuable than the 50 one meets for a second at a conference or at a wedding or at a lunch. If there is someone whose guidance one wishes to have, honesty and sincerity is required when approaching them; equally important is knowing their work and knowing how it connects to one’s own, and acknowledging as much. The best known and the busiest people are not often the best candidates for mentors; the best are those who show a genuine interest in one’s future.
Pakistan has long subsisted on asking for and expecting favours. The familiar, tribal and feudal origin of Pakistani society has meant that this exchange of favours has oiled social and work relations for a terribly long time. It is, however, 2018; the social media, urbanisation, and demographic change have all exerted their transformative effects. The asking of favours in the age of now has little to do with old networks and requires some revamping, a re-infusion of the basic etiquette of sincerity, politeness, humility and consideration that seems to have been lost.
So go ahead, ask for a favour; but before you do that, the circumstances, not just your own but also those of the person whose assistance is needed, must be considered.
Source: dawn.com/news/1383362/asking-for-a-favour
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American Radical
By Mahir Ali
January 17, 2018
IN a year peppered with the 50th anniversaries of events that shaped, or distorted, late 20th-century history — from revolutionary upsurges in various parts of the world to tragic assassinations and key moments in the Vietnam War — let us begin with a relatively innocuous event.
On Jan 20, 1968, an audience consisting largely of folk music aficionados packed New York’s Carnegie Hall for a memorial concert commemorating Woody Guthrie, who had died three months earlier at the age of 55, after having been diagnosed more than a decade earlier with the inherited degenerative disease Huntington’s chorea.
The concert had, in fact, been planned before Guthrie died, as a fundraiser for his wife Marjorie’s campaign for research into Huntington’s, which had not only killed Guthrie’s mother but also afflicted most of the children he had with his first wife, Mary. Inevitably, it acquired a new dimension after Woody died.
A key component of that dimension was the eagerness of Bob Dylan — who had not been seen in public for 19 months, following a motorcycle accident that prompted a rethink about his trajectory — to make an appearance. Dylan has described his youthful self as a “Woody Guthrie jukebox”, and homemade recordings dating back to before he found fame in New York’s Greenwich Village bear out that claim. They stretch even to rarely heard rhymed warnings against venereal disease that Guthrie recorded for the government health department in the 1940s.
Dylan’s original songs from the early 1960s also owe a considerable debt to Guthrie, and one of the two Dylan-penned tracks on his debut long-player was ‘Song to Woody’. He was among the generation of singers and songwriters whom Guthrie’s close friend and travelling companion Pete Seeger dubbed “Woody’s children”. The best known among them turned up at the Carnegie Hall concert, or at the companion commemoration at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles two years later, with one notable exception.
Dylan’s original songs owe a considerable debt to Guthrie.
It is believed that behind-the-scenes politicking by Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman was behind the exclusion of Phil Ochs, who was justifiably miffed at being left out at the expense of those he considered less worthy claimants to the Guthrie mantle. A more or less complete recording of both concerts, issued in a lavish package late last year by the German record label Bear Family, includes recent interviews with many of the participants, as well as a blast from the past: Ochs’s bitter, no-holds-barred critique of the machinations that kept him off that hallowed stage.
Although much venerated within the folk sphere, Guthrie was relatively little known at the time among the American public at large, notwithstanding the widespread familiarity with a bowdlerised version of ‘This Land is Your Land’, generally leaving out the verses that decry the concept of private property and hunger among the dispossessed. To his credit, Seeger left nothing out when, at the age of 89, he performed the song along Bruce Springsteen on the eve of Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration nine years ago.
Guthrie was far more prolific as a songwriter than as a recording artist, and in the past couple of decades many of his previously unsung lyrics have been put to music and recorded by a variety of performers, notably Billy Bragg and Wilco, offering new insights into a complex personality that nonetheless thrived on what Seeger dubbed “the genius of simplicity”. A couple of years ago, the British academic and Guthrie scholar Will Kaufman chanced upon a couple of diatribes Woody had directed against “old man Trump” — not the president but his father, in whose properties he had the misfortune of being a tenant for a couple of years in the early 1950s.
Guthrie rails against the “racial hate” Fred Trump “stirred up … when he drawed up that colour line here at his Eighteen hundred family project” by excluding black families. He also reworked ‘I Ain’t Got No Home’ (which was among the songs Dylan performed at Carnegie Hall 50 years ago) into a damning critique of Trump’s Beach Haven project, “where no black ones come to roam”.
The segregationist attitude persisted under Fred’s son Donald, and serves as a telling background to the more recent accusations of racism against the president. Intriguingly, like Trump’s dad, Guthrie’s father was also suspected of being with the Ku Klux Klan. But, unlike Donald, Woody shook off his racist inheritance as a young man and not long afterwards emerged as a key 20th-century component of an American radical tradition that has survived countless attempts to bury it.
Back at the height of the McCarthyist Red Scare, a still occasionally articulate Guthrie described his new home, a facility for mental patients, as the last bastion of freedom in the land. Where else in America, he jocularly wondered, could you jump up and down while yelling “I am a communist!” without being carted off to jail?
Source: dawn.com/news/1383364/american-radical
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If Wishes Were Horses
By Mirza Shahnawaz Agha
January 15, 2018
WE seem to fear everything that is cliché. Things like ‘democracy’, the ‘use of the reserve currency’ of the world, ‘the ability of our people’ to perform if not out-reform the world. This is the shamelessness we find in the stagnating leadership emerging out of the Executive, the Judiciary and the Arm Forces etal. The shamelessness of defending a status quo by refusing to swim out of the alien parameters that arrest our growth, independence and the exercise of free will. Let the waves carry us on a non-charted course instead of a rudder that will keep us on course. The 200 million plus people are victims of this rudderless ship in the hands of skippers who are ignorant and therefore either asleep or indifferent.
The country needs a socioeconomic destination, a road map and an iron fist that will keep the ship on course, fiercely dispelling the killer waves that seek to destroy what was created to be indestructible. The size of the population cannot be annihilated and cannot be broken down to yield to alien and foreign designs just because we fear change. The answer my friend is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the winds. The winds of change. The winds that nail you to your ideology. The ideology that remains ignored. There are 12 basic changes that are required by the people from the eschalon of this country’s leadership to consider; These are: 1.The definition of this Nation State based upon the ideology it was first created on. This should be san dissent as any contrary political dissent will only mean the retention of the current failed status quo.
2. The fiscal empowerment of the people by fiscal decentralization where ‘social security’ must support the feeble old and infirm of society and the rest are employed by conscription to bring the unemployment down to zero; 3. Land must come under Federal Control for title and rights and all in the population must pay for its usage to support the cost of governmental expense and development. The principal manager of territory should be the Surveyor General and the management should be spread over 36 provinces with land divided in five macro divisions: urban or municipal companies, agricultural companies, mining companies, industrial companies and tourism companies. All listed and all quoted on stock exchanges local and foreign. Land allotment has to be regulated based upon utilization and in denial of absentee landlordism;
4. The Urban or Municipal Companies must become the basic political constituency supporting ‘direct democracy’ and restricted to a maximum population, each of sixty thousand people. Direct democracy will contain all factors of the abuse of law by any segment of society and will kill all reasons for militancy, terrorism and other evils in society; 5. The pillars of the state need to be defined such that the Executive, the Armed Forces and the Judiciary must be the basic arms of the government with a President in succession from the Judiciary to be the Head of State, holding a veto above all actions and inactions of the three pillars of the State. A healthy government is based on consensus development. 6. Reversion to our ideology is a fundamental defense mechanism for a Nation State through which it establishes the parameters of legislation within and in tandem establishes a quid pro quo with the rest of the world. The bedrock of change must be justified by the ‘reversion to our ideology’ and must so be announced legitimizing the actions necessary to invoke the initiative;
7.The Defense and Foreign Policy of this Nation State must stem from our ideology yet again. While the Foreign Policy must be based on Equality and Reciprocity, the Defense Policy must be based on the indigenous development of a defense system that deters aggression and promotes peace. The out-reach of the policy needs to cover all in the population of the state within and externally must warrant protective support to all of the Islamic faith for life and property both, against aggression; 8. The clear divide of ‘Friends of the ideology’ needs to be universally established so that isolation becomes impossible to support this change. Preferred economic treatment is at the root of this objective which should be announced and documented;
9.The ideology is subject to a evolutionary process in time and therefore the ultimate hub of knowledge the Quran should be taken as our Constitution and the State should be run by statutes that are to be all re-enacted based on the law making philosophy that is in consonance with our ideology. The laws we have are all made on a colonial philosophy and these must be shed forthwith as they enslave our population in the hands of government and or governing functionaries; 10.In the same stride the Armed Forces Act must have a fresh color to it of a greater out-reach. They need to develop their own defense tools and mechanism and must be able to cover the globe and space out of four command centers: East, West, North and South. They need in addition a regime to address the entire population for compulsive conscription for training and skills development;
11. A new ‘social contract’ that mingles the people with government across the board is imperative. The actions and inactions of the government should be subject to audit by the Private Sector and vice versa. Whilst the government must carry the absolute responsibility of welfare of the population their inability to delivery should be under constant scrutiny. 12.The Bureaucracy that operates as a protected class in society based on the colonial pattern of governance must forthwith be back integrated into Civil Society. In this state of political turmoil and the lack of direction we the people of Pakistan have suffered for seven decades and the change from decadence is nowhere in sight. It is time the leadership wakes up to reality and in disregard of any legal constraints change the structure of the state to a truly democratic, progressive and legally governed destination on the Planet.
Source: pakobserver.net/if-wishes-were-horses-2/
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Marriages Of Conveniences Fail
By Mansoor Akbar Kundi
January 15, 2018
POLITICS is a game in which ultimate goal for a player is to gain power, maximise it or exert influence. In the game of power struggle the situation can become volatile and friends turn into enemies. The situation in Balochistan which developed in the direction of No-Confidence Vote against the incumbent Chief Minister, Nawab Sanaullah Zehri proves and supports the fact that politics is a unpredictable game and remains under conspiracies even under representative systems. Nawab Sanaullah Zehri stepped into Chief Minister office in August 2016 after the two and half year tenure of Malik Baloch of National Party expired under the Murree Agreement in July 2013. Murree Agreement was a power sharing formula to share the five year office tenure equally between Baloch and Zehri. Malik Baloch was the first Chief Minister of Balochistan since it was raised to a province status in 1970 who was not a Sardar. He got a chance to be a CM under the situation where in the wake of disputes between two Sardars, Changiz Khan Marri and Sanaullah Zehri over the CM slot, a middle decision was made by the PML-N. He was supported by all the nationalists in Assembly including Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP).
To better understand the present situation it is imperative to understand the politically and ethnically divided background of the province. Politics in Balochistan has been volatile largely due to the fact that it never experienced a coalition free government. Even in the heyday of National Awami Party (NAP) in 1970 elections it failed to form a coalition free government. Attaullah Mengal, the first CM of Balochistan held a coalition government with the support of its ideological rival: Jamiat Ullema-i-Islam (JUI) and few independents too. The then 21-member Provincial Assembly had four independent members. The Ministry was dissolved under the Interim Constitution of Pakistan 1972 thus it remained in power from 1 May 1972 to 15 February 1973.
The independent candidates whose major support comes rather on their social, tribal and personal basis than party affiliation play an influential role inside and outside the Assembly. Balochistan is the only province which experienced an independent candidate as Chief Minister. They are largely independent of party discipline and political morality at times when a unity is needed. The general elections in 2013 as usually resulted in a hung house where nine political parties appeared in the overall 65 member Assembly. They were Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) with 21 seats, PMAP 14, National Party 11, JUI-F 8, Balochistan National Party (BNM) 2, PML-Quaid-e-Azam 5; and Milli Watan Movement (MWM), Balochistan National Party Awami and Awami National Party (ANP) with one seat each. There was one independent candidate.
The political setup in the wake of general elections resulted in the marriages of conveniences for major national and ethnic political parties. It was a political as well as power sharing bonanza for PMAP and National Party. Things went against the common belief that PML-N would form the government. The PML-N could form the government as they enjoyed a sizeable number of seats, but they failed to do so largely because of two reasons: First, they did not have majority of seats to form a coalition free government and had to depend on both Pakthoon and Baloch nationalists. The leaders elected on party platform did not have gross roots popularity, but were bigwigs of society whose support came on social and personal bases and not party’s. Second, Nawaz Sharif as party leader and in person believed in support of Baloch and Pakhtoon nationalists with its party label in power. The Pakhtoon nationalists represented in large by PMAP have enjoyed the perks and privileges they never had before. Mahmood Khan Achakzai being a king maker and de facto adviser to Nawaz Sharif on Balochistan matters saw his brother and family members as provincial minister, advisors, and on very important public positions. His elder brother, Mohammad Khan Achakzai since 2013 is continuing in office despite his frail and weak elderly role as a Chancellor and Governor. Keeping in view the geo-strategic situation of Balochistan under the national and international scenario it was highly advisable for PML-N government to have replaced him with a strong dynamic man, but it was not. He failed to garner support for Zehri as promised in the present situation.
Three factors are largely accountable for the situation. First, inept and non-participant role of Nawab Sanaullah in settling the grievances of his coalition partners. He unlike his predecessor was blamed not listening to them. Their grievances largely involved lack of funds from provincial government to be spent in the respective constituencies. Nawab was known for his parsimonious attitude for funds allocation to cabinet men who also enjoyed tribal stature. Nawab was also under pressure by the cabinet members not to stop growing involvement of federal agencies and law enforcement authorities in Balochistan affairs. Second, the Federal PML-N government showed least interests in playing a mediatory role in settling differences amongst the annoyed members in government. By choice or circumstances the PML-N government did not heed to the situation in Balochistan and assumed all OK. The situation aggravated after the crisis at centre resulting in disqualification of Nawaz Sharif. Third, the situation developed over the civil-military estranged relationship in which Balochistan situation can be an easy target for future deterioration of civil government at centre. In my analysis, the conspiracy theory can be ruled out in the present situation of Balochistan.
Source: pakobserver.net/marriages-conveniences-fail/
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Life after Bumpy Trumpy Tweet
By Iqbal Khan
January 15, 2018
ERRATIC presidential tweet and follow-up statements from America were interpreted by Pakistani public as another betrayal. While President Trump may have largely forgotten the text of his New Year Pakistan bashing tweet, the bureaucratic echelons of both the countries are finding ways and means of evolving a face-saving environ for both sides, especially Trump. Pakistan’s response was measured, no fireworks at official-level and readiness to cooperate with international counter terrorism effort was quite disarming. Americans were quick to pick the threads, first soother from American side was that the aid has been suspended and not terminated and that it would be restored as and when preconditions are met by Pakistan.
A high level American delegation quietly slipped into and out of Islamabad, out of the media glare, for negotiations on hammering a mutually acceptable way forward. Now, there is a clear-cut statement from American side ruling out direct military intervention in Pakistan. So, much of the spirit of tweet stands defanged. Notwithstanding, all is not well. Trump administration has moved towards a strategy of “compellence” towards Pakistan, it may achieve some objectives while at the sometime unleash some unintended consequences. However, there is no likelihood that bilateral relationship could slip beyond the point of no return.
Up to $2 billion of the US equipment and funding is at stake. However, with US aid declining significantly in recent years, Pakistani economy improving and Beijing just a phone call away, the negative effects would be “marginal” in the short to medium term. Hence, means of pressure at American disposal are limited. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, aid increased substantially, approaching $3-4 billion annually at its peak in 2010. From then on, it has been declining very sharply. Last year, it was around $750 million. However, Pakistan is not likely to take the issue of blockage of CSF disbursements lightly. Factors impeding peace in Afghanistan are numerous. Whatever the American perceptions, it is an oversimplification to attribute failure of international counterterrorism effort in Afghanistan to one or two insurgent groups. It calls for a comprehensive reappraisal by Americans, neighbours of Afghanistan and Afghan govt itself. Most of the intra-Afghanistan indicators present abysmal matrix. And, disenchanted with futility of America counterterrorism effort, all neighbours of Afghanistan are taking measures to safeguard their respective interests; some of these steps are tangential with end objective of Afghan peace. Singling out Pakistan for all that has happened or may happen in Pakistan is not a fair deal. Taliban now control over 43 per cent of Afghanistan’s districts, including most of the outer perimeter of the country; hence they do not need sanctuaries in Pakistan. Non-combatant civilian casualties due coalition aerial bombing are on the rise, thus boosting anti-American sentiment in effected areas. Afghan Defence Forces are demoralized as they are dying in droves and are no match to Taliban’s’ tactical acumen.
Moreover, the US State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Steven Goldstein said on January 09 that US stands ready to work with Pakistan in combating all terrorists without distinction. He said the US hopes “to be able to renew and deepen our bilateral security relationship when Pakistan demonstrates its willingness to aggressively confront the Taliban network, the Haqqani Network, and other terrorist and military groups that operate from its territory”. He added that the US would like Pakistan to come to the table and assist in efforts to stabilize Afghanistan. In the meanwhile, David Hale, the US envoy to Pakistan has sent back the message that Pakistan will continue supporting counter-terrorism efforts. “The Pakistani people have suffered greatly from terrorism, and its security forces have been effective in combating the groups that target Pakistan’s interests. So, it’s to their benefit to join with us in helping resolve this matter. America is hopeful that Pakistan will come back to the table and do “what they told us that they would do.”
In another hedging effort senior Pakistani civil, military and intelligence officials on January 10 briefed foreign envoys posted in Islamabad about the country’s achievements in the fight against terrorism. Except India, all ambassadors and heads of missions stationed in Islamabad were invited. Representatives from the US embassy were also in attendance. Briefing provided details about the success of Operation Zarb-e-Azb and Radd-ul-Fassad which had eliminated terrorist presence in Pakistan. They were also briefed about the terrorist threat emanating from safe havens and sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Details were also provided on how Indian belligerence and unhelpful posturing is distracting Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts and how an active RAW/NDS nexus is verifiably working to undermine Pakistan’s internal stability.
Bilateral meeting indicates that Pakistan and US are inclined to repair the damaged relations. So far, all indicators point that Pakistan will be able to manage the tweet generated crisis in a prudent way. In the broader perspective, American self-appraisal coupled with its cooperation with regional states may arrest its downslide in Afghanistan. And for this, America has to get out of the habit of scapegoating others for its failures. However, with a typical “ugly American” leading the American nation, such a preposition is unlikely to evolve. Probably a stalemate would prevail until Trump presidency is over.
Source: pakobserver.net/life-bumpy-trumpy-tweet/
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