WASHINGTON POST: Pakistan has a split personality problem. Its citizens can rise up en masse on one day to depose a military dictator and reinstate honest judges, but the next day seem helpless to stop politicians from ceding strategic territory to enemies who publicly flog a 17-year old woman as a show of justice. Most American taxpayers, who are being asked to finance aid even as the country disintegrates, don't have the faintest idea how to decode what's really wrong there or where to begin to help. President Zardari could change that during his upcoming visit to Washington - but it would require his bold domestic leadership and a new direction for Pakistan and its relationship with the U.S.
Pakistan's central problem today is the systemic failure of its federal, provincial and local governments to provide for its citizens' basic needs, whether public safety, healthcare, education or employment. The Taliban is stepping in to fill that void. Hamas did the same in Palestinian enclaves throughout Israel when PLO leadership failed to offer disenfranchised Palestinians a structured way of life. You've heard it before: security is assured, albeit through intimidation and brutality. Basic daily staples like food and clothing come from Arab-financed hawala cash transfers. Education comes from Saudi-funded madrassa schools. Legal disputes are settled through harsh Islamic laws. Only geography makes the Pakistani case different from that of the Palestinians.
To make matters worse, America's visible role in Pakistan's internal affairs only helps the Taliban's cause. Pakistan's woefully inadequate leader, President Asif Ali Zardari, has been privately lectured and publicly admonished by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. Those lectures have made him look like an American stooge playing to the often conflicting ways in which Washington wants Islamabad to act.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials order more drone attacks on Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts, knowing their exhortations are falling on deaf (or worse, impotent) ears. Unannounced U.S. military actions make Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, army chief of staff, appear weak in his anti-terror campaign when in fact he is simply waiting for the civilian government to order him to take action. Unannounced drone attacks also raise serious questions about Pakistan's sovereignty. Innocent civilian life lost in each strike creates more Pakistani anger and frustration, almost all of which is galvanized by Pakistan's political opposition and unleashed on the cowering Zardari. He then runs to Washington for more aid to shore up defenses designed to attack his people even more savagely and indiscriminately.
This is not what American taxpayers signed up for. We need a different approach. >>> By Mansoor Ijaz | Thursday, April 30, 2009
