AFTER three decades of turmoil, violence and killings, Afghanistan is still at war. A powerful foreign occupation force continues to hold in place a local collaborationist dispensation with few roots and even less demonstrable competence. Democratic development has replaced despotic Islamic rule which earlier replaced a socialist paradigm as the slop of the day dished out for public consumption.

The Islamic warriors who blunted and frustrated the armies of the ‘Evil Empire’ are now the ‘evil doers’. The other great enemies of the ‘Evil Empire’, namely the United States and its allies, once the benefactors of today’s terrorists have replaced the Soviets as the occupying force.

As guns and drugs boom, the writ of what is generously called the Afghan government is practically non-existent outside Kabul. Warlords, mafias and insurgents control 80 per cent of the territory and feed off the presence of the occupation forces. The reality is that a failing occupation is trying to prop up a failed state.

The Obama administration’s new surge-and-exit strategy reflects the exasperation of the western alliance as it struggles to balance the politically feasible with the militarily necessary. At least as far the exit part of the strategy is concerned the US and its allies are condemned to succeed. When it comes to leaving behind a stable, legitimate and semi-functional Afghan state, the alliance is almost certain to fail.

The new strategy is in part driven by domestic compulsions as Obama struggles to rein in US militarism and adjust overseas commitments to political will and economic capacity. The surge is designed to show that Obama is tough and determined. The exit part is meant to placate a war weary public in time for the 2012 elections. Of course, at a declaratory level senior members of the administration, including the secretary of defence Robert Gates, are putting a brave face on the situation and assuring their allies and Karzai that the United States is in it to win.

These assurances are hollow. The fact is that the United States is leaving Afghanistan. Starting in July 2011 the drawdown will begin. For Karzai and his regime the final countdown has now begun and the American exit amounts to a death sentence. All the Taliban have to do is wait another 18 months, lie low and melt into the local population while stockpiling arms, ammunition and funds siphoned off from drugs and Nato contractors in preparation for the re-conquest of their country.

There is no evidence that the Karzai regime, which is now handicapped by a newfound illegitimacy following the fraudulent August 20 elections in addition to its longstanding incompetence, has the ability to rise to the occasion or the will to at least try and set things in order.

If anything, the Karzai regime’s position is analogous to that of the South Vietnamese regime of President Thieu in 1972. Afghanistan’s narco-warlord elite now has an even greater incentive to loot as much as they can before the protective shield of the American and allied militaries evaporates and the Taliban onslaught begins again. Depending on the amount of damage the United States can inflict over the next few months a decent interval between imperial withdrawal and neocolonial collapse may yet be secured. It is unlikely though that the regime left behind will be able to profit sufficiently from a prospective breather.

At one level, Musharraf’s strategy of hedging Pakistan’s bets in Afghanistan seems to have been based on a fairly realistic appraisal of what was politically and militarily possible for the western alliance. For Pakistan there can be no exit strategy from the Afghan quagmire. The double policy to the extent it could be sustained meant that no matter who won in Afghanistan Pakistan could claim to have helped the winning side. Now that the Americans have served notice that they will start vacating in 18 months Pakistan has every incentive to accelerate its campaign against those militants working against itself while leaving the Afghan Taliban alone. There are a number of post-American scenarios that Pakistan is now compelled to contemplate.

The first and most alarmist scenario is that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan will lead to a fundamental realignment of the regional political and societal equilibrium with Afghanistan and Pakistan going down like dominoes before a reenergized Taliban/Islamist/Jihadist push. This scenario is premised on the notion that it is the United States that has through military and economic exertions been containing a radical avalanche. Once that exertion ceases nature will take its course and fundamentalists and extremists throughout the Muslim world will be heartened by this victory and intensify their struggle for power.

The second scenario signals a return to the 1990s when Afghanistan’s neighbours were fuelling its internal conflicts. Russia, India and Iran would presumably support the Northern Alliance and Karzai. Pakistan may well be induced by residual US pressure to maintain a policy of malevolent neutrality and thus contribute covertly to Taliban resurgence. In this scenario attrition on all sides is likely to be high and Pakistan’s own extremists may well redirect their energies towards helping the Taliban seize control of Kabul and defeat the Northern Alliance. This could well relieve pressure on Pakistan though its rulers may not possess the political will or the administrative capacity to benefit strategically from such a reprieve.

The third scenario is that all the regional and Nato powers are able to work out a negotiated settlement although such attempts in the past have failed miserably. As long as the Afghans are determined to kill each other, there is not much that regional powers can do in diplomatic terms to stop them. Then, Pakistan-India disagreements over Afghanistan constitute a major obstacle. Any serious attempt at negotiating a power-sharing arrangement between the Taliban and the North Alliance is highly improbable to succeed.

The fourth scenario is that the US withdraws ground troops but keeps its drones, air force and special operations in play. Such a strategy would mean aligning with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban and containing the latter through air power, limited ground engagements and missile strikes. Thus, the US would almost completely ‘Afghanise’ the conflict and become a permanent party to a long running civil war. The effectiveness of such a strategy is open to question but it would allow the American leadership to defend itself against the charge that it had abandoned Afghanistan. It may also substantially delay the liquidation of the Karzai regime and the defeat of the Northern Alliance warlords.

The fifth scenario is that the US disengagement from Afghanistan and Iraq by 2011-12 will remove the rationale for extremist militancy and enable local powers to deal more pragmatically with such elements. This scenario is based on the premise that it is the West’s own imperialism that is primarily responsible for facilitating the spread of radical Islam which can then project itself as a successful resistance movement. Once the onslaught ceases the logic of resistance will be rendered inoperative. This is perhaps the most optimistic of all the scenarios.

Of course, all five of these scenarios are at this stage mere speculation. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive and a lot can happen in three years though it seems unlikely that there are any good options left to exercise. One can only hope that those in authority are seriously thinking about the post-American post-occupation regional configuration with particular reference to Afghanistan with the aim of at least trying to arrive at a workable and inclusive solution in accordance with enlightened self-interest. Or, Pakistan and other regional powers can wait until the Americans leave and once again plunge into the strategic depths of Afghanistan. In either case a war that began in 1979 and is now in its thirtieth year may well still be raging in 2039.

THE event was regarded extraordinary for an officially ‘secular’ Turkey that had turned its back on the Ottoman Caliphate, 86 years ago in 1923.

It happened three months ago, when the body of the man who could have been the ‘Sultan of Ottoman Turkey’ had the Sultanate or Caliphate, as it was universally known, survived Mustafa Kemal’s seminal revolution. Ertugral Osman was heir-apparent to the last Caliph of Ottoman Turkey, Sultan Abdul Mejid. But he was banished from his native land along with all other surviving progeny of the Sultans when Ataturk abolished the institution of Caliphate. Ertugral couldn’t have been more than 12 at that time. He died in September at the ripe old age of 97, in Manhattan, where he had lived all his adult life in obscurity and virtual anonymity.

It was, indeed, extraordinary for Turkey to have allowed the dead body of an Ottoman prince to return to his native soil for burial; no other Ottoman prominent had been given that honour in more than eight decades. The Turks had never been as cold-hearted and bloody-minded as the Russian Bolsheviks who not only abolished the centuries-old monarchy but also murdered, in cold blood, every member, old and young, of the Romanovs that they could lay their hands on. The Turks, in contrast, had allowed the royal progeny to leave the country and carry whatever they could take along, besides memories.

However, more extraordinary and news-worthy event was that Ertugral Osman was given a burial befitting royalty in Istanbul. His funeral prayers were performed at Istanbul’s most elegant mosque, the world-famous Blue Mosque of Sultan Ahmed, and attended by thousands of people, including politicians and prominent public figures from all walks of life in Turkey.

But a more extraordinary and amazing development, closely related to the event of three months ago is that the New York Times reported its details, in a front-page story, only on December 6. The timing of breaking the story was calibrated to deliver the maximum punch to its contents; it was splashed on the eve of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyeb Rajab Erdogan’s visit to the White House for a meeting with President Obama.

The thrust of the Times’ story was that the Turks were frustrated with the Europeans—who have been keeping them hopelessly at bay in as far as the question of Turkey’s membership of the European Union is concerned. As a fall-out of their frustration and dejection with Europe, the Times’ story argued, the Turks were turning inward to Islam.

It’s obvious that the newspaper’s intent in giving front-page prominence to a three-month old, and stale by journalistic yard-stick, couldn’t be other than raising the alarm—and putting Obama on notice—that secular Turkey was also relapsing into Islamic revival, something that the West’s Islamophobia has made anathema.

That sounded eerily in concert with the Islamophobia sweeping across Europe, from the Urals to the Alps. The latest, robust and strident, surfacing of the Europe’s Islamophobic iceberg in the picture-perfect and idyllic Switzerland occurred only days before the Times’ story making the headlines.

The Swiss, bankers to the world, don’t mind at all those billions of dollars of Arab and Islamic money hoarded and stashed away in their bank lockers. But their patience and tolerance with Arabs and Muslims in general starts wearing thin the moment they see minarets of mosques dotting their sky-line. Church steeples are kosher but mosque minarets aren’t.

The hype of the New York Times, or any other mouth-piece of the establishment in the west, can be explained by the megalomania afflicting the western minds, vis-à-vis anything remotely Islamic. Turkey, of all the Muslim countries in the world, had been treated, relatively, with a softer brush compared to the broad brush of extremism used with impunity to tar the rest of the Muslim world.

But the moment the Turks show any expression of anger or frustration, because of the insults continually heaped on them by a Christian-conscious Brussels mafia bent on keeping EU a purely Christian club, they are ridiculed for turning inward to their religious roots. EU has opened its arms with warmth for wretched countries like Romania and Bulgaria—rotting satellites of the defunct Soviet Union—but has kept Turkey firmly tied into myriad knots at the EU portals.

Turkey isn’t re-discovering its Muslim roots as some Islamophobes in the West might reckon. Turks never cut themselves off their Islamic moorings. It was wrong of Lord Kinross, Ataturk’s celebrated biographer, to conclude that after the proclamation of secularism, by Ataturk, as Turkey’s new creed, the Islamic ideology of the Turks had gone ‘underground.’

Those, like this scribe, who have lived and travelled in Turkey, know it for a fact how deep-rooted is the Islamic ethos of the Turks, and these were never forsaken under the Kemalist onslaught. They are as good Muslims as any of their co-religionists anywhere in the world, if not better. The veneer of modernity and western culture that a casual visitor sees in Istanbul or Ankara could be highly misleading, especially to western journalists visiting any Muslim land with pre-conceived notions about it.

The most defining feature of Muslim Turks is their moderation, with absolutely no tinge of extremism of any kind about it. Extremism of a kind was with Kemal Ataturk who tried to swing the pendulum violently with the intent of uprooting a thousand years of Turkish Islamic civilisation in his blind pursuit of shoddy western culture. But he failed to impress more than a tiny minority of the Turks around his platform, while the vast majority of them remained firmly tethered to their pristine Muslim and Central Asian roots.

It’s a different matter, though, that power was monopolised by this tiny minority, including the powerful military that perpetuated itself into the centrum of authority in the name of securing and guarding the nebulous aura of Kemalism. Turkey’s majority Islamists were shunned and deliberately kept away from having any part of state power and authority.

But that started to change twenty or so years ago when a moderate and modern Islamist like Nejmeddin Erbakan rose to prominence on a platform of Islamo-centric political movement committed to wresting back political power for the majority Turks. Erbakan became Turkey’s first Islamist PM by defeating the pseudo-secularists at their own game. Although ultimately hounded out of office by a power-hungry military brass that felt beleaguered under Islamist rule, Erbakan succeeded in passing the baton to able lieutenants, like Prime Minister Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, who personify moderate Islamist power of present-day Turkey.

The ruling Justic and Development Party (AKP) of Erdogan and Gul is the most convincing argument against the western critique that Islamic thought can’t be harnessed to fuel a modern society and launch it on a progressive course. Under these moderate Islamists, Turkey has kept developing into an economic power house that’s far ahead on modernisation, and far more dynamic, than all those piddling former Soviet satellites whom EU has embraced without demur or question.

Turkey’s moderate Islamists have not only cut the arrogant military brass to size and kept it firmly on a leash but have also harnessed a moral authority that has had the courage to say no to George W. Bush, and spurn the offer of 30 billion dollars in assistance, for the use of its land to invade Iraq. Of all the Muslim leaders, Erdogan alone had the gumption to publicly rebuke Israel’s bumbling President Shimon Peres at Davos, last year, as comeuppance for Israel’s barbaric invasion of Gaza.

More than any other Muslim polity, it’s Pakistan that should have all the incentive in the world to learn from the Turkish example. In Pakistan, we are struggling to keep the centre of political power from the hands of extremists who don’t mind, at all, spilling blood on the flimsy slogan of religion.

Erdogan and Gul, and their colleagues, have shown with eminent success that there’s nothing missing of Islam’s guiding philosophy in the way they are fashioning a modern state that is, at one and the same time, also well-entrenched in the basic call of secular ideas. They are disproving the western phobia that secularism can’t flourish without cutting a society completely from its religious moorings. That’s the kind of blending that Pakistan’s ailing society so badly, and urgently, needs in order to stave off its tryst with self-destruction and hara-kiri.

IN Pakistan, education has never received the due attention it deserved from past governments and the state of legal education has been more disappointing. The quality of law graduates being produced is not up to the mark.

To begin with, the majority has no proper knowledge of English, the legal language. This restricts their ability to understand and apply the myriad concepts, laws, and judgments — available only in English. The teachers, at these universities and their affiliated law colleges, also don’t bother to motivate the students to overcome this deficiency.

Also, instead of encouraging the students to make their own analyses, explore new ideas, and engage in discussions, the teachers, generally, stress on rote learning and only appreciate the narration of memorised rules and facts. Similarly, rather than introducing the students to a combination of theory, policy and law, in order to train them in legal thinking and expressing themselves in a legal way, the teachers usually discourage them to go beyond the outdated text books. Well, this is what these teachers themselves learnt when they were students; this is all they know.

Teaching at a public university is neither very prestigious, nor financially rewarding. There are often no incentives even if one is doing some outstanding work. Consequently, most people who join the profession do so after having failed to establish themselves elsewhere. Lawyers who teach on visit-basis at these universities are mostly interested in just making money, they don’t do it because they are interested in academic pursuits. Thus, one rarely comes across a talented teacher.

Private universities offering their own law degree courses and there are institutes which provide tutoring for foreign law programmes. The standard of teaching is usually much better than that at public universities. However, there are certain shortcomings. There is a growing preference for teachers with foreign law degrees, both basic and advanced. Whereas foreign exposure enables one to acquire new ideas and latest skills, ignorance of Pakistani laws is a major drawback. Knowledge of foreign laws is always desirable, but it can’t be a substitute for Pakistani laws.

When asked about a certain legal issue by the students, I have often seen such teachers answering in terms of American or English laws instead of Pakistani laws. The UK qualified Pakistani lawyers argue that the Pakistani legal system is based on the system that was prevalent in British India. So it is. However, it doesn’t mean that ours is the same as the present-day English legal system. There are so many differences.

In short, preference must be given to the teachers having advanced law degrees from the United States, the United Kingdom and other developed countries but also possessing basic law degrees of Pakistan. These are the people who are aware of the weaknesses of the local system and can remove these defects by utilising the knowledge and expertise gained abroad.

Over the last five years, the concept of five year B.A/LL.B. programme has gained significant popularity in Pakistan. Inspired by Indian law schools – though B.A/LL.B is offered in certain other countries as well – it is considered to be the answer to all our problems by an increasing number of public and private universities. The programme has its advantages, but there are better options available. Why not run our existing LL.B. programmes like the J.D. programmes run by Harvard and Yale? If we have to follow someone else, why not follow the best?

The biggest flaw in the B.A/LL.B. programme is the lack of diversity. After Intermediate or A-Levels, the students just get set on a track. On the other hand, at Harvard and Yale, J.D. candidates with a background of creative writing, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, engineering, environmental studies, business, investment banking, etc., make a profound contribution to various academic and co-curricular activities, ultimately enriching the experience of everyone around. Those are extremely vibrant and versatile intellectual communities.

One can pursue LL.B. under University of London’s External System as well. It is definitely more prestigious than the LL.B. offered by our public universities. However, as students are never taught Pakistani laws, it is a very impractical choice in order to prepare for a career in Pakistan. As mentioned above, there are differences between Pakistani and English laws. Such graduates are unprepared to successfully navigate through the Pakistani civil and criminal procedures. Consequently, they have to study the local laws from scratch after they graduate.

Certain private universities too are offering tuition courses for the University of London’s LL.B degree. The fact that a university has set up a “tuition centre” reflects a lot about its academic capabilities. Imagine, what kind of a university it would be if it offers tuition for another university’s degree instead of running its own programme?

So, what’s the solution? Well, why don’t we just modernise and strengthen the three year LL.B. degree on the same lines as, let’s say, in Harvard? Of course, it will not be an easy task. However, with a serious and determined effort, it can be accomplished. And once the basic standards are achieved, we can always innovate.

In the mean time, in terms of curriculum, while focusing on local laws, we need to familiarise the students with the trends and developments in other legal systems. A comparative approach broadens one’s perspective and equips one to handle issues in the best available manner or devise a better way.

Regarding faculty, real academics and people with academic potential must be encouraged to join legal academia by offering them better remuneration and congenial environment. Research and publications must be promoted. At the moment, there is no law review/journal of national standing in the country.

Most importantly, the selection criteria for law school entry must be made strict. At present, law is among those programmes that are very easy to get in. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask the applicants to take something like LSAT.

Our law schools should be able to produce lawyers that make competent academics, public servants, policy-makers, legislators, judges and advocates — the lawyers that not only have the confidence to compete with their western counterparts, but who also demonstrate the same professionalism and abilities. For this, both the Higher Education Commission and the Pakistan Bar Council must take coordinated measures and start immediately.

THE report entitled Himalayan Glaciers released by India’s minister of state for environment & forests Jairam Ramesh says that there is no conclusive evidence to prove that Himalayan glaciers are melting due to climate change. Not taking any responsibility for the study, Jairam Ramesh is quick to add that it is meant to “stimulate discussions”.

I don’t understand the purpose of stimulating another discussion when the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already accepted that glaciers are fast melting. Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we learn subsequently that the paper was formally released to build up a case for river-linking. After all, billions of dollars are at stake and the lobby is still at work. Nevertheless, the simple reason why there is no “conclusive evidence” to show that the Himalayan glaciers are melting is because India, China and Pakistan had repeatedly turned down requests from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for an exhaustive study of the Himalayan glaciers.

The Indian government, which treats glacier studies only for defence purposes, did not see any major threat from the melting of glaciers and the formation of the newly created lakes. Perhaps India is waiting for another disaster to strike before it acknowledges the threat. There is a Himalayan disaster in waiting. This is based on a detailed report prepared by ICIMOD sometimes back.

It happened on Aug 4, 1985. Dig Tsho glacial lake, situated close to the Mt Everest region at a height of 4,365 metres above sea level, suddenly burst. Within the next four hours, estimates show that nearly 8 million cubic metres of water had drained from the lake. The torrent moved forward rather slowly down-valley as a huge ‘black’ mass of water full of debris. The surge waters from what is called as ‘Glacial Lake Outburst Floods’ (GLOF), completely destroyed whatever came its way.

Within the next few hours, the GLOF had completely destroyed civil structures of Namche (Thame) Small Hydel Project (estimated cost of $1.5 million), swept 14 bridges, long stretches of roads, trails, cultivated land and took a heavy toll of human and animal life.

Dig Tsho glacial lake was not the only of its kind in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain range that passes through Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bhutan. With the glaciers retreating in the face of accelerating global warming, the resulting melting of snow forms glacial lakes downstream. While the total number of glaciers in the region is still unknown, ICIMOD had for the first time documented 3,252 glaciers in Nepal spread over 5,324 square kilometres. More significantly, the number of glacial lakes has been computed at 2,323. Most of these, it is believed, have formed in the past 50 years or so.

ICIMOD had identified 20 glacial lakes to be potentially dangerous, including 17 that do not have any prior outburst history. These lakes are situated in very remote and higher reaches but the catastrophe that they cause can be devastating for the local communities and the country’s economy. Take the case of Tsho Rolpha glacial lake. Situated in the Rolwaling Valley in Dolakha district, the lake is only 110 kms by a crow’s flight from the Capital city of Kathmandu. With the lake volume rising every year, the area increasing from 0.23 sq kms in 1959 to 1.55 sq kms in 1990, and the subsequent weakening of the damming moraines that hold the water, researchers term it as ‘potentially dangerous’.

Not only in the Himalayas, glaciers are receding at a fast pace the world over. East Africa’s Mount Kilmanjaro is expected not to have any snow cap by the year 2015, its snow cover having shrunk at an alarming 82 per cent between 1912 and 2000. The alpine glaciers have reduced by 40 per cent in area and more than 50 per cent in volume since 1850. Since 1963, the Peruvian glaciers have retreated at the rate of over 155 metres a year. The Himalayan glaciers, however, are considered to be extremely sensitive to climate change as these accumulate snow during monsoon and shed it in summers. Other high-altitude glaciers on the other hand accumulate snow during winters and cast it off in summers.

The UNEP estimates that the bursting of glacial lakes is likely to become a major problem globally, especially in South America, India and China. But unfortunately, both India and China have used glaciers only for defence purposes. Much of the snow bound areas in both the countries is under the control of the armed forces and forms the ‘inner line of control’. No scientific access or public activity is allowed in these politically and strategically sensitive areas of high altitude.

While the world continues to debate over the dangerous implications of climate change on the glaciers, the Government of Nepal, in collaboration with the Netherlands-Nepal friendship Association, has made a series of attempts to implement an early warning system, and at the same time launch efforts to mitigate the dangers of an outburst. Among the strategies adopted is to reduce the water level in the lake by three metres by way of a GLOF risk reduction system.

Knowing that it is still not safe, the lake water is planned to be further lowered by another 17 metres under the second phase. This in itself is a remarkable initiative and needs to be replicated in the other countries faced with the fast receding but little understood phenomenon of the vanishing snow caps.

Three of the 20 potentially dangerous lakes (Nagma, Tam Pokhari and Dig Tsho) have past
outburst records. There are six other lakes with similar experience but pose no danger.

AFTER eight years of bloody conflict in Afghanistan, President Obama announced the new 'Afpak' strategy on December 2 at West Point Military Academy. With 68,000 US and 35,000 European troops already deployed in Afghanistan, he announced the surge of another 30,000 American troops during 2010.

This would bring the total of US forces to 98,000 and that of Nato forces to 45,000. The second important decision is the fixation of three years deadline for the withdrawal of troops from that war-ravaged country. The indications are that the US and allied troops would begin coming back in 2011.

This seems to closely follow the pattern in Iraq: the infamous ‘surge’ and its follow-up. But every war is different, fought under different political and geographical conditions.

It remains to be seen what the US aims to accomplish in three years which it failed to accomplish in eight years. In 2010 the total allied forces would number 143,000 and there would be an expenditure of $30 billion annually for US troops alone.

The troops would be supported by private contractors working for the US army in Afghanistan numbering 104,101 as in September 2009.

The percentage of the Defence Department's workforce in Afghanistan accounted for by contractors will be 57 per cent. The estimated cost of Defence Department contracts in Afghanistan awarded to Texas-based Fluor and Virginia's DynCorp, which like Xe [Blackwater] are very big mercenary organisations, is $7.5 billion.

So the total manpower available to the US in Afghanistan will be 247,101 overt and covert fighters and not 143,000 that the world at large believes.

A careful study of the opinion published in the US media recently of both civil and military personalities and the official statements of the US government can help in visualising the course of events in Afghanistan in the near future.

The Pentagon's prescription for the situation in Afghanistan calls for implementation of counter-insurgency strategy with greater resources and determination. Some of the measures this strategy entails have been partly or wholly implemented.

Briefly, the various steps are: First, the setting up of a viable central authority in Kabul and organisation of the Afghan army and police force capable of fighting the enemy, thus shifting the burden from the US and allied forces.

Second, the military operations will adopt the strategy of ‘Clear and Hold’ i.e. the US forces will follow the conventional pattern of attacking and occupying given targets. It is not known which particular areas are to be chosen for this first.

Third, following the pattern of Vietnam and Iraq, a ‘Pacification’ programme will be launched, which means the assassination of targeted Taliban leaders on the basis of information received and with the use of special teams as well as drones, etc.

Fourth, following the pattern in Iraq, there will be generous distribution of US largesse to buy loyalties and ruthless exploitation of tribal, ethnic, religious contradictions to isolate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements.

The announcement of troop withdrawal also has a strategic aspect — it will act as a sedative for the people of Afghanistan on the one hand and facilitate a change of loyalties by any erstwhile combatants if so inclined, on the other.

Henry Kissinger, the pundit of US foreign policy, has along with other helpful recipes brought forth a very significant proposal. Noting the fortuitous geographical contiguity of Afghanistan with Pakistan, India, Russia, China and Iran, he proposes that these countries should be mobilised to join the conflict.

One can easily understand the drift of his proposal and it bodes no good for Pakistan. In the event of failing, the second part of the proposal is for the US to reconsider its options and "gear its role in Afghanistan to goals directly relevant to threats to American security."

Although Kissinger expresses abhorrence at the idea of sharing power with the Taliban in a coalition government in Afghanistan, at least one section of the US establishment is doing the spadework for this. The deal will be: "good Taliban" dissociate themselves from and exterminate Al Qaeda elements, thus earning their just rewards.

In America, public opinion is sharply divided. Reports say that 55 per cent of the public is against the continuation of the war in Afghanistan, only 35 per cent people support the continuation of the war.

There are stirrings of mass protest similar to those seen during the Vietnam and Iraq wars. This trend, if it gains momentum, is bound to affect the course of the war in Afghanistan.

In the American media, there is another debate called the “what if” debate in which it is being claimed that it is the Vietnam war which is being re-fought in Afghanistan under new specifications to prove that victory in Vietnam was possible if only the political leadership of America had not lost its nerve.

Whatever the outcome of such debates, this much is certain that the outcome of the war in Afghanistan is going to be determined by the masses — in America as well as in Afghanistan.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, it would be wise to borrow Mr Kissinger's dictum and "gear its role in Afghanistan to goals directly relevant to threats to Pakistani security." Under no circumstances will it be in the national interest to be involved in a war outside Pakistan's borders.

NOT a day passes when India is not exhorted by our leadership to resume peace dialogue stalled by it over Pakistani’s alleged involvement in Mumbai tragedy. The passionate appeals by our leaders are beyond comprehension.

The composite dialogue, which commenced in January 2004 held detailed negotiating rounds, alternating between Islamabad and Delhi at various levels — political and technical, rounded up at summit level.

None however, made any advance on any of the six issues plaguing bilateral relations. If any thing, the respective positions on the contentious issues became more rigid and inflexible.

Pakistan’s stance on resumption of dialogue to promote peace and normalcy is in stark contradiction with the ground realities. There has always been a huge trust deficit between the two neighbours.

Since Mumbai tragedy these suspicions of each other’s actions and intentions have further widened the gap. Both are engaged in a blame game, each accusing the other of hostile acts and supporting terrorist activities in their country.

Pakistan Foreign Office has blamed India of “preparing for a limited war” against it and asked international community to take notice of New Delhi’s “long term intentions”, citing Indian army chief General Deepik Kapoor’s remarks that “a limited war under a nuclear overhang is still very much a reality in the subcontinent.”

Interior Minister Rehman Malik has repeatedly accused India of acts of sabotage and terror. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has charged India with “visceral animosity” towards Pakistan.

On its part India has not lagged behind. There have been a barrage of warnings to Pakistan by Indian leadership of “dire consequences” should it continue to pursue and promote acts of terrorism in India.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his visits last week to Washington and Moscow publicly urged both powers to influence Pakistan to give up its policy. In Washington, he repeatedly referred to Pakistan as a “sanctuary and safe haven of terrorists”.

He spoke of “the onset of terrorism inspired and instigated by our neighbour” and appealed to international community to convince Pakistan “that the strategy using terror as an instrument of state policy is counter productive”.

The above narration fully establishes that the current atmosphere between New Delhi and Islamabad is most inhospitable and no meaningful discussion can be expected if the talks were resumed. It would be an exercise in futility.

The centrepiece of bilateral dialogue is and has been Kashmir. A number of rounds of talks have been held during last 60 years and all proved sterile. India is just not interested in any solution; its objective being to manage the conflict and not resolve it. Indians are merely buying time to pursue their own agenda and pre-determined policy.

I suggest that we must review our policy towards Kashmir and look for new paradigm. Pakistan should focus on the human rights situation in IHK and rally support against Indian massive violation of human rights in IHK.

The recent disclosure about mass graves in Indian held Kashmir provides incontrovertible evidence of Indian atrocities and barbaric treatment by their security forces. International media has recently reported that during the past 18 months, mass graves have been discovered containing 2,400 nameless corpses.

The AP report by Tim Sullivan has documented horrific details of brutal military crackdown. Tim stated that “the last two decades of violence have left 68,000 dead. The graveyards have deeply shaken Kashmiris, digging up the memories of the estimated 8,000 people who disappeared at the height of resistance”.

“The graves have also become constraints reminder that while violence is down, it is far from over. Bodies have been buried as recently as the past few months”. There has been no letup in the Indian atrocities. During last week alone Indian security forces responding to the protesters seeking “freedom” from India have been fired upon injuring 30 Kashmiris.

This report coming from western source needs to be highlighted to seek support of Human Rights NGOs. The continued oppression in IHK by India must not be allowed to go unnoticed.

It is significant that on the occasion of Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington, Amnesty International addressed a letter to President Obama urging him to raise the issue with Prime Minister Singh of mass human rights violations in IHK. The letter, inter alia, stated “the Indian security forces commit mass human rights abuses with impunity.

The abuses are facilitated by the armed forces (Special Power Acts of 1958 and other similar laws). The civilian population of Kashmir has paid a high price for the conflict. Thousands have disappeared over the years”.

Larry Cox, Director, Amnesty International, in his letter asked President Obama to address these concerns with the visiting prime minister. “While you are honouring him with this state visit Amnesty International urges you not to forget the plight of women, men and children who are facing numerous human rights abuses in India and to make public statements emphasising that the human rights are central to US-Indian relations”.

It is intriguing that neither of these documents has been used by Pakistan to expose India’s true face and its commitment to democracy and peace. Equally sad is the fact that Pakistan has ignored the recent spate of protest and demonstrations in IHK against Indian troop presence and the resulting crackdown against hapless Kashmiri civilians. It appears that Mushraff’s appeasement policy is still continuing despite change of regime.

If it is held that in the present circumstances Pakistan cannot hold a pro-active policy on Kashmir it logically follows that the dialogue with India also would not produce any positive result.

For Pakistan the honourable course would be to stand by its principled position and keep the international community fully aware of the factual position. To sensitise international community on Indian repression in IHK and massive violation of human rights would be a prudent and effective strategy.

THE Supreme Court judgment on the legal status of National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) has been welcomed by all well-wishers of Pakistan. Of course, Zardari government has decided to take a defensive position which was expected. Also, some questions have been raised about the position taken by the court with a view to promoting further examination of the issue.

What kind of road map lies ahead for the NRO ruling? It is an important question, because the main consideration should be how to make this ruling effective in its purpose and its goal. Obviously, this kind of judgment will have to work its way through its checks and balances, so that justice is not only done but seems to be done.

We need to remind ourselves, first, that the NRO was a grossly discriminatory ordinance. It had, for example, focussed on some who deserved blanket amnesty as against the others. Benazir Bhutto and her associates were the main beneficiaries of this action, also known as Musharraf-Bhutto pact. It is important to note that Ms Bhutto was one of the main architects of this agreement.

In this sense, this agreement could be called a Sindh-oriented special dispensation. Now with the Supreme Court ruling, it seems curious and disingenuous that the Sindh card is being brought up, where no such cry was heard from non-Sindhis when the original amnesty was enforced. It is, therefore, strange that the demand to treat all NRO as well as non-NRO cases is being made when the focus of the judgment is on the legal status of NRO.

In any case, it would be a mistake to suggest that corruption was confined mainly to one group or the other. The judgment is only about a subset of the malaise of corruption prevailing in the country. A question has been raised about why focus on Mr Zardari and his senior associates, and not others who are known to have acquired unlawful gains. A simple answer is that the issue concerns NRO, not general question of corruption and in this regard Mr Zardari must get into spotlight. He is president of Pakistan and officially represents what the country stands for, not Mr Nawaz Sharif or some political leader.

Benazir Bhutto seems to have been aware of the discriminatory nature of the amnesty. And she seems to have understood that in order to make it sustainable, it would have to receive support from a wider political constituency than the PPP. Her effort to reach out to Mr Nawaz Sharif for rapprochement, leading up to the draft document of Charter of Democracy was all part of her effort to make the amnesty credible for the people.

Mr Asif Ali Zardari who became the accidental beneficiary of NRO has used a different approach, fiercely partisan, surrounded by trusted family members and cronies. Making and unmaking agreements and understandings with Mr Nawaz Sharif, for example, was all part of shifting politics. To hold on to the Musharraf legacy of special powers was very important for him. He combined the office of the president with that of the chairperson of his party and has used the official residence as party headquarters. The alliances he built produced one of the largest cabinets in any transitional democracy, with lot of perks and privileges but no legislative plans. Urgent matters have been dealt with on an ad hoc basis, such as the place of Balochistan in the confederation, or the steps to cope with profligacy at the top, initiated by the ministry of finance. These are straws in the wind, but are not confidence-building measures. Effective governance is nonexistent.

This unbalanced picture of the regime is a part, and an important part, of the strong favourable reaction of the people to the Supreme Court judgment. There is no balancing factor to allow the citizens to use benefit of the doubt in favour of the regime. While the party faithful have gathered around Mr Zardari the political leaders of the country have maintained a studied silence

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court judgment has received a mixed reaction from some independent observers. It has been suggested, for example, that the fine lines of the judgment seem to go beyond maintaining dichotomy between the executive and the judiciary, referring to the provision for monitoring the NAB cases. Some legal and constitutional experts seem to hold that this would be no interference in the functioning of the executive branch of the state. There is a point raised by some critics, however, which needs our attention: the use of section 62(f): for parliamentarians to be ‘Sagacious, righteous…and ameen’, (legacy of Ziaul Haq’s Islamic order).

This underlines an important question about this odd criterion invoked by the Supreme Court: which constitution is currently in force in Pakistan? The Ziaul Haq constitution? Musharraf constitution? Or, the 1973 constitution? At the time of oath-taking ceremony of the PPP-led government last year, this question was raised and did not receive a clear answer. After Mr Zardari became president, it is safe to assume that Musharraf constitution has been the official guiding document for Pakistan. But then confusion is part of the ‘art’ of governance of Mr Zardari.

The judgment cannot uproot corruption from Pakistan, because its scope is necessarily narrow and confined to the issue of NRO. But it can reinforce the process of accountability by way of its overall impact. In the past, this process has been hampered by political interferences and weaknesses of judicial framework. And many who have been charged with corruption have been able to claim that the cases filed against them were ‘politically-motivated’. They should welcome the opportunity to prove their innocence.

There are many impediments that the process will be faced with. The decision of the government to allow the ministers affected by the Supreme Court decision to carry on with their duties while pursuing their cases in the court will have far-reaching effects. When the implementation of law and order is the responsibility of Zardari government, for example, can a prosecutor as a servant of the government get a free hand to execute his duties?

Following further with this consideration, the focus turns to Mr Zardari himself. The controversies abound in relation to the judgment. Does he enjoy immunity as president? The opinions are divided on this question. Should he stop reopening of the corruption cases against him in Swiss courts or elsewhere abroad with his presidential prerogative, as he has been advised to do? It is a legal and a moral issue. Then, should he resign or should he complete his term of office? He has already declared that he would face bullet of the enemy than withdraw from the office — a statement reminiscent of a previous head of the state. In any case, there are only two democratic methods to call for mid-term elections, either the Zardari government should resign or he should be impeached by the parliament.

His ascendancy to the office of president should have invoked larger considerations about the position. None of the leaders of the political parties raised any objection about his suitability for the office. There was an image of the man, a consistent reputation that should have aroused some discomfort somewhere. Also, the credentials in terms of the experience for appointment to the office were an open question.

It was not a matter of a witch-hunt; only of democratic responsibility because the office with amendments to the constitution introduced by General Musharraf had been vested with extraordinary powers. The original 1973 constitution had provided for a college of electors consisting of members of national and provincial legislatures to elect the president who was to be a ceremonial head of the state, a symbol of unity of the nation.

The distortions introduced by General Musharraf made it an anomalous constitution, because in democracies where strong presidents are elected, they carry a direct mandate from the voting citizens. The ad nauseam assertion about mandate from two-thirds majority for Mr Zardari through the indirect election is not equivalent to the people’s mandate to exercise powers such as in the 17th Amendment. As a representative of the civilian government, his first duty was then to get rid of the Musharraf legacy in the constitution.

JUST adjacent to one of Lahore’s bustling markets is an enclosed garden which hosts a colourful, static bus full of books. This is the Alif Laila Book Bus Library stationed right in the centre of a noisy metropolis offering an escape into wonderland for children of all ages. From Aesop’s fables, Tales from Arabian Nights, Alice in Wonderland, Adventures of Umar Aiyar, Mulla Nasruddin’s misadventures and, more recently, the popular Harry Potter series, the Alif Laila Bus carries them all.

Inside, the bus has been carpeted and an air conditioner put in to facilitate little children to browse through books and their colourful illustrations if time is limited. What a wonderful effort for children to inculcate reading habits and introduce the library culture to them.

Once in a while the Alif Laila Bus leaves its moorings to reach out to children in a different part of town to make the magic of books accessible to those who cannot reach it. Alif Laila Book Bus Society has also perfected the art of story telling as a medium to arouse children’s interest in reading.

Traditionally, bed time stories for children have been a part of every culture and civilisation worldwide. The task of story telling was often the prerogative of the older generation when grandmothers and grandfathers gathered a spell bound audience around them.

Story time was a special treat and children looked forward to hearing one whenever the fancy took them. But, in today’s fast paced existence the time for story telling is becoming more and more restricted.

Nevertheless, fondness for stories is still very much a child’s fantasy and is being replaced by a book reading culture. Publishing houses have special departments for producing children’s books which are also illustrated by well-known artists.

The phenomenal success of the Harry Potter books illustrates the child’s inborn thirst for flights of imaginative fantasy which carries such delight and happiness.

Educational theory explains the utility of catching young minds at the earliest for full development later on. The more a child is exposed to discovering the world around, the more likely its mind will reach its full potential. The developed world has capitalised on this and achieved a plethora of wonderful books and learning aids for children.

It is unfortunate that a civilisation which flourished in the subcontinent and left a legacy of scholarship and books is now bereft of these necessary accomplishments.

Nearly every Mughal scholar had his own personal library at home and in 1641 the library at Agra had 24,000 volumes at a time when books had to be transcribed by hand.

The reading culture and the state of literacy can be gauged by Bostan, Gulistan, Akhlaq-i-Jalali, Akhlaq-i-Nasiri and Anwar-i- Suhaili being widely read in the Mughal Empire. There were 57 universities in and around present day Thatta during Emperor Jehangir’s reign.

The precious and priceless libraries of Delhi and Agra were torched by the British capture of these cities. The British then undertook surveys of the prevalent education system and observations made by Dr G.W. Leitner in 1850 show that the spread of education in Punjab and other areas amounted to 100 per cent literacy in the subcontinent.

On the eve of Partition, Pakistan was left with 10 per cent literacy and India 30 per cent and both countries since then have been struggling to improve their statistics.

While India has managed a concerted drive towards literacy and established and preserved its libraries across its many states, Pakistan’s culture is rapidly losing its reading public because of its low literacy rate.

Although newspapers have a wide circulation in Urdu, reading books for pleasure or research does not seem to be a priority any longer. Schools, colleges and universities do not emphasise enough the use of the library as the cornerstone of literacy and academia.

The stress on textbooks and an examination driven syllabus discourages any desire for reading beyond the stipulated course book. Teachers hardly encourage reading habits in students and lay no foundation at the primary and secondary level for love of books.

The institution of the library was upheld up to the ’80s and ’90s when the Liaquat National Memorial Library in Karachi and the National Library of Pakistan at Islamabad were put up. They hold up to date resources for scholars especially in the Humanities and are accessible to the public.

Otherwise, Pakistanis are dependent on libraries located at the American Consulates or the British Councils for recent literature.

It is a pity that despite the libraries attached to universities in the major cities of Pakistan where they serve students, no other new libraries have come up to be utilised by the public.

However, the Defence Housing Authority in the three major cities has set up libraries in their colonies. It is to be presumed that apart from the habitual reader, the young adults and children living there also cross its threshold.

Mid-90s onwards witnessed a steady decline in reading habits and visiting a library to access a book. Horrific tales of neglect of libraries and priceless books stolen made newspaper headlines ever so often but little was done to rectify or improve their condition.

Except for the Quaid-i-Azam Library which is a fairly recent addition in Lahore and those attached to universities, most of the older or pre-partition libraries suffer from negligence such as the Punjab Public Library established in 1884. Karachi also has four such pre-partition libraries — Frere Market Library, Ghulam Hussain Khaliqdina Hall Library, Liaquat Hall Library and Max Denso Hall and Library. They are valuable archives of the country and must receive attention and care from the country.

University libraries are also entering an era of neglect as teachers are not aware of using reading material as much as possible for analysis and synthesis in written assignments. But, no library is worth its name if it is not frequented by readers and researchers.

The Muslim world has declined in stature and significance basically from a lack of scholarship. Libraries were an integral part of Muslim culture from the 8th century onwards. The accumulation of that knowledge received a setback when the House of Wisdom and its library books were torched by the Mongol general, Hulagu Khan in 1248.

Despite that irreversible key moment in history, Muslim learning ignited the technological revolution in the West where libraries grew and flourished in every small town or large city.

However, in a bid to catch up albeit lately, Muslim countries such as Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey and Egypt realised the importance of producing literature and significantly uplifted and expanded their knowledge base to be at par with the developing countries.

In Pakistan, education has to improve through the medium of a reading culture that entails a solid grounding from childhood. Basarat Kazim realized this thirty-one years ago when she put up the first children’s library in Lahore.

Her persistence with her goal has never faltered and Alif Laila Book Bus Society continues to provide the Book Bus, a Reference Library, mobile story telling and reading material in the form of quality story books for children.

It is now up to the government to acknowledge this non-profit, non-governmental effort and help ply Alif Laila Book Bus Society’s buses in all the towns and cities of Pakistan. Education and the reading of books go hand in hand and as explained by Confucius “If you have two pence to spend, you should spend a penny on bread and a penny on a flower, the bread to make life possible, and the flower to make it worthwhile.”

WITH the commercial district of Pakistan’s largest metropolis literally consumed in the flames of wanton terrorism and wilful arson, it may seem odd for any casual observer to focus his gaze on the most important foreign policy element of this country. However, a more detailed and in-depth analysis should point precisely in favour of discoursing on the latter. It doesn’t take a genius to surmise that the six-decade old US-Pakistan relations stand, today, at the cusp of a new era. And it isn’t an easy or ordinary era by any stretch of imagination.

The American-Pakistani relations have never been insulated from regional and international developments, even in ordinary yester-times. There were always forces, from near and far, impinging on these relations in one way or the other. Washington, in fact, hardly ever treated its relations with Pakistan strictly in a bilateral context only. It consistently had a hyphenated perception of Pakistan.

In the formative phase of these relations, in the ’50s and ’60s, Pakistan was seen as an important bulwark in the Cold War tussle for supremacy. In the ’70s and ’80s Pakistan became a key ally in the final push to dislodge the principal adversary, the Soviet Union, from Afghanistan and, eventually, from its pedestal of a superpower.

The only period when Pakistan was seen from Washington as an equation in its own right was the ’90s; and Pakistan, then, was maliciously sidelined, shunned and treated as a pariah for its insistence to have its own nuclear arsenal to safeguard its sovereignty. Pakistan is still licking the wounds then callously inflicted on its psyche.

Come 9/11, and all that changed. Pakistan instantly became a frontline state in George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror. Saying no wasn’t an option. That description still fits under a new President who has not only embraced Bush’s war with fervour but has added his own emphasis to it and placed an extra burden on Pakistan.

Pakistanis who have made US their home are more conscious of America’s expectations from Pakistan because, in many cases, they have also been called upon to furnish their own unequivocal evidence that they are more loyal than others to the philosophical context and conduct of the ‘war on terror’ irrespective of what new nomenclature a Democratic President may bestow on Bush’s brain-child.

The Pakistan-American Democratic Forum (PADF) is a pioneer umbrella group of civic and social groups, associations and organisations representing Pakistani Americans in the US. It draws its core intellectual support and strength from Pakistani academics, doctors, engineers, technocrats, former bureaucrats and diplomats. PADF got quickly involved into the onerous task of organising the Pakistanis in the US and by extension also in Canada, and lending them a platform to make themselves heard in the cacophony of fears and wild accusations triggered in the wake of 9/11 and all its implications for, and expectations of, Pakistani Americans.

PADF enabled Pakistani Americans to get a head start in preparing themselves to cope with the fallout of 9/11. In that sense they stole a clear march over the ‘silent majority’ back home that remained inert for a painfully long period until its inertia was broken by Musharraf’s onslaught on the judiciary in Pakistan.

A seminar organised by PADF, in mid-December, in the heart of Washington D.C., to which this scribe was also invited to speak, lent an excellent opportunity to debrief the Washington intellectual cabal on the new expectations, challenges and opportunities confronting both US and Pakistan at this critical juncture in their relations.

There’s considerable confusion in the think-tank community of Washington about President Obama’s agenda for Afghanistan. He’s apparently determined to put teeth in his strategy to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban — his decision to send in an additional 30,000 troops there is testimony to it — but at the same time he is also looking for an exit time to enter the race for re-election, in 2012, on a firm wicket. Even his generals who have prevailed on him to give them more boots and fire-power in Afghanistan are talking in terms of just ‘containing’ the Taliban, which is the euphemism for eventually coming to honourable terms with them that may make the exit from Afghanistan ‘sellable’ to the American people.

But there’s no such confusion in regard to Obama’s expectations pinned on Pakistan. There’s consensus, among the administration gurus and think-tank pundits, that Pakistan has to ‘do more’ to hunt down the Al-Qaeda top brass which they believe is ensconced somewhere in the tribal belt adjacent to the Afghan border. They cannot, however, pin-point the location.

There’s no doubt that the two countries are in a virtual no-man’s-land on this point of utmost sensitivity to Washington, which only underlines the yawning trust deficit between Washington and Islamabad.

Even the costly undertaking of the Pakistani military in South Waziristan — costly in more ways than one, as amplified in gruesome horror in the Karachi carnage and arson of December 28 — doesn’t get better than a B-plus grade in Washington’s corridors of power and intelligentsia’s cubicles. They would want the army to go after the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan as well, and also deal more resolutely with the ‘Quetta shoora,’ of Mullah Omar. The latter could just as well be a figment of fertile Washington imagination, which exacerbates the trust-deficit between the two ‘allies.’

The trust deficit could be bridged, the PADF seminar participants were certain, by aggressive and calibrated projection of the Pakistani brief on the subject by a professionally competent and experienced ambassador in Washington.

I was in D.C. the day the Supreme Court of Pakistan delivered its judgment against NRO. That wasn’t an unexpected development for Washington’s official and intellectual communities. However, a day before the verdict, the brazen deposition by Mr. Zardari’s advocate, Kamal Azfar, in which he saw the Pakistani GHQ and American CIA targeting his client, caught the Washington Brahmins completely by surprise and caused quite a stir in their circles.

There’s an old American penchant for not changing horses in mid-stream, or a commander-in-chief in the heat of the battle. They are up to their eye-balls in the war in Afghanistan and they know how important it is for Pakistan to be fully supportive of their efforts there. But Mr. Zardari’s impetuosity, in crunch time, forces them to rethink his role, and his place, in this epic struggle to salvage a face-saving outcome on Afghanistan.

An old diplomatic colleague of long exposure to Pakistan summed up the US dilemma succinctly. ‘So President Zardari thinks he can be clever-by-half and take on both his own military brass and the Americans. He seems

hell-bent to be painted as yet another martyr from the Bhutto clan. But this could be a lethal undertaking for him, especially with the people of Pakistan arrayed against him because of his cronyism and corruption.’

This old mandarin, who has seen Washington and Islamabad sparring in the past, too, added ominously: ‘Zardari’s offensive tack may blow up in his face because Washington is changing gears on Pakistan. It no longer wants its options to be handicapped with one man in Islamabad.’ That’s where the PADF seminar participants thought there’s the chance of decades for both Pakistan and US to reposition their tortuous relationship, hobbled, up until now, by lack of faith on both sides, and put it on a keel of equality and trust.

There is need to bring to an end the personality-oriented, master-client equation and develop a people-centric relationship of equality. In simple words, the centre of gravity in Pakistan ought to shift to the National Assembly, where the representatives of the people sit. The Pakistani diaspora in the US could then play a pivotal role in explaining to the people in Pakistan why it is so important for Pakistan to stay the course, for some more years, in the war against terror as an equal partner of Washington’s and not as a client of it.