PRIME Minister Nawaz Sharif’s second visit to the White House to meet US President Barack Obama will occur in markedly different circumstances than the first one two years ago. Then, the recently elected third-term Pakistani prime minister had talked of his government’s “domestic and foreign policy strategies” — marked externally by a focus on Afghanistan and internally by the emphasis on the socalled four ‘Es’ — economy, energy, education and (combating) extremism. Since then, the prime minister’s strategies have either failed to materialise or their implementation has stalled. More worryingly, for the civilian dispensation and the democratic project, Mr Sharif has appeared an increasingly peripheral figure in shaping key national security and foreign policy issues.

The prime minister’s only meaningful foreign policy/national security initiative has gone nowhere owing to the hostility of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the objections of hawks in the Pakistani security establishment. The visit to the US could — sadly, the conditional nature of that ‘could’ must be emphasised — help Mr Sharif reestablish his relevance to foreign policy if a pragmatism and shrewdness hitherto not on display by civilians is demonstrated. The increasingly narrow security-based relationship between the US and Pakistan may be a product of the Obama administration’s greatly diminished interest in the Af-Pak region now that a vast majority of US troops have left Afghanistan, but there remain several non-military, civilian-led areas in which cooperation between the US and Pakistan can be improved. ‹ The energy crisis remains a massive challenge, but the Pakistani government appears not to have prioritised technical assistance and investment from the US in the electricity sector. Surely, given that the US has long been one of Pakistan’s top trading partners, there is scope for both commercial and government-to-government cooperation. In addition, with exports struggling and the once-talkedof increased Pakistani access to US markets seemingly having fallen off the agenda, now may be the time to revive serious negotiations on that front. On the security front, too, there is much that can be discussed by the civilian government: building the counterterrorism capabilities of the provinces in urban Pakistan will surely be attractive to the US. Does, however, the Sharif government have any interest in going beyond the reiteration of banal statements and acting as a mere conduit on issues now firmly under the military leadership’s control? The run-up to this week’s prime ministerial trip has so far only offered evidence to the contrary. A huddle of senior ministers virtually on the eve of the trip suggests a desultory, ad hoc approach. Usually, the agenda for a head of state/leader of government meeting is shaped months in advance and finalised many weeks ahead. If there are any meaningful discussions, they may well be on Afghanistan and nuclear matters it appears. But are the DG ISI’s weekend trip and the rumoured upcoming visit of the COAS to the US more relevant in that regard?


IT has been more than a decade now that the large growth rates in the textile sector came crashing down, and every year since then, save for an anomalous one when the price of cotton yarn spiralled in the international markets, successive governments have been saying the same thing about the revival of this sector: productivity and quality need to be improved before the fortunes of the textile sector will change. In each case, the demand from industry representatives has been broadly similar, and the same divisions have stymied an effective government response. The industry has almost always asked for relief on energy pricing and taxation, whether through zero rating of exports or the more expeditious handling of refunds. And in every case, the government has found that the divisions between the spinning sector and the broad swath referred to as the ‘value-added sector’ have pulled it in opposite directions.

The same story is repeating itself again today, as calls for a textile rescue package mount. Industry representatives are disappointed they will have to wait a little longer to hear back from the government on energy pricing, which is difficult to reduce given the constraints on the fiscal framework. And they are strongly divided on the impact that the 10pc regulatory duty will have on the industry, with the spinning sector saying it will have to be positive for exports, and the value-added representatives pointing out that prices of yarn in the local market have already begun to shoot up, and in the finer categories of yarn the rise is quite substantial. Not many in the industry have the option to avail themselves of the benefits of the DTRE scheme, they argue, meaning the duty exemptions available will only be accessed by very few. Their arguments are sound, and supported by available data. The measures adopted by the government are more likely to benefit the spinning sector at the cost of the valueadded one. Although the result might be a slight increase in exports, the quality of that increase will leave much to be desired.
In order to get out of this mode of constant haggling, the government should use the moment to impress upon the textile exporters’ lobby the benefits of improved efficiency and quality. Sadly, however, as the experience of the last decade has amply illustrated, that remains an everreceding goal.

Sarwar goes international

IN an effort to home in on the issue, the PTI has been responsible for an unnecessary expansion. Earlier, the party called for reforms from within, generally shunning influences from the West. Now it is no longer shy to call for foreign intervention. The man in charge of PTI activities in Punjab, former governor Chaudhry Sarwar, has been heard threatening to take the case of alleged rigging to the European Union and beyond — in fact, to the ultimate supposed arbiter of all things, the United Nations. Mr Sarwar, who is inclined to draw on his experience as a British lawmaker, has apparently been frustrated by instances of vote-shifting from NA-122 that his party says it has unearthed in the wake of its defeat in the byelection earlier this month. Could this be a joke? Or an empty threat at the most?
If it was either, the maker of the testament betrayed no such weakness. At least one person who was present when the ex-governor made this startling revelation about his party’s possible future plan believes — or has been led to believe — that he was warning in all earnestness.
For a country that has been forever indebted for direction to the foreign-returned, this would most certainly be taking Pakistani politics to a new level. There have been many examples where those who claim to have lost trust in the Pakistani system have announced their intention to internationalise an issue. Whereas the UN has invariably been the preferred adjudicator in many of these cases, the complainants have been less entrenched in the system here in comparison to where and how the PTI stands today. It seems that Chaudhry Sarwar, who joined the PTI after an obviously eye-opening stint with the PML-N in the important position of Punjab governor, has been rather too late in wanting to invoke the good offices of the EU and UN. The rebel PTI has since developed some interest in the system and could become the recipient of some unwanted frowns over Chaudhry Sarwar’s adventurous international tours.

Published in Dawn, October 20th , 2015

www.dawn.com

CORRUPTION allegedly committed by elected and other public officials has stubbornly remained in the news, and rightly so. True, the National Accountability Bureau is flawed in its design and operations, and there are accusations that governments have used it as a tool to carry out political witch-hunts. ‹ But it is also true that a bigger problem was created when NAB effectively ceased operating for several years. Now, prompted by the superior judiciary, the media and general interest in accountability of public office holders, NAB is swinging into action. Unsurprisingly, the politicians — and political parties generally — caught in the cross hairs of accountability are decrying NAB’s stepped-up operations. The PPP in particular, though it is not alone, has voiced all manner of apprehensions about accountability. The ruling party in Sindh, which governed at the centre for five years until 2013, has only one question: why just us? The party has seemingly even given up pretending that the party leadership is not mired in problematic financial malpractices; all the leadership seems to have by way of a defence is that the misdeeds of others are going unpunished.

For the PPP, and also the other political parties that protest whenever accountability nears their own leaderships and party officials, there is perhaps a need to restate the obvious. Corruption is costly. Corruption erodes the state and hurts the average citizen. Corruption is neither inevitable nor something that cannot be restrained. And perhaps the most obvious fact: it is the job of elected officials to fight corruption, not fend off accountability. When governments ignore the crucial aspects of governance, everyone is harmed. It is not surprising that countries with the rule of law and the efficient enforcement of rights tend to be more prosperous. If a former minister for communications Arbab Alamgir and his ex-MNA wife are accused of acquiring assets beyond their known sources of income — those illegal sources of income, if proven eventually, will have come at the cost of ordinary businesses and taxpayers’ money. Worse, if a former Sindh education minister Pir Mazharul Haq, has in fact compromised on thousands of teaching jobs in the province, he has helped perpetuate for another generation the great injustice that is the country’s public education system. Surely, no sensible person can deny that allegations of corruption have been used in the past as a means to defame and marginalise politicians. Is the country really seeing a repeat of those unsavoury past practices?

If the democratic project is to be strengthened and sustained, it is the politicians themselves who have to lead the way. Why is parliament not urgently taking up the issue of a new, independent, powerful accountability organisation? Why are the major political parties not acting internally against elements accused of corruption? The plain truth is that when politicians do not do their jobs, it is the country that suffers.


AFTER an encouraging start, the growth of utility-scale solar power projects in Pakistan has hit a snag. The regulator wants to bring down the upfront tariff, which was determined at Rs14.2 in January on a levelised basis. The first upfront tariff drew an enthusiastic response. Reportedly, Nepra wants to reduce this to Rs9.25 for the next generation of solar power projects, a large drop of more than 30pc. Investors, many of whom have already obtained Letters of Interest and have been waiting for the award of their tariff, say that the lower tariff makes their entire project unfeasible. For whatever reason, much of the benefit of the higher tariff was availed of by projects in Punjab. Now the representatives of other provinces, especially Sindh, are furious that when their turn comes to undertake solar power projects, the regulator suddenly wants to effect a drastic reduction. There is merit to the arguments being presented by the investors. The reported reduction offered by Nepra is difficult to justify. They argue they want to equalise the tariff in Pakistan with neighbouring countries, but in the January determination they threw out all such considerations and decided to use the cost structures submitted by one Chinese company, which was setting up the first solar plant at the Quaid-iAzam Solar Park in Punjab, as the basis for the entire tariff regime. The Sindh government ought to have said more during the hearing for that tariff, but sadly it missed its chance. Nevertheless, a drastic reduction a few months down the road will only strengthen the perception that the government wants a few pet projects in Punjab to benefit and to stymie other provinces in the process. A reduction may indeed be called for, but drastic reductions at this early stage of solar takeoff in Pakistan will damage the positive momentum that is building up behind the enterprise. Nepra should listen carefully to the arguments presented by the intervenors in the hearing on Oct 15 before making a final decision.


IN Pakistan, few will argue that when it comes to civilmilitary relations, the men in khaki have the upper hand. But while the security establishment has indeed encroached upon ground that falls purely under the purview of the civilian side of the state, it is also true that the civilians — through their sins of omission and commission — have left a vacuum that has been filled by the military. Let us consider the conduct of elections. On Wednesday, the secretary of the Election Commission told a news conference in Karachi that “all political parties and stakeholders” have demanded the deployment of army troops and Rangers’ personnel during the polling process for local government elections due on Oct 31 in eight districts of Sindh.

The official said that due to the threat emanating from tribal enmities in Sukkur and Larkana divisions, the men in uniform would be deployed not only to provide security, but also for the transportation of election material and transfer of results from presiding officers to returning officers. ‹ Indeed, where there is a threat of terrorism or militancy, the presence of security forces is required to provide safe cover to citizens to exercise their democratic right. But is the situation in the aforementioned districts so bad that troops will be required to supervise transportation of election material as well as the results? In fact, it seems as if the state is making the deployment of army or paramilitary personnel during polls a part of the electoral process. The security forces were deployed during the recently held by-polls in Punjab, while they will also reportedly be posted in that province during LG elections. We must ask if routine election security is beyond the ability of the police. Or do these moves signify the civil administration’s unwillingness or inability to do its job — just as the state has retreated in the field of counterterrorism? The conduct of elections — above all things — must be a purely civilian exercise without army ‘supervision’. If there are flaws in the electoral process, and there are indeed many, then it is the civil administration that should be working hard to rectify them.

Or else, the political class as well as society at large should not complain when the armed forces take over more and more governance and administrative duties. After all, it is the civilians that are failing to do their job and leaving the field wide open.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2015
www.dawn.com

__________________
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling ,but in rising every time we fall". (Nelson Mandela)

IN the end, the meeting between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and US President Barack Obama appears to have gone as expected: mundane pledges to shore up the democratic system without any meaningful economic or diplomatic breakthroughs, and a great deal of conversation about regional security issues. If the meeting appears to have gone off relatively smoothly, it may be because the core issues discussed are largely out of the control of the prime minister. While the joint statement emphasised the civilian nature of the meeting and specifically stated “President Obama and Prime Minister Sharif expressed their desire to expand the bilateral relationship in areas outside the traditional security realm in recognition of the multifaceted issues facing both countries”, the specifics of non-security cooperation were relatively thin and trivial.

The dearth of substantive civilian issues that were discussed can be gauged by the laudatory words in the joint statement for the domestic reforms programme reportedly undertaken by the PML-N government — ‘reforms’ and ‘successes’, including in the power sector, that will have come as news to most Pakistanis. As indicated in the immediate run-up to the meeting, the substantive issues discussed were threefold: Afghanistan, terrorism and nuclear/strategic. While the language was diplomatic, the emphasis on Afghanistan was clear. The US wants Pakistan to help curb Afghan Taliban violence in Afghanistan and to nudge the new Taliban leadership to talks with Kabul. While that is to be expected, the unhappy truth is that it is Mr Obama himself who appears to have no real strategy in Afghanistan. When the most significant economic and military actor has no strategy to speak of, it compounds the difficulties faced by Afghanistan’s neighbours — all that while readily acknowledging that it is in the genuine national interest of Pakistan to help stabilise Afghanistan and prevent the Taliban from returning to power there. Time and again, the US has linked the terrorism issue to Pakistan needing to do more against anti-Afghan and anti-India elements. But then, there is little effort to try and help Pakistan find a viable partner in peace in the regional relationship with Afghanistan and India.
While Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has been a forceful advocate of improved ties with Pakistan, his government is fundamentally unstable because of the unity coalition and an inability to improve governance issues. On the India side, the US president may have emphasised that an improvement in Pak-India relations is essential, but there is little sense that the US government will lean on India to curtail its aggressive rhetoric and engage in purposeful dialogue with Pakistan. It does appear that a stable Afghanistan-Pakistan-India triangle is not part of Mr Obama’s legacy plan. As for the nuclear discussion leaked to the US media ahead of the talks, it seems that the more relevant Pakistani guest in Washington may be Gen Raheel Sharif soon.


A SMALL group of young volunteers decided on their own to make a trek up the Baltoro glacier to Concordia — described by many mountaineering guidebooks as the most stunning mountain destination in the world — for an unusual purpose. ‹ They went to pick up the trash left behind by years of trekking by mountaineering expeditions that make this journey every year. By their own telling, the youngsters emerged from their trek with more than 2,500kg of trash, although the figure needs to be verified. In any event, their effort draws attention to an important problem: Pakistan’s glaciers are some of the most spectacular in the world, and attract a very large number of trekkers every year. Yet the refuse left behind by these expeditions is rarely ever removed, and it piles up at an altitude where it does not degrade naturally due to the absence of bacteria at that altitude. With the passage of time, this problem has become increasingly severe, and if the figure given by the young group of volunteers for the quantity of trash they removed from Concordia and the Baltoro glacier is correct, then the amount of waste accumulating in such pristine and delicate environments is truly alarming.

The Gilgit-Baltistan administration should make arrangements for the proper disposal of trash at important campsites along the way. More imperative, it should inform visitors to these areas about the hazards of leaving their trash behind. Many times it is the long trains of porters who accompany these expeditions that prove the most careless. Making local communities aware of the problem is also a priority. Pakistan’s natural beauty has left many people astounded, and the group that took it upon itself to remove trash from Concordia is to be congratulated for putting in the effort. However, such work should not be left to volunteers; instead, it should be scaled up properly to ensure that the pristine and beautiful mountainous terrain of the north no longer remains sullied by garbage.


DISTRESSINGLY, it has become a characteristic of today’s Pakistan that places and occasions of faith, devotion and prayer are regarded with trepidation. As sectarian and militant outfits have gained ground, the mourning processions taken out on Ashura have frequently found themselves in the cross hairs of the militants. The December 2009 attack in Karachi that left over 40 people dead stands out for the scale of its atrocity, but it was only one amongst a series of incidents designed to frighten and intimidate a community and the population at large — even if religiously motivated violence has, overall, come down in recent months. › Such bleak thoughts will dominate the minds of the citizenry today, given that the month of mourning has already been marred by tragedy. Late last evening, a suspected suicide bombing targeted a Muharram procession in Jacobabad, Sindh, killing at least 20 people. A day before, at least 11 people were killed when a suicide bomber hit an imambargah in Balochistan’s Bolan district. The sectarian contours of these tragedies are obvious. This will only exacerbate the pressure on law-enforcement agencies today, and in the days to come. Security has been beefed up across Balochistan and the rest of the country, but it is worth mulling over a comment made by provincial Chief Minister Abdul Malik Baloch: terrorists had fled to far-flung areas, he said, because of strict Ashura security in the cities. This may well be taken as fairly accurate. In the larger cities and towns, the measures taken to protect Muharram processions are stringent and visible, though it can only be hoped that they are sufficient to stave off danger. However, millions of people will be taking out processions all over the country today, many of them in small towns and villages. More citizens may be taken aim at by extremists looking for ‘soft’ targets on which to unleash horror. Whether an attack takes place in a well-guarded city or in a more vulnerable remote community, the emotions inflicted on the citizenry at large are the same: fear, panic and grief — all of which are enhanced by the bloodied images that spill across screens and newsprint in the aftermath of the incident.

Here is where those who enforce the law must rise to the challenge, daunting though it is. All of the citizens of Pakistan are entitled to being provided equal and sufficient security by the state.
Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2015
www.dawn.com

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~~ Khan ~~
Birds born in cage, thinks flying is an illness.

THEY say the world turns and we must turn with it. Yet there are some parts of the past that it is difficult not to be nostalgic about — even when new realities are more convenient. Few in the country, for example, would be able to contemplate without fond emotion the Radio Pakistan of old, the songs of Noor Jehan or Mehdi Hasan weaving their way scratchily through the evening air in towns and villages that had yet to be overtaken by traffic.

A similar case can be made for Pakistan Post; the wait for the dak was once the standard duty given to small children in every household, rural or urban.
As the postman heaved into view, there would be trepidation: might he perhaps bring a loving missive from a faraway brother or husband? The anxiously awaited money order from the son in the city? Perhaps the book or magazine that had been ordered many weeks ago? Sadly, most of this belongs to a lost world now, the red and yellow postboxes — once ubiquitous in cities and villages — now vandalised where they exist at all. It is not that Pakistan Post did not put up a fight: services were improved, and in the cities GPOs and post offices were spruced up. Still, perhaps the combined challenges posed by new technologies and private courier companies with deep pockets were always going to be too much. Nevertheless, a Pakistan Post official told the media on Thursday that a new, comprehensive plan to revitalise the department had been chalked out, including staff training, electronic money transfer and tracking facilities etc. The aim is to bring the entity up to international standards of customer satisfaction. This is welcome news indeed, and it can only be hoped that the postal authorities deliver on their promises. Urbanisation or digitalisation notwithstanding, there is plenty of scope for the department to make itself relevant again, especially where the remote and rural communities in the country are concerned. It must be wished godspeed.


IN return for a commitment that Pakistan would double its education budget in three years, American first lady Michelle Obama announced at a recent White House event, to which the prime minister’s daughter Maryam Nawaz Sharif was invited, a $70 million contribution towards the goal of educating adolescent girls in Pakistan. Accepting the dollars is the easy part. But now comes the hard part: delivering on that commitment. If the event ‘Let Girls Learn’ was nothing more than a photo op and a public relations stunt, accompanied by the announcement of funds, then the matter ends there. But if we are serious about the commitment the Pakistani government has apparently made, there are a few things that must be borne in mind.

This is not the first time such a pledge has been given. Two years ago, the planning minister Ahsan Iqbal gave the same commitment, saying the government intends to double the education budget in five years. A few months earlier, the minister of state for education had said the same thing. Two years later, very little progress on this goal is visible. The provincial governments too have repeatedly given commitments that they will double the education budget, but to this day there has been no real forward movement. Back in 2012, the KP government, for example, committed itself to doubling its education budget in one year, and for at least two years before this education allocations were enhanced by more than 40pc each year. But allocations hit a plateau since when the education budget increased by a meagre 31pc in the full three years subsequently. The example of the provincial and federal governments shows that there is a strong verbal commitment to increasing education expenditures, but a real gap in actually delivering on the pledge. It is important to ask here — when Ms Sharif is all smiles at Ms Obama’s promise of funds for a small project to increase access to education for girls in return for yet another commitment — how this latest pledge is different from the numerous similar ones given in the past. Does the government have a plan for bringing about these increases, in coordination with the provincial governments who actually control most of the country’s spending on education? At the moment, the answer appears to be ‘no’, but we can still hope that in the months and years to come we will discover otherwise.


IN the appointment of recently retired army general Nasser Khan Janjua as the country’s new national security adviser are two stories. The first story is the military’s attempt to wrest away seemingly any space from the civilian government in the national security and foreign policy domains. In capturing the NSA slot, there are several advantages to the military. The NSA is an important job and offers direct access to the civilian side of key foreign countries, which only awkwardly have been able to officially liaise with the military thus far. As NSA, Sartaj Aziz played a frontline role in reaching out to Afghanistan and India — and did so in a manner that reflected the civilian government’s priorities.

Arguably, in the case of India, that was what led to the debacle that was Ufa; it is difficult to imagine Mr Janjua being at Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s side and an Ufatype declaration being approved by the Pakistani side. Moreover, if talks do go ahead between the Indian and Pakistani NSAs, they are now likely to have a very different tone and tenor than if a PML-N appointee were to lead those talks. Furthermore, when security dialogues with the US, Afghanistan and key allies of Pakistan take place, the military will have direct and immediate input in that process. The other story, however, is the failings of the civilians. It was Prime Minister Sharif’s decision at the time of the cabinet formation in 2013 to retain the foreign and defence ministry portfolios for himself that set in motion a chain of events that have led to the present sorry state of affairs. Compounding that original mistake, Mr Aziz was made both special adviser on foreign affairs and NSA — merging foreign policy with national security to no obvious benefit and allowing both the Foreign Office and the NSA position to suffer. Then, it was the listless foreign policy performance of the government that created the opportunity for deep military intrusion. The government is bereft of foreign policy ideas, as demonstrated once again by the White House meeting with US President Barack Obama last week.

Even on India, the only foreign policy issue the prime minister has shown sustained interest in, there have been a series of errors, culminating with Ufa, which has virtually eliminated any possibility of civilian initiatives on India. If the military has eagerly grabbed space for itself, it is partly because a three-term prime minister and his veteran advisers have proved utterly inept in the foreign policy and national security domains. The question now is, what new domestic repercussions will there be with Mr Janjua’s appointment. Coming straight as the recently retired general is from Balochistan, how much influence will he exert on government policy and indeed its approach to the troubled province? Worryingly, the government may find itself further squeezed out, even domestically.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial

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~~ Khan ~~
Birds born in cage, thinks flying is an illness.

As if on cue, the earth shook one more time in October, 10 years to the month after the devastating quake of 2005. The great jolt of 2015 may compare with the quake of 2005 on the Richter scale, but on ground its aftermath has been very different. This time, even though more than 100 precious lives were lost, there was mercifully no catastrophic damage and no calamitous loss of life on the scale we saw in 2005. Of course, the main reason for this is that the epicentre of yesterday’s temblor lay further away from densely populated urban centres, as well as the far greater depth at which it occurred. But there is no escaping the memories of 2005 it seems, and certainly no escaping the lessons that those memories left behind for us.



Our country is built atop a zone of “heightened seismic hazard”, to use the language of geologists, and even after 2005, geologists had warned that only a fraction of the massive pent-up energy that has built up in the labyrinthine network of fault lines that we live on, had been released. The risk of more large earthquakes persists they said, and building codes needed to be strictly enforced to ensure concrete structures could withstand another shock. The jolt of 2015 is a reminder that this was no idle talk. The scale of the devastation may have been lesser this time, but nevertheless it cannot be ignored. In some cases, we had a narrow miss, as the footage that showed the elevated portions of the Rawalpindi metro bus route shaking, made clear. Landslides were reported in some parts of the Northern Areas, with a particularly big one at Nagar, but fortunately none near habitable areas and no glacial lake outburst floods were caused by the quake. We were lucky, in spite of the considerable damage and hardship for untold numbers of people, but one is inevitably left wondering whether the structures built since 2005 have been constructed specifically to withstand a stronger shock. Sadly, some channels chose to bring religious scholars on air and ask them what people could do to better prepare themselves for natural disasters. The response, predictably enough, was that people ought to become more pious and pray harder. The jolt of 2015 is an unambiguous reminder that an earthquake can strike again at any moment, and that little can be done to prevent this in a zone of heightened seismic hazard. An earthquake can strike at almost any place in the country. And if its epicentre should be any nearer, or its depth any shallower — factors that are entirely up to nature — then the consequences could be far more devastating than they were this time. Let this episode jolt us into the awareness that it is high time we woke up and took disaster preparedness and response more seriously.





EVEN though he has confessed to his Iraqi transgressions more than once and apologised for them, it is for the first time that Tony Blair has admitted that there is an “element of truth” to the allegations that the rise of the self-styled Islamic State is linked to the 2003 AngloAmerican invasion. One can understand his claim that he is not sorry for Saddam Hussein’s fate — maybe, many people agree with him — but what is astonishing this time is his candid admission that “we” made a series of strategic mistakes that went into planning the invasion of a country that is located in the heart of the Middle East.

Basically, he spoke of three mistakes — wrong intelligence, flaws in planning and mistakes in “understanding what would happen” after Saddam Hussein was eliminated. For more than a decade, the world has been aware of the faulty intelligence on which the Anglo-American invasion was based after the Western media exposed the truth about the doctored dossier and the “uranium trail”. As a rule, any invasion based on wrong intelligence should fail — which wasn’t the case this time, for the AngloAmerican invasion was a tactical success which destroyed the remnants of the Iraqi armed forces and ended the Baathist regime. However, what turned out to be tragic for Iraq and for the region were the mistakes that “we” made not only in planning but in “our” understanding of what would happen after Hussein was ousted. Throughout the confession, the former prime minister spoke of “we” and “our”, which obviously refer not only to his team but also to Britain’s allies across the Atlantic. ‹ What Mr Blair failed to emphasise were two important points: one, the Baathist regime had welcomed the UN’s decision to send an inspection team to Iraq to find out whether it possessed weapons of mass destruction; and two, inspection team chief Hans Blix reported to the UN he had found “no smoking gun”. The Bush-Blair duo still decided to go for the military option. What followed the success of the invasion is before us in the form of the IS. Its meteoric success in warfare in 2014 was preceded by a great tragedy for Iraqi civilians, who were subjected to ‘sanctions’ that resulted in deaths still not fully counted. The general view is that the invasion of the cradle of civilisation was launched either to destroy a country which Israel thought posed a security threat to it, or to control Iraq’s oil, or both.



THE tragedy of this country is not its inability to counter formidable challenges, but its irresponsible behaviour in terms of matters that are fairly easily resolved. Unfortunately, the latter are not considered deserving of the requisite political will. Consider the case of dengue fever, the potentially life-threatening illness that is contracted through mosquito bites.

The outbreak can be widespread, as it was during the summer of 2011, when over 300 people lost their lives. Subsequently, fumigation drives were initiated along with an awareness-raising campaign. › Four years on, though, it is evident that the issue has not been dealt with firmly enough to bring it entirely under control. So far this season, in the Rawalpindi/Islamabad area, over 2,500 cases have been reported and the death of a teenager in Holy Family Hospital on Sunday brought up the number of lives lost to 10. Lahore has fared better with only one death so far, but dozens of people have been infected and are in need of treatment; Karachi has so far seen at least seven deaths, and the reporting of dozens of cases. There are two problems in the government’s fight against dengue. First, there is the lack of consistency in carrying out fumigation drives and the areas they cover.

Where, on the one hand, there are locations where spraying has never taken place, or has taken place too sporadically to be effective, on the other there are examples of folly such as that in Attock last month when dozens of schoolgirls fainted because of over-spraying in poorly ventilated premises. Secondly, and much more shamefully, even now — several years after ‘dengue’ has become a familiar term in every household in the country — it is still being reported that the contraction of the virus is not necessarily being properly identified in medical facilities, and that medical staff are slow in conducting tests and providing treatment. Until these loopholes are plugged, more will continue to die. Is it too much to ask that provincial administrations sort themselves out?

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2015
www.dawn.com

__________________
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling ,but in rising every time we fall". (Nelson Mandela)

AS the dust from Monday’s earthquake begins to settle, the death toll has been rising and the wounded continue to trickle in from remote areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. ‹ Thus far the governments at the centre and in KP have done a commendable job of keeping themselves focused on the response to the disaster, and the prime minister’s intention behind visiting the affected areas, particularly with the KP chief minister accompanying him, makes for all the right optics. The announcement of a relief package is also timely and the professed intent to coordinate with the KP government before finalising it is also praiseworthy.

The lead role to be played by the National Disaster Management Authority in coordinating the damage assessment is important. It is heartening to see that here too coordination failures with the provincial disaster management authorities do not appear to be turning into a sticking point as they have in the aftermath of past calamities. But the continuing arrival of wounded people from remote locations to Peshawar is worth a second look. Large parts of Pakistan’s topography are mountainous, and the habitations in these areas are vulnerable to even the mildest of shocks, whether seismic or climatic. In some measure, this is dictated by facts on the ground: habitations in these areas are small and scattered widely, and distance poses a formidable barrier given the terrain. Roads are in poor condition; infrastructure and service delivery are barely present. Yet, these communities bear the brunt of the natural disasters striking Pakistan in recent years, from the 2005 earthquake, to the floods of 2010, to the most recent glacial lake-driven flooding in Chitral in July. And now the earthquake too has hit Chitral harder than any other place; in fact, the majority of the almost 4,000 homes reportedly destroyed are in Chitral. The work thus far has been decent, but two areas clearly need attention to strengthen the response next time.

One is greater attention to the habitations in the mountains, where deficient access and infrastructure as well as the poor quality of services serve as strong drivers of vulnerability. The other is clearer SOPs in dealing with a natural disaster in real time. The lesson here is the strong vulnerability of mountain communities, which are considerable in number, as well as the lack of an SOP to determine when a state of disaster exists and who takes over at that point to coordinate the response, and what tools will be made available to that lead agency. Once the crisis stage is over and the wounded are treated and the departed have been laid to rest, it would be a good idea for the government to work on these priorities to ensure that next time, should the scale be larger, the authorities are not overwhelmed.


OVER the past few days, a flurry of diplomatic activity has been taking place to try and resolve the Syrian crisis. On Monday, the Omani foreign minister was in Damascus for talks with Bashar al-Assad to discuss ways to end the brutal Syrian civil war raging since 2011. Meanwhile, last week major international and regional powers met in Vienna to discuss Syria; representatives from Russia, the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey convened in the Austrian capital, though the talks themselves remained inconclusive. The primary sticking point has been the future of Mr Assad. While Russia wants the Syrian strongman to be part of any transition process, the US appears to have little patience with him. And while the international community tries to resolve the crisis around the conference table, the violence in Syria itself continues as Russia conducts its air war — now a month old — against the self-styled Islamic State and other opponents of the regime, and the US and its Gulf allies continue to support groups fighting the government in Damascus. True, the diplomatic manoeuvres are a positive sign, but it is unlikely they will deliver results unless the US and Russia — the two principal international actors in this theatre — loosen their rigid positions. For example, Moscow should tone down its support for Bashar al-Assad while Washington should review its calls for regime change. The fact is that a middle path is needed that can pave the way for an end to violence — over 250,000 people have been killed while more than 10 million have been displaced — and help usher in a representative set-up. Without doubt Mr Assad has become controversial, yet a violent overthrow may cause more problems than it will solve. The examples of the foreign overthrow of the former strongmen of Libya and Iraq are before us — after the violent removal of Muammar Qadhafi and Saddam Hussein, their respective states have struggled with chaotic conditions. This should by no means be taken as an apologia for dictatorship; rather, what is needed in Syria is an organic, indigenous and gradual transition towards democracy.

For any chaotic, foreign-backed removal of the Assad regime may create a vacuum that can be filled by IS, or by groups that share the latter’s mediaeval ideology. Here the foreign friends of both the Syrian regime and the opposition must play their part and convince their allies to compromise and reach a negotiated, peaceful settlement to the civil war.


IT seems almost too good to be true: a part of a mass transit system for Karachi will be ready and operational within a year. On Friday, the chief of the Karachi Infrastructure Development Board informed Sindh Governor Ishratul Ibad at a meeting that work on two lines of the Bus Rapid Transit System would begin next month and be completed within a year. The people of Karachi should keep their fingers crossed, because they have been duped by successive governments over this issue for decades. The announcement also indicates that the Japanese-aided project to revive the Karachi Circular Railway has finally been abandoned after more than a decade of what can only be called a wild goose chase.

Now, going by last week’s briefing, work on the Green and Orange lines will begin simultaneously next month and be completed in a year. Having waited for decades for a decent, comfortable and cheap mass transport system commensurate with the city’s size, Karachiites would love to see the day when at least two of the four BRTS lines will start operating. The federal and provincial governments should see to it that the cooperation between them doesn’t fall victim to politics or bureaucratic wrangling, because both are funding a line each. As the history of several mass transit schemes for Karachi shows, donors walked away frustrated because Islamabad and Karachi failed to demonstrate the political will that was needed to execute a rail-based project. Undeniably, there were many hurdles, including the stupefying scale of encroachments on KCR lands. That problem will affect the BRTS project too, because the dimensions of the illegal occupation of public lands are so overwhelming that it will need a determined bid by the government to clean it up. We hope the deadline regarding the completion of work will be maintained and the people of the nation’s biggest city will finally have at least the kind of mass transit system that Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad have.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2015
http://www.dawn.com/newspaper/editorial

__________________
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling ,but in rising every time we fall". (Nelson Mandela)

ONLY days before the earthquake, an unusually early snowfall cut off large parts of the northern areas from the country, forcing an emergency evacuation of thousands of people. The last people to be recovered were seven policemen who had been trapped for many days and had to be flown out in an army helicopter on Wednesday. Parts of Naran were buried under four feet of snow, and, according to officials, this was the earliest snowfall in the area since at least 40 years. This is not the first unusual weather event this year. Earlier in July, a heavy downpour created flash floods and glacial lake bursts in Chitral valley, leaving a trail of destruction across the district. Unusual weather patterns of this sort are becoming more and more frequent, and almost always hit the mountainous areas the hardest. Pakistan has enjoyed the blessings of nature since its earliest years. The abundant water flows in our river system and groundwater reservoirs helped fuel an expansion in agriculture that made the country selfsufficient in food in its first 25 years. They also helped create the first large-scale power generation in the country. Our gas reservoirs have fuelled our industry, breathed life into our power plants, warmed our homes and fired our stoves for decades now and account for almost 50pc of all domestic fuel consumption. They have largely cushioned us from the vicissitudes of the global oil market. But nature is a fickle mistress, and today, we are hearing warnings that Pakistan is on the front lines of climate change, and it sits in the shadow of the most seismically active fault lines in the world. There is, of course, no relationship between seismicity and climate change. It would be a good idea for the leadership, as well as opinion makers of every stripe, to wake up to the full spectrum of challenges that climate change presents. This spectrum runs from the most visible changes that can bring crises such as flooding and heatwaves in their wake to slower and more invisible changes such as the disruption of cropping cycles and agricultural yields. It is time to heed the warnings being sounded repeatedly around the world that nature’s mood is changing, and the dangers facing Pakistan are enormous. Perhaps it is time to approach these challenges with the same doggedness with which our leadership tapped the bounties of nature back in the 1960s, by making food self-sufficiency a national goal to which all other economic objectives had to be subordinated. Nothing short of a national effort on the same scale is required today to take stock of the emerging spectrum of challenges and come up with the measures and resources required to face them. Time is short. The freak occurrences of today will grow to unmanageable proportions soon. We must begin our efforts immediately to prepare for a turbulent tomorrow.


A NUMBER of discussions are going on at the national level in the aftermath of Monday’s devastating earthquake. These include analyses of how well different organs of the state have been able to respond to the disaster, as well as debates on the ability of our infrastructure to withstand future temblors. ‹ However, another conversation also continues and refuses to die down; this one suggests that the massive quake was ‘divine punishment’ for Pakistanis’ ‘sins’, and in order to prevent such calamities, we as a nation must repent. Much of this has been stated by ulema on TV while an advertisement published in a section of the press on behalf of the Jamaatud Dawa-linked Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation puts out its own black and white perspective. In the ad, JuD supremo Hafiz Saeed explains that the quake was the result of multiple transgressions by this nation, including an interest-based economy, ‘obscenity’, ‘vulgarity’ and ‘un-Islamic systems’. While all groups and individuals are free to express their opinions as long as these do not violate the law, such comments, especially at a time like this, are insensitive as well as irrational. › Primarily, it is unwise to link geological and natural phenomena such as earthquakes and floods to the strength, or lack thereof, of our moral character. The temblor was a geological event, and the earth has been experiencing similarly destructive natural phenomena since time immemorial. Of course, as many reports have pointed out, people started reciting verses from scripture when the quake struck — this is a natural reaction during such terrifying moments. But to say that Pakistan was rocked by an earthquake of great magnitude because its citizens have done ‘evil’ is unacceptable. It is also unfortunate that the government has not come up with any counter-narrative to dispel such absurd notions. The state should emphasise the fact that the quake was an act of nature and focus on telling the nation how it intends to improve infrastructure and disaster-management procedures to protect citizens from future calamities. Groups like FIF have indeed been active in disaster relief — in times of national emergencies help is welcomed by the affected, even if it comes from elements that are inspired by a narrow ideology, and even though this is the primary responsibility of the state. However, ideology and disaster relief must be delinked and such groups should be actively discouraged from giving sanctimonious sermons about morality while helping the victims of the earthquake.




THE killing of seven Frontier Corps personnel near the border with Afghanistan in South Waziristan is a grim reminder of the tensions in the region that, if not managed carefully, can explode. Thus far the incident does not appear to have forced a hardening of rhetoric by either side, and the Pakistan military has not contradicted speculation that the attack was the work of Afghan-based anti-Pakistan militants as opposed to Afghan border security forces. That suggests an unwillingness to allow the overall PakAfghan relationship to deteriorate once again — something that should be welcomed cautiously. ‹ While Afghanistan does allege that there are continuing occasional, small-scale incidents involving Pakistani fire into eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan does complain of problems with the Afghan border forces, the overall situation between the security forces — at least along the border — appears to be much more stable compared to the recent troubles. Yet, border incidents are a manifestation of a much wider problem: Pak-Afghan ties themselves. After a tumultuous few months, the bilateral relationship appears to be stabilising once again — but for how long and whether this time genuine and sustained breakthroughs are possible is not known.

The fighting season in Afghanistan is nearing an end; US troops are committed to remaining into 2017; Mullah Mansour seems to have established his leadership; the insurgency is wider and deadlier than it was a year ago; Pakistan insists it is still committed to bringing the Taliban to the peace table; and the Afghan unity government is yet to demonstrate it can put aside internal struggles. These factors indicate that the possibility of an early and meaningful resumption of dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government seems neither worse nor necessarily better than it was earlier. To make the unlikely possible, however, the old rule still applies: Pakistan and Afghanistan must work on bilateral ties. Perhaps because it appears that outside powers, particularly the US and China, remain keenly interested in peace, some positive developments may be possible after all.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2015
www.dawn.com

__________________
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling ,but in rising every time we fall". (Nelson Mandela)