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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (18805)	12/5/2003 6:59:52 PM
From: kumar	Respond to of 793685

Peshawar, capital of the Northwest Frontier, is just east of the winding canyons of the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan. It is also a region that has almost never been governed by outsiders. The Pathans (Pashtun in western jargon) are a fiercly proud people. Only person I recollect in recent history, that was able to have some semblance of order there is Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (aka Frontier Gandhi).

To: LindyBill who wrote (18805)	12/5/2003 7:53:07 PM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 793685

As good a summary of Pakistan situation as I've seen: Shaping American policy toward Pakistan requires a prolonged balancing act on a particularly high wire. Nuclear misbehavior must be discouraged, but economic sanctions would only push a volatile country toward bankruptcy and disintegration. Human rights should be stressed, but perhaps not if it keeps Al Qaeda suspects from being immediately handed over. Big infusions of economic aid are vital for development, but how can the money be kept from religious radicals and the hopelessly corrupt? A full return to democracy ought to be demanded, but past civilian governments have been kleptocracies. Sadly, no oasis is visible ahead. There is no obvious Mandela figure, no Walesa, no Havel waiting in the wings. There can be no Velvet Revolution to inspire the Pakistani masses. Between the Koran and the Kalashnikovs, too many people covet too many incompatible things. But if elected governments have been disappointing, military ones have been disastrous. And the eventual bridge to cross is more than Musharraf. It is the army itself -- and its dominance, whether onstage or behind the scenes. Some way or another, Musharraf's time will pass. The great fear in the West has been that the next general will be much harder to deal with, someone with a long beard and no taste for whisky. But the greater likelihood is that after Musharraf simply comes another Musharraf, a slightly different model but still a man with the same loyalty to military pre-eminence. One essential aspect of democracy Pakistan has never had is being able to vote against a corrupt government. Every time an elected government has proven hopelessly corrupt, the army has replaced it and, hard to imagine, has done a worse job. When the situation has become unmanageable they have turned the mess over to an elected government and the cycle repeats itself. But the Pakis never have had the chance of repeatedly voting the rascals out. The problem has always been the army and it gets worse. The most useful US message that could be given is to the Pakistan officer class: No army has ever been competent at running a country. Find a way to give it up.