A long but perceptive piece from Al Jazeera worth a read.
"The last 10 years have been something less than kind to Pakistan. Since it was famously told that it either stood with the United States in its "War on Terror" or faced being bombed "back to the Stone Age" in 2001, it has lost 35,000 citizens to "terror"-related attacks and violence, with 3,500 of those being security forces and military personnel who were either targeted by militant groups or were killed during military operations. It has endured countless attacks against both civilian targets and state personnel and infrastructure. It has seen the killing of arguably the country's most nationally popular leader in a suicide-bombing-and-shooting attack at a political rally, , the assassinations of a provincial governor and a federal minister for opposing a controversial blasphemy law, , an expanded US drone strike campaign since 2009 (killing an estimated at least 2,309 people, of whom at least 392 were civilians, and the killing of the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, on the doorstep of the country's military academy in a covert strike by US special forces.
Economically, its Gross Domestic Product has grown by 22.5 per cent (in real terms) to $174.8m, with an accompanying rise in consumer inflation from 3.7 per cent to 13.7 per cent for the country's now 174 million citizens. It has had two major International Monetary Fund bailouts, seen annual economic growth of around seven per cent give way to economic stagnation due to an over-dependence on credit and foreign direct investment in the growth bubble, and a massive influx of US military and civilian aid, culminating in the Kerry Lugar Bill, under which Pakistan is to receive $7.5bn over five years in civilian-only aid.
Politically, the country has seen two parliamentary elections on either side of seven years of military rule, an unprecedented liberation of media freedoms, a popular mass movement for the reinstatement of its Supreme Court Chief Justice and the overthrow of said military ruler, the killing of the largest national party's leader and the subsequent ascendance of her widely unpopular husband to the country's presidency, a continuing movement for secession in the country's largest province (by area) and bitter political conflict, sometimes resulting in bouts of violence claiming hundreds of lives, as most recently seen in Karachi.
And all of this is before one gets to the natural disasters: two major earthquakes, a tropical cyclone and major flooding which, put together, killed more than 75,000 people (96 per cent of those in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake) and affected more than 20 million (the vast majority after the devastating floods in 2010).
The country lurches, then, from crisis to catastrophe and back again, stopping briefly at moments of opportunity.
"The last 10 years have been something less than kind to Pakistan. Since it was famously told that it either stood with the United States in its "War on Terror" or faced being bombed "back to the Stone Age" in 2001, it has lost 35,000 citizens to "terror"-related attacks and violence, with 3,500 of those being security forces and military personnel who were either targeted by militant groups or were killed during military operations. It has endured countless attacks against both civilian targets and state personnel and infrastructure. It has seen the killing of arguably the country's most nationally popular leader in a suicide-bombing-and-shooting attack at a political rally, , the assassinations of a provincial governor and a federal minister for opposing a controversial blasphemy law, , an expanded US drone strike campaign since 2009 (killing an estimated at least 2,309 people, of whom at least 392 were civilians, and the killing of the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, on the doorstep of the country's military academy in a covert strike by US special forces.
Economically, its Gross Domestic Product has grown by 22.5 per cent (in real terms) to $174.8m, with an accompanying rise in consumer inflation from 3.7 per cent to 13.7 per cent for the country's now 174 million citizens. It has had two major International Monetary Fund bailouts, seen annual economic growth of around seven per cent give way to economic stagnation due to an over-dependence on credit and foreign direct investment in the growth bubble, and a massive influx of US military and civilian aid, culminating in the Kerry Lugar Bill, under which Pakistan is to receive $7.5bn over five years in civilian-only aid.
Politically, the country has seen two parliamentary elections on either side of seven years of military rule, an unprecedented liberation of media freedoms, a popular mass movement for the reinstatement of its Supreme Court Chief Justice and the overthrow of said military ruler, the killing of the largest national party's leader and the subsequent ascendance of her widely unpopular husband to the country's presidency, a continuing movement for secession in the country's largest province (by area) and bitter political conflict, sometimes resulting in bouts of violence claiming hundreds of lives, as most recently seen in Karachi.
And all of this is before one gets to the natural disasters: two major earthquakes, a tropical cyclone and major flooding which, put together, killed more than 75,000 people (96 per cent of those in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake) and affected more than 20 million (the vast majority after the devastating floods in 2010).
The country lurches, then, from crisis to catastrophe and back again, stopping briefly at moments of opportunity.
The Pakistani state, and society at large, meanwhile "could not really make up their mind about how they should deal with all kinds of militant Islamic groups, including the Taliban", he continues. The result has been a country that is "socially and psychologically fractured", where its citizens feel a sense of "anxiety and insecurity" at the lack of clear answers regarding their lives. "If you socially analyse this issue, you run deep into a cultural, intellectual and social crisis and the crisis borders on duplicity and a total lack of integrity: you don't want to say it is your war, although it is. And you don't want to say that you are an American ally, but you are," rails Raees. "I think that Pakistan has this mythical idea that when [the US withdraws], life will return to status quo. It's not going to happen. .. Pakistan may have a particularly difficult time with the Afghan Taliban after the withdrawal, given that most of its commanders are now young men who grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan. "These are kids who have become mid-level commanders who hate Pakistan and hate the ISI."
Ultimately, Pakistan's problems remain more deep-rooted than simply those of circumstance – or, in this case, a particular circumstance, which killed more than 3,000 people in cities on the other side of the globe. With space of political discourse ever narrowing, the challenges Pakistan faces are both existential and pragmatic: it needs to answer questions of identity whilst simultaneously paying its bills, feeding 174 million citizens and, in a both real and metaphorical sense, holding itself together.
A foreign policy that appears to be based on running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, however, indicates that when it comes to the international community, and particularly its immediate neighbours, it will likely continue to muddle through on the knife edge of stability.
Or, put in a local idiom: Pakistan is the dhobi ka kutta: na ghar ka, na ghat ka. It is the washerman's dog, belonging neither inside his home nor in his workplace. It sits, a state at war with both itself and silently with those around it, licking its wounds."
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