Teaching Faculty of Govt. Sadiq Egerton College Bahawalpur March 2011

Photos 125 years celebrations at Sadiq Egerton College Bahawalpur

Photos 125 years celebrations at Sadiq Egerton College Bahawalpur

 

Photos 125 years celebrations at Sadiq Egerton College Bahawalpur

Photos 125 years celebrations at Sadiq Egerton College Bahawalpur

 

As a matter of fact

Author: By M J Akbar

June 24, 2012 on 9:41 AM

The rich now want money from the poor

Facts come in every shape, size, variety. Their survival is determined not by value but by how inexplicable they are. The human being has 23,000 genes, only “half as many as a tomato”, I am told. But humbling as this formative fact of life might be, it does not quite catch the imagination as much as the perplexity called death, particularly when death escapes the boundaries of reason: A plague decimates a continent, war murders a generation, or an evil maniac orders a genocide.

Statistics distil facts to stark simplicity. Between September 1939 and August 1945, the period of the Second World War, 27,000 people were killed each day. (This figure does not include war-related casualties like the three million-odd Bengalis who died of a famine that was a direct consequence of war policy.) There is always enough to be learnt from war, its machines and its machinations. Guess who is the largest buyer of oil in the world? If you thought it was a country, wrong. The Pentagon.

America’s military consumes more oil each year than the whole of Africa. And yet, when you think about it, is this very startling? The armies of the British Empire surely drank up more oil than all the colonies they ruled. None of us were there to count, and contemporary historians had more delicious details to record, but you can safely bet that Rome alone had more chariots than the rest of the Roman Empire.

It has always been thus. To the victor goes not only the spoils of war but also the far more substantial rewards of its blanket peace: A Pax Romana then, a Pax Americana now. So what’s the story? The privileges of power have not changed, but the world has.

If the ascent of America begins with victory in the First World War; its supremacy after the Second; and domination after the Third (also known as the Cold) War, then many of today’s contradictions also lie in the liberal ideas that America encouraged as a template for the future it hoped to control. America sought the rights of power without the problems or obvious injustice of foreign rule. It tried to fashion, particularly after 1992, what might be called the Good Empire as distinct from the Evil Empire (Ronald Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union). The thesis, broadly, was this: All nations would be equal; post-colonial nations would be formed on the basis of public will, with claims being resolved by plebiscite; the world as well as its parts would be governed by the broad principles of democracy.

Confusion is the bridesmaid of change, so after the applause died down there was achievement, failure and bewilderment in roughly equal measure. The fault line of democracy is that while it offers equal rights in theory, it does not guarantee equality in practice. Every vote has the same weight, but every voter does not possess equal weightage, whether in a municipality or the United Nations. Wealth feeds power and power reinforces wealth, both at the macro and micro levels.

In countries like India, the co-existence of democracy with degrading poverty cannot be easily justified, by either idealism or intellect. But poverty is both absolute and comparative. America’s poor, famously, are better off than the middle class in most of the world. However, they do not compare themselves to sub-Saharan Africa, thank God for their good fortune, and live happily ever after. They get angry with their president when their comfort zone is threatened. No child suffers the anguish of malnutrition in Greece, and yet Greek rage at loss of standards of living has boiled over into a volatile crisis. The battles being fought across the world are over inequity, a perception of injustice. Democracy does not, unlike socialism, offer economic equality, which is impossible; but its spirit does insist on economic equity. When disparity between the top 5 per cent and bottom 50 per cent becomes obscene, the deprived do not remain silent forever.

The establishment’s traditional response has been to blame the victim. But democracy permits a victim to scream, and the Greeks are doing so pretty loudly. Europe and America are rushing to its help, as they should if they want to. It does seem odd, though, that India, where 50 times the population of Greece lives below the poverty line, should gift $10 billion to help resolve a problem it did not cause. Till two decades ago, rich nations still felt some mild moral obligation to reduce poverty through aid. They now expect aid from the poor.

Miraculously, they get it. Delhi cannot find Rs 20,000 crore for Bengal, but hands over Rs 56,000 crore for Greece. Bengal’s poor can shout as much as the Greeks. Will India ever get this money back? Fact from history: Greece is still waiting for Germany to pay what it claimed as reparations after the Second World War.



The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.

Budget highlights 2012-13

Following are the highlights of the Budget Speech for the financial year 2012-13 of Federal Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in the National Assembly here on Friday:

* Total budget volume Rs2,960 billion.

* Gross Revenue Receipts (estimated) for Year 2012-13 Rs3,234 billion.

* FBR sets Rs2,381 billion tax collection target.

* Rs1,459 billion to be transferred to provinces under NFC Award.

* Budget deficit likely to remain at Rs1,185 billion.

* Provincial Surplus estimated at Rs80 billion.

* Rs70 billion to be allocated for BISP.

* Rs10 billion to be allocated for Export Development Fund.

* 10% additional discount at Utility Stores on different commodities for BISP cardholders.

* Govt to set up 2,000 new Utility Stores, 35,000 families to get relief.

* 100,000 youth to get internships, technical training.

Bachelor, master degree holders to get 40,000 internships each in public and private sector.

* 20,000 graduates to be imparted skilled training to fulfil domestic and foreign demand.

* Govt to pay tuition fee of PhD and master students belonging to Balochistan, Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan.

* 20% ad hoc relief in pay and pension of Federal Government Employees.

* Income Tax Exemption Limit enhanced upto Rs400,000.

* Tax on Business Turnover reduced from 1% to 0.5%.

* Withholding tax ceiling for cash withdrawal from banks enhanced from Rs25,000 to Rs50,000.

* Federal Excise Duty on 10 items abolished.

* Federal Excise Duty on cement reduced from Rs750 to 500 per metric tonne.

* 18 raw materials, 9 components being used for text books, stationary exempted from Customs Duty.

* Customs duty reduced from 10% to 5% on 88 raw materials of Pharmaceutical Industry.

* Growth rate remains at 3.7 % as compared to 3.4 % during last two years.

* Pakistan repay $1.2 billion of loans to IMF.

* Sales Tax rate reduced from 17% to 16%.

* Current expenditure registers 10% decrease.

* Total volume of grants reaches 70% of Divisible Pool.

* Parliament passes 24 laws to empower women during last four years.

* Inflation reduced to 11%, next year it will be cut down to single digit.

* Tax Revenue registers 46% increase, tax collection increases from Rs.1327 billion to Rs.1950 billion.

* Subsidy of Rs50 billion given on fertilizer.

* Industrial growth rate projected to 3.4% this year against 3.1% last year.

* Subsidies of Rs1,250 billion given on electricity sector during last five years.

* Govt injected 3500MW of electricity to National Grid.

* Pakistan to get 2 billion cubic feet of gas from Pak-Iran gas pipeline, Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan India gas pipeline.

* 500 million cubic feet of LNG will be made available for consumers.

* Govt gave relief of Rs70 billion on petroleum products.

* National Economic Council approved Annual Development Plan of Rs873 billion.

* Federal Government share in Annual Development Plan is Rs300 billion.

* 200 projects completed under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) at a cost of Rs300 billion.

* Govt allocates Rs360 billion under PSDP for 96 ongoing projects.

* Rs69 billion earmarked for Electricity sector, Wapda, electric companies will be given Rs115 billion.

* Rs44 billion for Social Sector.

* Fata, Gilgit-Baltistan, AJK to get Rs37 billion.

* Rs16 billion allocated for Higher Education.

* Rs84 billion allocated for Transport and Communication (Rs51 billion for NHA, Rs23 billion for Railways).

* Balochistan share increases upto 9.09% in Divisible Pool.

* Govt accepted Rs120 billion as royalty on gas sale from 1954 to 1991 for Balochistan.

* Federal Government to finance 11,500 jobs for Baloch youth.

* Block Development Allocation enhanced up to Rs16 billion for Gilgit-Baltistan.

* Rs10 billion allocated for mega project in Gilgit-Baltistan.

* Rs17 billion allocated in PSDP for Fata.

* Rs12 billion for development projects, Rs16.5 billion allocated for current expenditure for Azad Kashmir besides a loan of Rs8.5 billion.

* Remittances by overseas Pakistan touch $13 billion mark during last two years.

* Exports register 28% increase, volume touches $25 billion mark.

Turn Adversaries into Allies

Tip of the day
Anyone who has faced rivals at work — bosses who take all the credit, team members who undermine things — knows how difficult it is to ignore them. Instead, turn your adversaries into collaborators by following these three steps: Redirect. Try to channel your rival's negative emotions away from you by bringing up something you have in common, or talking about the source of the tension in a favorable light. Reciprocate. Give up something of value to your rival — help complete a project or divulge important information — so you are poised to ask for something in return. Reason. Explain that not working together cooperatively could mean lost opportunities. Most people are highly motivated to avoid a loss.

To Save Pakistan, Author Says U.S. Needs Plan for Afghanistan

By Michael Coleman
Uploaded on April 30, 2012

News articles and media commentators frequently describe Pakistan as a dangerous place — the world's most dangerous, according to many observers — but few, if any, can match the vivid, sometimes frightening reporting of celebrated journalist Ahmed Rashid.
Rashid, once called Pakistan's "best and bravest reporter" by the late author Christopher Hitchens, exploded into the international consciousness in 2001 with "Taliban," a New York Times number-one bestseller that was translated into more than 20 languages. The book helped readers better understand the brutal regime that hijacked Afghanistan and incubated the terrorist group behind the 9/11 attacks. He earned widespread acclaim for his 2008 follow-up, "Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia."

Photo: Ahmed Rashid

Now, Rashid, based in Lahore, is back with "Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan." The book examines U.S. policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan and how the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will affect international terrorism and a region vital to world security. While the subject matter is grim, Rashid offers clear-eyed suggestions for a peaceful path forward, including the provocative notion that the United States and Pakistan should negotiate a political compromise with the Taliban.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Diplomat, Rashid said he wrote his book "with the very acute realization that Pakistan was literally going down the tubes."
In fact, just days after the interview, Taliban fighters stormed a prison in northwestern Pakistan, freeing nearly 400 inmates in what is being called the biggest jailbreak in the country's history. At the same time in Afghanistan, officials in that country were blaming the Haqqani network of the Taliban, based in Pakistan, for a coordinated series of attacks that paralyzed the capital of Kabul in mid-April.
As for U.S.-Pakistani relations, they seem to plunge to ever-lower depths as each new crisis explodes. Bilateral ties — already strained in the wake of the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a secret compound about an hour north of Islamabad — ruptured following a NATO air attack in November that mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. As a result, the Pakistani Parliament underwent a complete review of its relationship with the United States, demanding an immediate end to drone strikes and an unconditional apology for the strike on Pakistani soldiers.
There was speculation that with the review finished, Pakistan might reopen a critical NATO supply route to Afghanistan. "We are a responsible nation," Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told Parliament, though he wouldn't confirm if the route would reopen. "We know our obligations as well as the importance of the United States."
Yet Rashid argues that Pakistani leaders have long fostered a narrative that blames everyone — and especially America — for the South Asian nation's precarious state, when the overwhelming evidence is that many of its troubles are homegrown. Rashid's newest book begins in 1989, at the twilight of the Cold War.
"When the Cold War ended, Pakistan did not change at all," Rashid said. "It remained heavily dependent on the United States, the elite refused to pay taxes, and we pursued a foreign policy that was expansionist and aggressive."
Rashid argues that while Pakistan made terrible domestic political decisions, the United States enabled the country's government by pouring aid into a Pakistani military that made no effort to account for its spending. The situation dramatically worsened after al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Rashid said. In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has sent $20 billion to Pakistan and has little to show for it.
"That's a hell of a lot of money," Rashid said. "Eighty percent of that money has gone to the military, and there has been no accounting of that money in the civil sector. How do they account for it?"
Rashid says the gravy train started with former President George W. Bush and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who made backroom deals that allowed CIA agents and U.S. Special Forces to infiltrate the country in exchange for truckloads of American cash.
"People essentially said, 'Give us something that is visible and tangible,'" Rashid charged. "They said, 'Don't give us this democracy support bullshit.'"
However, rank-and-file Pakistanis, who are among the world's poorest people, resented the aid, which went almost exclusively to the all-powerful military.
"There was deep suspicion about America's intentions," Rashid said, adding that the two countries should have been more transparent. "I think if [Pakistan] had been more responsive earlier to this whole notion of civilian aid and a strategic dialogue with the U.S., we could have worked out something that would be more balanced."
Rashid says the Obama administration has largely continued these secretive policies, as evidenced by the record number of surreptitious drone strikes in the country.
"These secret deals deeply annoyed the people of Pakistan and that's one of the reasons for this anti-Americanism," he said. "There is a horrendous spate of anti-Americanism that's going on, which is extremely dangerous because along with that comes anti-democracy, extremism and outright religious conservatism."
Rashid also argues that the glut of American money has made the deadly, decade-long U.S. exercise in Afghanistan — inextricably linked to neighboring Pakistan — vastly more expensive and ineffective than it needed to be. During the initial U.S. invasion in 2001, Rashid and other experts in the region met with top officials at the White House and suggested a modest plan to rebuild the country after the toppling of the Taliban.
Over the past 11 years, the United States has sunk more than $500 billion into the war in Afghanistan. Rashid and the other experts argued that stabilizing the country could have been done for a fraction of that amount.
"We estimated if you gave the Afghan government $5 billion per year just for development for 10 years, that was all the Afghans could absorb," he said. "It would have sufficiently rebuilt the economy to where it was in 1978 before the Soviets came in.
"I would claim right now that unfortunately the West has not even been able to do that despite spending billions on so-called development," Rashid continued. "Apart from some areas where there have been huge contributions, particularly education and health care, as far as developing an indigenous economy, agriculture, infrastructure, there hasn't been much done at all. It's difficult to see how it has come up to the level even of what it was in 1978."
Although President Obama pledged and delivered more resources toward the fight in Afghanistan, he's largely pursued a military-centric approach in both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, especially given the successes of drone strikes and special ops raids that have decapitated the bulk of al-Qaeda's leadership.
The hallmark achievement of this counterterrorism strategy was the killing of Osama bin Laden a year ago during a covert U.S. raid in the midsize town of Abbottabad, where the terrorist mastermind had essentially been hiding in plain sight of Pakistani military forces.
While celebrated in the United States, bin Laden's death marked a pivotal turning point in U.S.-Pakistani relations, especially after the circumstances of the midnight raid came to light, Rashid told The Diplomat.
"Initially, people welcomed his death," the author said. "But then what happened is the Pakistani press lambasted the military and raised two issues that remain unresolved.
"Were they hiding Osama? And if they weren't hiding him, they were bloody incompetent," Rashid said. "That caused immense embarrassment and questioning inside the military. Then the military came back and [said] these are not the questions. They said the real question is, 'Is America breaking our sovereignty by intruding into Pakistan, etc.' That then became the new mantra."
Rashid explains in his book, and in his Diplomat interview, that he's not buying the military's attempt to change the subject.
"The military tried to change the narrative," he said. "We can get to the sovereignty question later, but first they need to answer these questions. Not only did nobody answer them, but there was no accountability. Nobody was sacked or fired and nobody was held responsible."
Why not?
"There was acute embarrassment, but also in the lower ranks of officers there was acute anti-Americanism," he replied. "I think the high command was faced with a barrage of criticism from the mid-level officers who wanted the army to denounce the Americans."
So what can the United States do to try to lift the abysmal state of relations with a hostile, nuclear-armed, Muslim nation?
The most important thing it can do, according to Rashid, is to get out of Afghanistan.
"I do think a withdrawal will be hugely beneficial to Pakistan," he argues. "We have our own Taliban now who are very dangerous. If there could be a political settlement between [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and the Taliban and the Americans that allows the Americans to withdraw in a peaceful situation, I think it would have a huge effect on de-fanging and de-legitimizing the Taliban.
"One of their claims of a legitimate jihad is that they are fighting with their Afghan brothers against the American occupation," he added. "That is a legitimate jihad, but if that reason was to disappear tomorrow, or in 2014 [the planned U.S. withdrawal date], so does one of their main planks. That would have a huge impact."
Rashid contends that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan will also remove a convenient excuse for Pakistani leaders trying to explain the sorry state of affairs in their country.
"We would no longer have this excuse that everything is going wrong because of the Americans or the American presence in Afghanistan," he said. "We would be forced to look at ourselves and sort out our own problems, rather than blaming others for them.
"Pakistan would be forced into a kind of self-sufficiency."
But Rashid does not advocate a hasty withdrawal, especially in the absence of a political agreement in Afghanistan, where he says the Taliban must be dealt with somehow before U.S. troops head for the exits.
"There has to be a negotiated political settlement with the Taliban," Rashid said. "The Americans cannot leave Afghanistan with that country in a state of civil war as it is today. The Americans can only leave that country with a relative reduction of violence.
"If you leave that country in a state of civil war, the Afghan army isn't going to stand up to the pressure of the Taliban," he warned. "I think in a year or two, the government would collapse and there would be a multidimensional civil war. It would spread its tentacles into all the neighboring states and even allow al-Qaeda to come back."
Rashid suggested a two-pronged approach. The first phase would be a military ceasefire between the United States and the Taliban after extended exercises in "confidence and trust building." The second part would be a power-sharing agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with representation from all sectors of Afghan society — including women.
"The Taliban has to meet with Afghan women and be exposed to Afghan women who have in the last 10 years gotten educated, gotten jobs and are working," he said. "This is a generation of women the Taliban have never even met with. They can't even conceive of them."
He also suggested that the primitive religious group be given modern offices.
"If we can open an office for the Taliban [in Afghanistan] and have negotiations, the more you can expose the Taliban to modern Afghan society — urbanized Afghans — the more you'll be forcing the Taliban to moderate their positions."
Of course, that's assuming the Taliban is even willing to enter into peace talks, a concept that's been tentatively in the works for years, only to be derailed by incidents such as the alleged massacre of 17 Afghan civilians at the hands of a U.S. soldier, as well as the Taliban assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a top Karzai emissary in the proposed negotiations.
Despite the difficulties, Rashid says the alternative is worse. "The grimmest outcome would result from a botched, overly hasty Western withdrawal, the absence of a political settlement with the Taliban, a continuing civil war in Afghanistan, the Pakistani leaders' continuing resistance to internal reform, the army's refusal to seek a compromise on Afghanistan with the United States and Afghans, and a consequent meltdown of the Pakistani state," he warns in "Pakistan on the Brink."
To that end, if the region implodes, Rashid says there would be plenty of blame to go around. "Obama and his senior officials share a major part of the blame because their failure to act as a team has resulted in contradictory policies, intense political infighting, and uncertainty about U.S. aims and objectives in the region," he wrote.
At the same time, Rashid blasts the Pakistani military for its obsession with Indian hegemony, the Kashmiri cause, protecting its nuclear program, and ensuring a pro-Pakistani government in Kabul — despite U.S. pressure and money.
"Its political and military leadership has shown neither the courage nor the will nor the intelligence to carry out major reforms in the country's foreign and economic policies," he charges. "The military has allowed the Afghan Taliban factions and their leaders safe sanctuary and support ever since 2001 — something the Americans knew well but failed to raise effectively. Social services are near collapse, law enforcement is abysmal, economic hardship is widespread, natural disasters occur with little or no government assistance, and the majority of the population has no security."
This kind of blunt talk is unquestionably dangerous in Pakistan, where shadowy violence abounds — as does shadowy Machiavellian politics. (Islamabad's former ambassador in Washington, Husain Haqqani, became ensnared in a bizarre controversy last year revolving a memo purportedly orchestrated by the civilian government asking the U.S. for help reining in the military.)
The Committee to Protect Journalists declared Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world for reporters in 2011, with seven journalists dying in the tumultuous nation that year. Rashid said he's well aware of the perils of his work.
"I'm very outspoken, but one tends to play a cat-and-mouse game with the extremists and the terrorist agencies," he said. "It's become very hard to become a journalist in Pakistan. The threats and harassment journalists face are very real. I feel them all the time.
"But this is very important and I don't think Pakistan can be ignored."
Rashid also encourages American policymakers to re-evaluate their attitudes toward Pakistan, especially those who might want to dismiss the nation as a lost cause.
"The tendency of some in Congress to say 'let them go hang' doesn't make sense," he told us. "It's a geostrategic linchpin in South Asia and West Asia, and its location on the Gulf makes it extremely important for the U.S. oil supply and global stability.
"It also happens to house the full range of Islamic extremists — local, Arab, Central Asian, the Chechens."
So what to do about those terrorists, especially the radical Taliban? Rashid proposes the radical notion of rehabilitating them, when possible, rather than killing them.
"There has to be a change in foreign policy," he said. "We have to wake up to the new reality that we have to de-fang these militants, not through military action necessarily but through some kind of reconciliation program."
He pointed to a program in Saudi Arabia in which young al-Qaeda recruits were captured and initially imprisoned, then gradually re-indoctrinated through the intervention of moderate mullahs.
"They didn't kill them, but put them into jails which became residential accommodations and they kept them there for many years and had them indoctrinated by mullahs, got them degrees and skills, got them married, and gave them psychological treatment.
"It's been a very successful program and we could probably get funding for something like that," he said. "We need to do that on a much larger scale in Pakistan, and I think if we did that there would be a lot of Western support.
"In the 21st century, we cannot maintain extremists on our soil as an arm of foreign policy," he added. "That era has gone. It was possible during the Cold War because the fundamentalists were anti-Soviet and the Americans also funded extremists — Osama bin Laden and all kinds of groups. After 9/11, that era has ended."

Recycled Thought: From Procedural to Substantive Democracy

Recycled Thought: From Procedural to Substantive Democracy: One of the fundamental reasons why some of us prefer to fight for greater democracy in this country is because it remains the only attainabl...

Lost opportunity?

 Dawn

By Moeed Yusuf | 4/16/2012 12:00:00 AMPAKISTAN`S civil-military landscape has begun to change quite significantly. The independent media, judicial activism, the military`s preoccupation with the fight against terrorism, and geopolitical developments had already set the ball rolling.

But a number of embarrassing developments for the military in 2011 have ended up opening up unprecedented space for the civilians in the national security and foreign policy arena.

The trend is nascent but not to be ignored. Most countries that have managed to correct civil-military imbalances start off with incremental steps and are often helped along by unplanned and unexpected developments that incentivise new behaviour patterns on the part of the militaries and greater responsibility by the civilian authorities.Of course, not all manage this feat. There is voluminous literature attempting to identify the key factors that determine whether a country is able to redress civil-military imbalances. And while evidence shows that ahost of complex factors tend to align before this paradigm shift takes place, one of the most critical happens to be the ability of the civilians to prove their capacity and competence by outperforming the militaries.

In cases where civilians have managed to use the space available to them to produce impressive outputs, the chances of a permanent correction in the institutional imbalance are much greater.

The past weeks have provided us with an opportunity to see the Pakistani civilian enclave take charge of one of the most critical foreign policy issues: the relationship with the US.

The development was entirely positive as it allowed a civilian-led process to take precedence over ad hoc, non-transparent decision-making by a handful of individuals that had otherwise been the norm in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the outcome has left much to be desired.

For one, the review process was dragged onforfar too long. The upper hand in terms of the US being on the back foot after Salala that Pakistan went into the review with has been lost.

In fact, as I discussed in a recent column in this space, the lack of closure on the review forced the US to consider alter-host of complex factors tend to align before this paradigm shift takes place, one of the most critical happens to be the ability of the civilians to prove their capacity and competence by outperforming the militaries.

In cases where civilians have managed to use the space available to them to produce impressive outputs, the chances of a permanent correction in the institutional imbalance are much greater.

The past weeks have provided us with an opportunity to see the Pakistani civilian enclave take charge of one of the most critical foreign policy issues: the relationship with the US.

The development was entirely positive as it allowed a civilian-led process to take precedence over ad hoc, non-transparent decision-making by a handful of individuals that had otherwise been the norm in Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the outcome has left much to be desired.

For one, the review process was dragged onforfar too long. The upper hand in terms of the US being on the back foot after Salala that Pakistan went into the review with has been lost.

In fact, as I discussed in a recent column in this space, the lack of closure on the review forced the US to consider alter-natives, however imperfect, more seriously. Going forward, this experience will only lead Washington to reinforce channels that tend to reduce reliance on Pakistan.

But let us set aside this brinkmanship game.

The real issue is that if Pakistan is committed to peace in Afghanistan and wants to play a major role in the reconciliation process next door, it needed to re-engage swiftly. By dragging out the process, while it has certainly hurt the US agenda, it has not done itself any favours. The more time the two sides lose in terms of working together on Afghanistan, the lesser the likelihood of a sustainable deal and the greater the possibility of the dreaded civil war.

Nothing could be worse from Pakistan`s perspective.

There is no better indicator of the problems with the review process than the fact that the civilian and military authorities themselves opened up paral-lel tracks to reinitiate interaction with US officials much before parliament approved the recommendations. This was contrary to the initial stance of `no contact` till parliament agreed on a new course for the relationship. Heads of government have met; so have the Pakistani foreign minister and US secretary of state; as have the top military officials. Indeed, smart statecraft demanded this move. But it also undermined the sanctity of the review process.

Second, the very tenor of the debate, underpinned by emotive rhetoric rather than sound policy thinking bodes ill for parliament`s efforts to claim its right to oversee this business in the future.

Behind closed doors, some within the executive branch were wondering days ago how long the debate on the floor could continue before the executive would simply have to push for a closure to the debate and then determine a realistic set of final conditions for the relationship`s reset even at the cost of defying the mood in parliament.

This is still likely since in terms of the substance of the recommendations, the review has failed to balance politicking with the necessities of statecraft. The hawkish line has been pushed too far -to the point that the Pakistani position has been boxed in by rather dogmatic conditions. Some of parliament`s demands are ones that the civilian and military authorities themselves may be both unwilling and unable to implement.

The most obvious example is drones.

It is not at all clear if the military is as opposed to selective drone strikes as it portrays in public and it is fairly obvious that there is little it can do should the strikes continue. Consider Pakistan`s options upon the next drone strike: will the state remain mum and thereby defy parliament, or will it respond harshly and create a fresh crisis in the bilateral relationship? Other recommendations like disallowing weapons to pass through the Nato supply route may also be impossible to implement.

Looking to the days ahead, the state machinery will inevitably end up bypassing or disregarding some of recommendations in the interest of keeping the relationship going. But since this wouldbe done in defiance of parliament`s verdict, it would potentially widen the intra-civilian (government versus opposition) and civil-military divides.

Corollary: we are likely to witness far more politically motivatedmudslinging on this issue among the civilians and between them and the military in the days ahead. The right-wing rhetoric is likely to gain further as it bashes the authorities for having disregarded parliament to appease the US.

The parliamentary review was a great opportunity for the civilians to begin claiming back more of their rightful space in decision-making on security/foreign policy issues. But what could have been a precedent-setting event may now be seen as a reason not to try the parliamentary channel next time round.

As unfair as this outcome may be given that Pakistani politicians have never had a real chance to develop collective thinking on these issues and that much of the problems that beset the USPakistan relationship originated under the military regime of Gen Musharraf, empirical evidence from elsewhere nonetheless holds out a staunch warning for troubled democracies whose civilian enclaves miss such opportunities to impress too often. The odds are stacked against them and in favour of the status quo power institutions the military.

This is just the reality of it. • The writer is South Asia adviser at the US Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C.

A foreign-born scholar of Pakistani descent, Dr Azeem Ibrahim, a PhD from Cambridge University, a former Research Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a World Fellow at Yale, world's top three seats of learning, has joined Imran Khan and has been named his Strategic Policy Development Advisor.
In a special article for The News, Dr Azeem said it was time the country achieved its "second independence" and threw off the denigrating suggestions that it is a failed state, a client state or a country on the brink of disaster.
He writes: "When Pakistan became independent in 1947, its founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah envisaged a democratic country embodying the essential principles of Islam, rather than being a theocratic state. "Sixty five years later, his vision of a democratic state has yet to be fully realized. Pakistan is still awaiting true independence - freedom from being a client state, freedom from fear of its neighbour India and freedom from economic disasters, military adventurism and political instability.
"To achieve these freedoms, Pakistan must look to new leadership - strong, informed and visionary yet pragmatic leadership. This is why I joined the team of Imran Khan, chairman of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party and likely the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. As a foreign-born Pakistani and independent academic, I look at Pakistan with pride in my heritage and great hopes for its political and economic future.
Pakistan has lurched from one unfulfilled democratic government to military rule and back again - each change bringing false hopes for meaningful change. Without respect for a strong constitution, Pakistan's leaders so far have been unable to rise above the enormity of Pakistan's problems and all in their different ways have failed to bring real democracy to the country.
The corruption and nepotism which has marred Pakistan's politics continues to offset the power struggles between mosque, military and political parties. Some of the most refreshing revelations came recently with the release of thousands of classified US State Department cables through WikiLeaks.
The published cables revealed that Pakistan saw the drone attacks as so effective that they wanted some of their own. President Asif Ali Zardari "made repeated pleas for drones to be put in Pakistan's hands, so that Pakistan would own the issue and drone attacks (including collateral damage) would not provoke anti-Americanism", one of the cables said. Another Pakistani leader is quoted as saying about the drone attacks," I don't care if they do it as long as they get the right people. We'll protest in the National Assembly and then ignore it."
Also revealed was the duplicity of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leaders who had informed the Americans that, in spite of the party's demands to have the chief justice reinstated, they did not really care for Iftikhar Chaudhry and hoped to remove him once they had scored the requisite political points. Denials were immediately forthcoming but the many disclosures from WikiLeaks - often in less than diplomatic language - prove the duplicity and corruption of politics endemic in Pakistan today.
After a careful reading of the WikiLeaks cables relating to Pakistan, I established that Imran Khan was the only person who said the same thing in private that he said in public and I am convinced that this was a man and a movement I could be associated with as an independent academic and policy expert.
After meeting with Imran Khan on several occasions, I was even more convinced that he is the leader Pakistan needs to move the country forward, finally realizing the destiny that Jinnah had envisioned. Our long and detailed sessions discussing his plans for a new Pakistan, reveal a man with an unusual ability to absorb complex information and to ask the right questions. His recognition that there are no simplistic solutions is a necessary starting point - it is not the economy, the military budget, the lack of spending on education, jobs and healthcare - it is a combination of all of these within the global environment of diminishing resources that needs addressing. The changing nature of the European Community and the shifting economies of China and the United States all must be factored in to Pakistan's future and I believe that Imran Khan has the capacity as statesman, not just politician, to understand these complexities as well as to deal with national issues.
I feel privileged to be invited to be a part of the planning process, and to be considered a strategic policy adviser to the Khan campaign as it transitions from an opposition party to a government in waiting. I believe that Imran Khan is not only the best hope for Pakistan right now, but he is the only hope and his success in the next election- whenever that will be - will be an embodiment of the hopes and dreams identified by Jinnah for Pakistan those sixty- five momentous years ago.