Center for a New American Security

A couple of people have made the point that I skipped over India in my overview of Pakistan-US relations. It's a fair point. India is a post by itself (hence the new post). India does of course come into the equation in any discussions about Pakistan and the US, and that's likely to increase in the future. I don't mean to downplay the India angle, but from the point of view of US-Pak relations, it still boils down to the issue of Pakistan's political and economic independence, which itself comes down to building a stable political system internally.

But yes, there's more to Pakistan's relationship with India than just that... India is special because it is intrinsically linked to Pakistan's self image.

A Pakistani diplomat I met in Jordan once asked me, "You've worked in the Middle East. Tell me, how is it that the Arabs are so much better at building a long-term relationship with the US than us."

The question troubled me on a number of levels. I know the diplomat is thinking about the aid Egypt has received since 1982, and continual political and diplomatic support that has allowed the Egyptian state to become a disfigured behemoth. Jordan is propped up by military aid and free trade agreements while Saudi Arabia (and other Gulf states) find excuses to push their cash towards America so they get the big-power umbrella they need to survive. The main threat to these countries is that the ruling family will be deposed by their own people. I'd never worked in Pakistan at that point, and I found it worrying that from what I knew about the place. The fact that Pakistan isn't a centralised one-party/family state is a strength. Did the Pakistani establishment really think becoming Egypt or Jordan was the best direction for their country?

Whereas Arab countries are fearful for their ruling families (probably rightly so), Pakistan's fear is India. And whereas America's relationship - individually - with each of those states is more important to the smaller country than to America, as a whole it represents the foreign policy strategy that America uses to maintain its economy and position in the world.

For the Arab states mentioned above (apart from Egypt) their present form is largely based around a ruling family. So their narrow ruling classes are right in seeing a threat to the rulers as a threat to the country as a whole. Pakistan is based on an idea rather than a ruling family. That idea is a vague political conceptualisation of Islam. The threat to that idea is personified by India. An India that includes a peaceful Muslim-majority Kashmir knocks the most basic sense of the idea behind Pakistan; that Muslims would risk being wiped out physically and culturally while also removed from the history books if they were subsumed by the Hindu masses. An India at war with itself (in Kashmir and other non-Muslim provinces) proves the idea that Pakistan's founders were right to push for self determination and escape the "clutches of the conceited Hindu rulers of India" (as they would have put it).

This doesn't mean India is totally blameless. Historical evidence suggests that Pakistan's founders didn't expect to have the kind of relationship with India the country has today. It's speculated that Pakistan's founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, left some of his family and property in India at the time of partition because he thought he'd be able to travel between the two new Commonwealth states that both retained the Queen as their head of state and senior British Army officers heading their armed forces. In the early days Pakistan and India briefly talked about common defence agreements even while Kashmir lay unresolved.

In reality, Pakistan's founders, Jinnah in particular, probably saw Pakistan as a largely secular Muslim state with cultural and economic ties to both the UK and India. The point of Pakistan, in his mind, was not that every South Asian Muslim should live under Muslim rule, but that Muslims of the subcontinent would again be able to chart their political and economic destiny on their own terms as they did before the Indian Mutiny (First War of Independence) of 1857. India, he thought, would behave better to its Muslim minority when its regional power was checked by a Muslim neighbour. Also, it's worth remembering that Pakistan's squaring up to India hasn't always seemed like total folly. For many years, Pakistan had higher (but more volatile) economic growth rates and its industrial base and infrastructure was superior. Although Pakistan had the smaller army, it modelled itself on the numerically inferior Western forces designed to face a larger Warsaw Pact opponent. An approach the Israelis have used successfully against their Arab foes. India has surged ahead in the past 15 years, while Pakistan has really struggled in the last five.

The only future for Pakistan is a truly independent one. Relying on China as its patron is not wise. If India and China make common cause, Pakistan will again be out in the cold. China also has a Muslim minority that it doesn't always treat well. The potential for linkages to develop between Pakistan-backed elements working with or influencing Chinese Muslim discontent is high.

The only real future for Pakistan (or any country) is a truly independent one so that it has the confidence to engage the wider world on the basis of mutual interest. Pakistan will need peace with India if it is to stand on its own feet. But peace with India means building some sort of national consensus around Pakistan's identity, which is going to be a seriously tough prospect. There are infinite parallel universes of competing interests and visions. The easier option (which India indirectly encouraged) has been to build an identity around the idea of anti-Indianess and finding a big power patron to support Pakistan enough to avoid having to do any real meaningful country building. The only sort of government that will be able to start that process will be one with popular legitimacy. ie a democratic government that is seen as competent and sincere. That in itself is a huge challenge.

But perhaps this is where US policy can come in useful. By pushing the two countries together and pressuring them to make a real and lasting peace with a solution to Kashmir could kickstart Pakistan's inner conversation about itself. Right now, the only people with a compelling line of argument are extremists.

"I'm curious, though, to hear from my Islamabad-based blogging partner how he would square the circle facing U.S. policy-makers."

Right, well... hmm... I feel slightly fraudulent even assuming I can answer this question when the issue of Pakistan is befuddling lorry loads of eminent people even as I type.

Much is said about Pakistan, but I'm constantly saddened that so many innocent pixels are lost without good cause. Americans talk about what their country's policy should be towards Pakistan with almost as much vigour as Pakistanis when they talk about what their government should do about America. But none of the indignant laments get us any further to finding a way forward.

US commentators seem to see Pakistan through a very narrow time line that stretches as far back as 9/11 and as far forward as the end of the US involvement in Afghanistan. In turn, Pakistanis see their problem with extremism as starting with 9/11 and ending with the pullout of the last US soldiers from Kabul. Both views are as flawed as they are intertwined. Extremism has deep roots in Pakistan that were fed mainly by opportunistic politicians and army men while Pakistan's international friends looked away or actually helped. It's the results of that extremism that now draw the US to Afghanistan and what will continue to trouble it even when the last soldiers leave.

If no one objects, I'll take the medium to long term view of US policy towards Pakistan because the short term is dominated by Afghanistan and the tone will be set by American efforts to talk to elements of the Taliban and withdrawing in the next year or two. If the US wants to talk to the Taliban and relies on Pakistani help to do so, some might well see that as a victory of sorts for the Pakistani military's decision not to go hard after the Afghan Taliban. However, it would have come at a massive cost in terms of the violence and instability spreading now throughout Pakistan. However, even if the gamble is seen to have paid off and Pakistan gets to act as mediator and ends up with a fairly friendly regime residing in Kabul, that will not be the end of it, for Pakistan or the United States.

At the risk of sounding reductive, I would summarise the present situation thus: Pakistan, and much of the Muslim world, are largely rural landscapes with a fast-spreading media industry. In the various bits of travelling I've done in Pakistan, Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East, I've found that most people in rural areas have heard little of the outside world. In most cases 9/11 means little and America, the UK, France and Germany are an incoherent jumble of places ruled by a king who lives in a palace called London. Abu Muqawama is the resident expert on COIN, insurgency and guerrilla war, but whenever I hear of a new attack planned by militants on civilians in the States or Europe, I can't help but thinking that it sounds like the kind of action insurgents have under taken since the dawn of warfare: attack a larger power in the name of honour/justice etc and provoke a disproportionate backlash that rallies the undecided masses around your cause.

i still marvel in horror at the ability of extremists against all conventional logic (Western assets, Muslim views) to make their narrative of events sound the more plausible to the increasing number of people becoming integrated into the global media and political landscape. This is more to do with the failure of Muslim leadership and the misdirection of Western efforts than the actual truth or abilities of the extremists.

Keeping that in mind; probably the most talked about issue when it comes to Pakistan is "the nukes. Conventional wisdom says; Pakistan deserves attention because of its nuclear status.

"It's all about the nukes."

Now, actually, that statement would probably be agreed on by your typical informed Pakistani and American, but from two totally different positions. Many commentators over in Washington, London, Brussels etc regularly paint a doomsday scenario that involves wild-eyed bearded men grabbing nukes and running off into the mountains. Whereas in Pakistan, the newspaper reading public is convinced the US is constantly planning to send black-clad Blackwater special forces to grab Pakistan's Islamic bomb and fly off in helicopters in the direction of Israel or India.

In truth, the problem crystallising in Pakistan is more about gradual state breakdown, ungoverned spaces, increased regional instability, internal chaos and the spiralling of events in such a fashion that the extremist fairytale starts resembling a plausible reality. It's depressingly more likely that someone like Faisal Shehzad succeeds in taking advantage of the increasing writ of militant groups  to attack and kill people in America, India or elsewhere with regular arms and not nuclear weapons. In this scenario we could expect some sort of action on Pakistani soil and/or more Quran burning etc in the US and Europe, which would then play into the "War on Islam" talk.

Basically, nuclear weapons need not fit into a nightmare scenario facing Pakistan. Yes, it's worth worrying about, but it's not the start an end of the threat the situation in Pakistan poses to the region and the wider world.

Extremism: The well-repeated view in Pakistan on violence and extremism within the country is that it started with the US war in Afghanistan and will end with it. The corresponding misunderstanding in the West is that Pakistan's secret cabal of generals are al Qaeda's ideological comrades and the population is genetically prone to extremism.

Pakistan's problems with extremism will not end with the US-led involvement in Afghanistan because the problem did not start with 9/11. The Pakistani establishment has been rather cynically manipulating religious sentiment even before they had a state to rule. The concept of Pakistan was based on the idea that the Muslims of the subcontinent (the former rulers) would lose their identity and any political influence in Hindu-majority India. The issue there was self determination - a burning concern for minorities through the ages. The point here is not to argue whether the sentiment was justified, or whether a separate state was the appropriate answer (these are issues that South Asia specialists devote libraries of books to) but to make the point that Pakistan was built on the fear of a diverse set of Muslim societies who were told that being Muslim meant being Pakistani and that survival was built on being the "purest" Muslims they could be. In a feat of myopia challenged only by US-led lack of planning in post-invasion Iraq and Afghanistan that vague but over-exploited sentiment was never allowed to mature through the natural engagement of the public. Once the establishment of the state was achieved, the religious rhetoric was left aside in favour of more secular-leaning public pronouncements.

But it was too late by then. Too many promises had been made and politicians and generals were finding it too tempting to resist playing on religious sentiment for short term gains. Every Pakistani leader has done this at one time or another. In 1965, the largely non-religious military ruler Ayub Khan found himself running against Fatima Jinnah, the sister of Pakistan's founder. Shamelessly, Ayub Khan leaned on pronouncements by religious leaders that a woman can't be head of a Muslim country. Pakistan's military (led in those days by many a Sandhurst-trained whisky lover) used Jihad as a rallying cry in 1948. From their point of view, it was a cheap and effective way of raising manpower; a point of view that has not changed much. At the same time, the various decisions made in India and Pakistan coupled with the ideological underpinnings of their separation, ensured that hostility would endure and that in Pakistan, it would take on a religious dimension.

China vs US: Pakistan's leadership decided pretty early on that it would need big power patronage to challenge India. After the waning of British military influence around the globe, the US became the best bet and the arrangement served both partners. Now, it's common to hear Pakistanis talking about China being a better friend to Pakistan. The idea is based on the Pakistani perception that the country has been a steady Western ally for decades, but with little reward. The country (not the leadership) has paid dearly for the Afghan war and Iranian-Western hostility has soured relations between Iran and Pakistan, where economic logic would suggest Pakistan invest in cordial relations. The US-Pakistani relationship is a long one, and unfortunately, from the Pakistani point of view the US has used Pakistan like hired muscle in a turf war, and when the battle was won turned its back on the battered and jobless roughneck.

However, in seeking to play the enforcer role, Pakistan has neglected its long term interests. The Pakistani establishment whether political, bureaucratic or military - and this is my own opinion - seems to have become wedded to the idea that to survive against India it must enter into a Yakuza-style relationship as the kobun to a big power's oyabun. Be it Britain, the United States or China, Pakistan feels that if it swears loyalty it should be taken care of. When Pakistan feels betrayed, it goes rogue. And as Pakistan has realised more than once that the United States' interest waxes and wanes it turns to another cheap short-term solution, Jihadi militias, secret nuclear programmes and proliferation. 

China's relatively good standing in Pakistan is based on the perception that China is a loyal ally - an image that China has worked to establish across the region. But again, this is a short-term solution that might seem to work for now but probably wont in the future as interests and priorities shift. The cracks are already present. As I recently heard from a former Pakistani official, the much vaunted free trade agreement is far much more in China's favour than Pakistan's. A few well-connected Pakistani businessmen-politicians will do well from the deal, but in essence it allows Chinese goods to destroy Pakistan's fragile industrial base.

Pakistan is not alone in seeking to sell its geography or assets to a larger power in the hope of survival and largess. Arab Western allies countries have done something similar for decades. In each case, the desirability of the vassal-like alliance is down to the difficulty of enacting an alternative; the development of a strong economy built on a stable political structure. If Pakistan was able to encourage economic activity beyond the narrow class of well-connected elites, and raise income tax to cover its expenditures it would have less need to seek fickle patrons. But building a political-social consensus has eluded Pakistan as it has other states in the region.

At the same time, Western powers have been unabashed at utilising Pakistan's failings for their own short-term goals. Yes, the USSR was humiliated, but look where we are now. 9/11 left Pakistan knowing it HAD to side with the United States. But the idea that reliance on Jihadi militias was a necessity ran deep through the state. Musharraf carried out a couple of purges of ISI. But as time went on, the state came to the conclusion that the US would ultimately withdraw from Afghanistan and leave Islamabad and Kabul to fend for themselves. In that scenario, Pakistan would be left having amputated its own arm with a backyard that was increasingly becoming the playground of its archenemy.

Having said all this, the basis for a stronger relationship between the US and Pakistan is there. Relations were good in the past (for example, see here). And they should be in the future. A Pakistan that becomes the Kobun of China is not in Pakistani or US interests. In my view a number of things need to happen that are beyond the experience of traditional state-to-state relations. Firstly, the US could well benefit from developing a relationship with Pakistani civil society with a view to strengthen the country (not necessarily the elites). This means youth groups that agitate against corruption, educational and health charities that foster greater social cohesion by bringing together Pakistanis from the various ethnic and sectarian backgrounds. At the same time, improving the economy should not just be focused on making the rich richer (as is usually the case with free trade agreements) but empowering regular Pakistanis to set up small to medium size business and make them grow and export. Pakistan's bureaucracy needs help to transform itself to an asset for governance, not a hindrance. These are not things that necessarily require lots of money, but they need thought and clever application. Of course, these are things that Pakistan's rulers should have done themselves. But right now that point has become academic.

In short, the challenge for US diplomacy is to help Pakistan normalise and stabilise. To do so will require subtlety, sensitivity as well as toughness. The key here is not money, but intelligently applied effort. In the past US political efforts had a specific goal (for example, fighting Communisim) and Washington needed specific things done which necessitated a relationship with the actors that could make them happen. This meant the US developed a relationship with the military and sometimes dealt with politicians. US policy in the future, if it is to be successful, needs to engage with the public. A good starting point to achieve this is to understand why the relationship went sour, and I think this is something US diplomats working in Pakistan understand. The challenge is to convert that quickly developing understanding into positive action.

At the moment, US public diplomacy in Pakistan is patchy. But to be fair, the task is immense. There are constant stories published in the media that paint any contractor, even one providing translation or financial services, as members of Blackwater hit teams. Security considerations make it difficult for diplomats to go out and about and make friends. Also, the infamous Pakistani bureaucracy makes getting visas for staff and getting staff out to visit outlaying areas a complicated process. But sometimes, too often, mistakes are made that just need not happen. I once saw a testy verbal altercation between US embassy people and staff at a well-watched Pakistani channel. The diplomats were bringing a senior US official to appear on a popular show but turned up late. The channel's staffers expressed their frustration and the diplomats did likewise. In the end, the official did not appear on the show.

The atmosphere of animosity makes bad situations worse and needs to be resolved (or at the least overcome) if the US is to deal with specific issues. And they don't come more specific than India. The key to a more stable Pakistan is a normalised relationship with its neighbour. A couple of Pakistani governments have tried to negotiate with India over Kashmir in the past but as opportunities have been missed and the decades roll on, the task becomes harder. Moves towards a resolution will unsettle vested interests and differences of opinion will inevitably be played out in the public domain. But this is where political capital with ordinary Pakistanis will be best used in the long term.

There's more that connects drone attacks and the AirBlue crash than the fact both relate to Pakistani airspace. Huma Yusuf writes in the Dawn newspaper that in Pakistan the thread of poor governance runs through terrorism and natural disasters.

As Huma points out, where government fails to provide, extremist groups see plenty of opportunity:

"Few can forget that five years ago, in the wake of the October 2005 earthquake, the government's failure to cope with immediate relief efforts created a vacuum within which the Jamaatud Dawa pulled off its greatest publicity stunt. The extremist organisation had the most efficient response teams on the ground, and boasted the most functional and well-stocked relief camps. Its mobile X-ray machines and operating theatres made international headlines. Through their clever use of mobile technology, the group's volunteers established an unparalleled communications infrastructure that facilitated relief work.

The government and army, meanwhile, fumbled in early relief and reconstruction efforts, as charges of corruption in the distribution of aid and resources were rampant. The consequences of Jamaatud Dawa stepping in where the government should have been exercising its authority are obvious today in the support and influence that the organisation enjoys"

The Jamaatud Dawa to which Huma refers is the new front group for the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Christine Fair and Jacob Shapiro did some polling about a year ago on militant support in Pakistan and came to the conclusion that increased living standards or the provision of aid did not lead people to abandon support for militancy. To me, it sounds like the structure of the polling was a bit off. In 10 years of reporting around the Muslim world, I have seen countless times extremist or fundamentalist groups step in and provide social services where a government seen as incompetent and corrupt has failed. And everytime they have done this, they have increased their level of grassroots support. In Ain el Helwe camp in Sidon, it's Hamas that is seen to look after the interests of the Palestinian refugees, not the bumbling and corrupt Palestinian secular organisations. The same was true in Gaza before Hamas took power there. Since the 1920s, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has built up a formidable national network through social service provision. The Jordanian chapter of the group has replicated that model in the Hashemite Kingdom and predictably has gained support. So maybe it's not about aid in $ terms persuading people not to support militants, even though that's nice and easy to quantify. Really, its about aid supporting better governance.

In the Muslim political consciousness, Islamic governance equates to social justice and social services provision, which is why the "Islamic state" bandwagon is so tempting a short cut for leaders looking to replace competence with PR. In my view, one of the reasons al-Qaeda has failed to gain widespread popular support is due to the fact that it has failed to demonstrate its commitment and ability when it comes to providing "Islamic" governance. This, coupled to its bloody butcher's bill of Muslim lives and its zealous pursuit of communal warfare makes it fundamentally unattractive to most Muslims. It's only claim to popular support is its "Jihad against the crusaders and their allies". Ultimately, that's not enough.

The earthquake was five years back, Huma has more current examples to take note of:

"The collapse of the legal system - the backbone of efficient governance - in the Swat Valley led to locals supporting the call given by Sufi Mohammad of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi for Sharia law in the mid-1990s, and again last year. The closure of civil courts in the Malakand division indicated the usurpation of the state's authority by militants and extremist organisations. Indeed, Maulana Fazlullah and Sufi Mohammad were only able to win over (or terrorise) the Swatis because of the government's seriously compromised administrative capacity in the region."

And to the events of the past week:

"Official responses to the past week's events have betrayed equally problematic failings in governance. Much has already been written about the poorly coordinated rescue operation at the Margalla Hills - a situation in which rescue workers are prevented from reaching the site of a disaster by security forces indicates a crippling level of administrative chaos.

Meanwhile, the government's handling of relief and rescue operations for flood victims in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan has been totally inadequate. As the rains abate, the variety of ways in which the government has again failed its people is becoming obvious: ill-conceived evacuation plans; a shortage of boats and helicopters for rescue missions; sparse provision of food and other relief goods to those stranded or displaced; defunct district-level disaster management authorities.

I haven't heard that militant groups have stepped in to fill the gap but they definitely have the capacity and the motivation.

Another option, as expressed to me by a non-posh friend in Lahore: "If the Americans really care about the well being of Pakistanis why don't they send helicopters or planes with aid? They are just across the border and it's because of them that the army doesn't have the manpower to handle the floods."

In Pakistan, news of Wikileaks's Afghan cache is officially being seen as an affront to Pakistan's dignity/more lies/a general anti-Pakistan conspiracy etc etc. My favourite reaction is from an ISI man who tells the Guardian's Declan Walsh:

"It's very strange such a huge cache of information can be leaked to the media so conveniently," he said. "Is it something deliberate? What is its purpose? We'll be looking into that."

It would have been really interesting to find out how the ISI would "look into that". But, unfortunately, he doesn't go into it.

But Pakistan is much complex in it's opinions than you might gather from the odd official one-line riposte. For a more nuanced view, and one - that in my experience of speaking to people from various walks of life - is much more reflective of the everyday conversations that people have away from a TV camera or reporters' notebook, read Mosharraf Zaidi's op-ed in the Daily News.

"Wikileaks' purpose in releasing these files has nothing to do with Pakistan, or India, or Afghanistan. Its purpose is to expose the incompetence, myopia and failure of the US-led war in Afghanistan. Wikileaks is an anti-war organisation. This means that the expose is not a part of any kind of campaign against Pakistan. If Pakistan looks bad in the crossfire of domestic American politics surrounding the Afghan war, that's Pakistan's bad.

"Over time, the space provided by an ineffective Pakistani state has helped the ISI occupy in western minds, what the Mossad and CIA represent in the Muslim world: a convenient red-herring to explain the complexities, difficulties and unpleasantness of war and diplomacy in a post-9/11 world."

And my favourite part:

"Western conspiracy theories about Pakistan's evil double-cross in Afghanistan don't need to be rooted in absolute truth, just a scant kernel of the truth will often do. In that way, it is once again eminently clear that talk of a "clash of civilisations" is garbage. It turns out that human beings are the same everywhere."

But don't rely on my pull-out quotes; read the whole thing.

UPDATE: OK, i might be ruining Mosharraf's subtlety here by explicitly drawing attention to it, but I think it's too good a point to risk being lost on a quick-scan read: Pakistan's obsession with conspiracy theories are a comfort blanket used to avoid thinking about uncomfortable realities. In the same way, the US and its allies concentration on blaming the ISI also provides a comfort blanket.

"There is much comfort in finding Pakistan and the ISI under every rock and IED in Afghanistan. The small kernels of truth that enable ISI conspiracy theories are a matter for Pakistanis to take seriously and address. But they also help the US and its allies in Afghanistan avoid the uncomfortable reality of Obama's Afghan war. This is a war that does not have a happy ending for anyone. This is a war that has made America, Pakistan, India, Iran and Afghanistan less safe."

I've noticed on my Twitter account that opinion on the information contained in the leaked Afghanistan documents obtained and released by Wikileaks varies between "yeah, we knew that. So?" to "Oh my God!".

I think there is much more to this whole episode than whether or not you knew civilians were being killed in Afghanistan and former ISI officials were giving advice to insurgents in Afghanistan. This is about public opinion. Measuring what the public thinks and predicting how it might react to events is an imprecise science (much like the related fields of economics and sociology). But it's still very real. You might not know how it works but you can feel its effects when governments start clamping down on banks, launch military campaigns or pull troops out and come home.

And when it comes to public opinion, lots of vagaries start making a huge difference - like how you found out. When George Galloway suggested that British MPs were greedy, people rolled their eyes, nodded or smiled. The general thought was, "yeah. But they are politicians, what do you expect?" However, once the British MPs expenses scandal hit the headlines with details of taxpayers coughing up for duckhouses and flatscreen televisions, the result was a national political crisis.

For Western news organisations, unsustainable losses over the past decade or two have meant the degredation of the kind of infrastructure that allows the media to act as a check on executive power. At the same time, the medium that caused the decline in traditional news ogranisations - the Internet - is also picking up the slack. The Telegraph's coverage of the expenses scandal was built on extensive groundwork done by independent journalists who write extensively on the web. Most conflict coverage since 9/11 has been done through embeds with Western military forces. (the stand-out exceptions here are people like Nir Rosen, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad and Mitch Prothero) While this is great in the short term for those prosecuting the war, after a while, militaries start to believe their own hype, which actually does longer term damage as it makes PR disasters such as prisoner abuse and the Nisour square incident more likely. 

I'm not into offering "big thoughts" or indulging in grand "blue sky thinking" but there does seem to be a growing trend internationally away from control and direction by organisations and governments towards impetus for action coming from groups of individuals who are somehow harnessing technology. Organisations like Wikileaks leave grand old names like Reuters, BBC and the New York Times rewriting news they didn't break. (That said, the NYT is one of a few organisations investing heavily in original reporting, which shows in their output.) At the same time, a leaked video of a girl getting beaten by the Taliban in Swat  presented the Pakistani government with the political cover it needed to launch a campaign against the Pakistani Taliban last year.

What makes any difference here is whether any of this changes anything. Does public opinion get swayed? Do politicians feel the need to react? Do insurgents find a sense of justification for their actions (or fall in support when they screw up)? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

So the response here isn't, "yeah, whatever, we know this" or "OMG! why did no one tell me?!". The question to ask is how the information is being digested. That was the question I wish I had asked more thoroughly on the night of September 11, 2001, when I went out and about in Cairo to ask people what they thought.

Check out CNAS adviser David Barno's piece in the Financial Times.

"In the region, clocks are set to July 2011, a date widely believed to be the start of a rapid US withdrawal, and the subsequent resumption of a new internecine Afghan war - one in which all the important actors are already manoeuvring for advantage. Gen Petraeus must find ways to both put time back on the clock through battlefield success, improved governance and more effective civil-military integration. To do this, he must convince the wary protagonists that the US is staying, and that America's interests trump any temptation to replay the precipitate American disengagement after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989."

Pakistani journalists, government people, military people, well-to-do professionals, guys who sit in blankets in road side stops smoking and drinking tea.. everyone thinks that the US will be getting out of Afghanistan no matter what. Even if they don't have any real solid reason for thinking so, the fact that they do creates its own dynamic.

I'm told something similar is true in Afghanistan

So the challange for the US, and Gen. Petraeus in particular, how to square domestic pressure to end America's longest war while not giving the impression in the region that the US is about to leave.

i was at a conference about communications in conflict recently, one of the speakers said that you can't give conflicting messages to different audiences. I can see why.

So spare a thought for Gen Petraeus. He seriously has his work cut out for him.

Reading Michelle Cottle's piece in The New Republic about Sarah Palin's odds as a potential leader of the Tea Partiers, I suddenly felt I knew what it must have been like to be the careers guidance people at my old university.

I realise, i know little about American politics, and I definitely know little about Sarah Palin. But i know I know (a bit) about the politics of Pakistan, and I know a career opportunity when I see one.

Cottle lists the attributes a potential leader needs to become the new shining light of the Tea Party people. Namely:

1. Anger. The more the better.

2. Paranoia that the other side is out to get you.

3. A self-righteous conviction that the other side is not merely wrong but irretrievably evil. (To be fair, this is pretty much a requisite for leadership in any political party these days.)

4. Sympathy (or, better still, empathy) for the victim mentality, ideally coupled with burning resentment that the other side looks down on you.

5. Major-league charisma and near-blinding star power to overcome the movement’s petty jealousies, feuding factions, and general disorganization.

Tea Partiers?!... Forget that! Pakistani politics (hearts) anger in a big way. And as for paranoia, self righteousness, resentment (victimhood)... yep, check all that. And charisma? Well, I always thought Ms. Palin kinda looked like Benazir Bhutto:

So, if Sarah Palin does decide to walk away from the Republican Party, I for one would advise her to broaden her horizons. Americans aren't the only people who hate taxes, love guns and go hunting a lot.

And if she's wondering where in the Pakistani political landscape she might carve a niche. My career advice folder would contain the following info:

1. Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jammat e Islami (religious and right wing)

2. Alfat Hussain of the MQM (firey maverick)

Altaf bhai (Altaf brother) as he's known is my personal favourite. The MQM is a political party based in Karachi claiming to represent native Urdu speakers. You don't need to understand Urdu to know why Ms Palin should be going head to head with this guy:

"Despite all the talk of ideological purity, Tea Partiers aren’t defined by their ideology so much as their attitude.." says Cottle. In Pakistan, it's ALL about attitude.

Palin for Pakistan!!

As everyone has been getting all excited about the "new relationship" the Pakistanis and Americans have been forging in Washington, I've been trying to figure out a way to express my pessimistic grumblings without coming over like a grouchy old git who enjoys letting the air out of the footballs local kids kick into his garden.

Finally, I've figured out a way. I'm gonna let a former Reuters colleague look like the man who stole Christmas.

Michael Georgy has a great story from Swat spelling out the reality in Pakistan in the places that are no longer in the headlines.

"The drive to win over the population by providing better economic opportunities and basic services is moving at a slow pace, as evidenced by grim living conditions, joblessness and lack of industries."

The point highlighted by the story is that, yes, you can talk about developing infrastructure, social services and the rest of it. But it all means very little without the ability to make it a reality on the ground. And, in Pakistan, the gap between commitment and realisation is the sticking point.

"We expect a lot from the government," said one of the men, who looked far older than his 47 years, perhaps from the stress of fighting and the ruins it left behind. "We have no jobs now."

Posting will be sparse over the next few days as Londonstani is playing host to the potential future Mrs. Londonstani (who is presently just known as Ms. Henley-on-Thames).

So, while Londonstani tries to figure out a security-conscious tourist itinerary, say hello to Mr Todd Shea, a remarkable American who Londonstani had the pleasure of meeting a few days ago. Todd is a one-man reconstruction team in his efforts to build and operate a hospital in a remote and largely forgotten area of Pakistan. He has also done more to challenge the abysmal image of America amongst Pakistanis than countless costly outreach programmes. And he's done it with pretty much just energy, enthusiasm and  force of personality.

If that wasn't difficult enough, he's also trying against the odds to open up country and western music to a new (and as yet unappreciative) audience.

Seriously, watching him sing "Dil Dil Pakistan", a famous patriotic song, to a collection of bemused and delighted villagers is the funniest and most heart warming thing Londonstani has seen for ages.

Does Britain collude in the torture of terror suspects or not?

The head of MI5 said in a speech the other day that torturing people might be OK for Jack Bauer, but it's not OK for his officers..  Well, he basically said that without the television reference.

However, Londonstani has a good friend who went to Pakistan totally off his own bat and filmed interviews with Pakistani military people saying that British officials had asked them to obtain information through torture. The material was not broadcast or developed as UK news organisations couldn't afford to buy the footage and repay their costs.

In Londonstani's experience, nothing has been as damaging to the fight against radicalisation, extremism and terrorism as accounts and images of people being tortured by UK and US personnel, or those acting on their behalf. This isn't to say information of such occurences should be suppressed, rather that they should just plain not happen. Anyone who has spent time in the places between Casablanca, Cairo, Karachi and Jakarta and talked to people about al Qaeda/terrorism etc will have heard pre-2006 that AQ's fight was justified by the US and UK's practices. And after 2006 would have heard that AQ was no worse in its actions than Washington and London. Even that change in view came about because of AQ's bloodlust in Iraq and not actions undertaken by the international community.

Hiding information about torture is counterproductive. It gets out anyway. And if it's seeping out through the families and friends of people who have suffered it, the shadowy details will be much worse than the actual facts. This isn't to say that the UK did collude in torture, but rather that the sense of doubt is harmful. If Londonstani was a government accused of involvement in torture (the government of Londonistan, maybe), he would put it out in the open, denounce it as an abberation of normal conduct, hold people accountable and make sure it doesn't happen again