Today is shaping up to be a pretty enjoyable day. It is going to be in the upper 50s, we have an interesting lyceum this morning and I have a bunch of friends coming over to shoot, skate and hang out this afternoon.
I am especially looking forward to the lyceum. It is a lecture series we hold here in the valley and it always has excellent speakers. Well, except for that one guy who talked about oil last year, he (me) was a little suspect. Today's speaker is Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin who was the former ambassador to Pakistan and is now President of the Middle East Institute. She was ambassador to Pakistan during 2001-2003, so, I'm sure she will have some very interesting stories and insight on what happened there during that time and what is going on right now.
Pakistan is such an interesting country. It is not even twice the size of California, but, it has over 5 times the population. It sits at the crossroads of just about every ancient civilization on earth. The people there can trace their ancestry back to Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Greek, Scythian, Hun, Arab, Mongol, Persian, Baluchi, and Afghan roots. It is such a diverse country, yet it is heavily Muslim (95%) and a majority Sunni (75%). It is a fairly undeveloped country, but, a nuclear power. It has been in a constant war for the last 2000 years and will probably be in one for the future due to its geographic location. So many countries would like to own and influence this section of the world due to its access to so many other places. The only way I see Pakistan being able to break the cycle of violence around it and thrust upon it is to make major gains economically. With the size of workforce available, the location of the country and the natural resources available to it, it should be able to climb up to first world status with the right goals, direction and leadership.
It has done the first most important step. It is no longer a militarily ruled country. Musharraf stepped down they now have an elected Prime Minister. This wasn't till after the main candidate was assassinated and yet another constitutional crisis. This trimming of the military's power will help redirect the goals of the country and bring many aspects of the country back under private control. While it will be a slow and sometimes unstable process, it will have some really good results in the end.
The second step is to get their economy back under control. It had a good run from 2001-2007. This was spurred by large amounts of aid in the beginning and a steady flow of foreign investment after that. They saw a GDP growth of 6-8% and even more importantly for the war on terror, a drop of 10% in the poverty levels. Unfortunately, the commodity boom of 2007-08 hurt Pakistan's economy and devalued their currency significantly. They are now seeing a spike in inflation from all of the spending over the last few years too. (America could learn alot from the right now) Inflation jumped from 7.7% in 2007 to 20.8% in 2008! Not a good sign for spurring growth and foreign investment. I am going to guess they are going to have to go to the IMF for more conditional loans if they haven't already. From this aspect, Pakistan stands at a tenuous juncture with the US. They really need the aid and support we offer, but, they are also afraid that one day we will back out, or they will be forced to give up the aid. (i.e. our continuously increasing raids into their sovereign soil) Hopefully, this issue will be addressed and a solution will be hammered out by the new administration. This is one glimmer of hope I see in the message of "change." I really hope that the US's policies with Pakistan "change." We need to cease the raids into their country, we need to help them financially wherever possible and we need help them where we can without them becoming dependent on us, nor having to answer to our directives.
I really think that with a strong economy, most of their other problems will stand down. They would become a viable trading partner with India which would do more to ease tensions than any peace talks. They would become a positive and guiding role for some of the other undeveloped countries in their region. It would help squash the rebellions in the NorthWest territories and bring that part of the country back into rule of Islamabad. It would also decrease the number of unemployed youth in the country and cut off some major feeding grounds for the less than desirable elements in the world.
Ok. I think I have rambled enough today. It was good to type out my thoughts so I could be more informed today during the talk. I really look forward to it and I will share any interesting insights when I get back.
No comments:
Post a Comment