By Syed Asif Alam
courtesy Pakistan Link

President Pervez Musharraf’s meeting with President George W Bush, on June 24 at the exalted Camp David has been critical to the volatile nuclear-equipped region of South Asia as well as to the American interest. It is no secret that building a viable, progressive and democratic society in Pakistan is enormously important for several reasons.
 

Pakistan is the locus for the US-led war on terror. Its law enforcement and intelligence agencies can penetrate terrorist organizations that American and European agencies cannot. Indeed, several top al Qaeda leaders and hundreds of their minions are in US custody as a direct result of Pakistan’s assistance.
 

Pakistan’s strategic location is important for US interests. Pakistan is located between Iran, Afghanistan, China and India -- a vast region experiencing rapid change. A stable Pakistan, a moderate Muslim country with strong institutions and a promising economy, would help stabilize this potentially volatile region. Turmoil and lawlessness, on the other hand, can send shock waves through the whole region.
 

As trade partners, Pakistan and the US can enjoy greater accession to wealth when the channels of commerce are open and protected from militancy and despotism. For example, a proposed oil pipeline from the Caucasus would terminate in Pakistan’s major port city Karachi, thus, opening up more energy resources for the West. This can also help solve problems of the rapidly expanding but energy-strapped Indian economy lying towards the south.
 

Far from being a fragile state -- as Western academia and media endlessly chant -- Pakistan has repeatedly provided stability to this crucial strategic region in the backyards of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.
 

Similarly, the currents of competing religious extremism that are sending ripples of fear from North East and North West of Pakistan and from North of India in Gujarat need to be understood not only in the context of regional and local conflicts in Afghanistan, Kashmir and Gujarat but also as issues of globalization where exploding populations, income inequality, and accentuated rural urban migrations have superimposed themselves over age-old conflicts of race and religion.
 

It is important to note that Pakistan’s posture in the region is essentially defensive and it seeks to involve the Indian government into a dialogue over Kashmir, with the help of the US. Its position is that comprehensive dialogue should be initiated with an open mind, all issues being laid out on the table; a solution can then emerge. India, though, is not ready for such a dialogue because of its domestic political compulsions.
 

And if what passes for democracy in Pakistan, seems strange or intolerable to those in the West, then it is because of the West’s failure to understand both, the long, tortured history of self-governance in Pakistan and the hard lessons learned as this relatively new nation has struggled to fully join the family of democratic nations.
 

Pakistan has not failed to experiment with conventional, Western-style democracy; rather, that brand of democracy has failed to do for Pakistan and its people what was promised: to promote health, safety and prosperity of the people.
 

It is precisely for this reason that the military-civilian hybrid form of government, now in place, should be given an opportunity to lead -- however unorthodox it may sound to some Western thinkers.
 

The limited appeal of Western-style governance in Pakistan can be traced directly to its failure to lift Pakistanis out of poverty. The Pakistani economy, which performed well in the ‘80s, took a nosedive in the 1990s under the corrupt, albeit democratic governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. While their attention was devoted to the exclusive task of enriching themselves and their cronies, the people of Pakistan spiraled into a poverty they had never seen before.
 

Ironically, this was the period when other economies in the region, including that of neighboring India, took off.
 

If the world is to enjoy long-term peace and a diminished threat of nuclear conflict, then part of the puzzle must be a stable Pakistan, and that will happen only if the Pakistani government and President Musharraf are given a chance to succeed in modernizing Pakistan, making it a moderate Islamic society.
 

At a bare minimum, given the progress so far, the US should facilitate the evolution of post-9/11 Pakistan by rewarding its leading ally in the shape of economic and educational aid.