Afghanistan is the heart of Asia — Allama Iqbal

PAKISTAN was born into long-term hostility with its neighbour, India. Security was, accordingly, key to avoiding the peril of infant-nation mortality. Later, it needed to broaden its strategy to good governance including democracy, economic and human development, and rights protections. The Quaid departed before this essential transition could commence. The process has been aborted ever since despite fleeting periods of promise. The result has been the loss of the majority of Pakistan’s original population within its first 25 years, and no lessons learned during the next half century to ensure the viability of what was left of the country.

Praetorian elite capture has been primarily responsible for this tragedy. Undoing it will need a ‘whole of the nation’ undertaking. What needs to be done in terms of policies and institution building over a whole range of national endeavours is largely known. But the likelihood of much of it happening appears non-existent today because of the perversity of the prevailing political and power structures. Moreover, this grim prospect is being progressively internalised by ruling elites and the middle class intelligentsia whose attitudes and choices determine the fate of nations. A refusal to accept these realities is itself a form of complicity. The only view that is worse is the assumption that the nation will somehow survive, despite its wretched condition, because its nuclear weapons status guarantees the rest of the world has a stake in its survival!

This is the national context in which our Afgh­a­n­­istan policy should be considered. The Afghan people have a historical relationship........

© Dawn