Pakistan's Day of Reckoning

Given the obvious importance of Pakistan in the region's security, the United States should take heed. It needs to urge the PPP-PML (N) coalition government to set aside their petty differences and focus their attention on the country's burgeoning economic and security problems. The coalition should start to embark upon modest efforts to rein in the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, to stop appeasing the resurgent Taliban, to formulate sustainable economic policies and restore the independence of the judiciary. Fortunately, at this particular juncture, the Pakistani military seems to be in no mood to step in to what it must see as a potential political quagmire. However, if historical evidence is any guide, such restraint on the part of the military may yet prove to be fleeting if  conditions continue to deteriorate.

America retains considerable leverage over Pakistan, despite popular wisdom in some quarters of Washington, D.C. to the contrary. Given that the stakes are so high for the United States, the region and Pakistan, it is critical that the Bush administration in its final months try and prevent the fledgling democratic regime in Pakistan from dashing its population's hopes for a more secure economic future. The alternatives are too grim to contemplate.

Sumit Ganguly is Director of Research of the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University, Bloomington and an Adjunct Fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.

© 2008