It's heartening to see less and less acceptance of old 9/11 era tropes for Pakistan. Think-tanks abroad sadly continue to encourage its study through three prisms: Af-Pak, civ-mil, and the Bomb, with a perverse sliding scale for 'democracy', in use since the Bush days.
Back then, democracy was whatever suited the neocon consensus: rentier land links (Pakistan), sectarian militias (Iraq), even narco-states (Karzai's Afghanistan).
It also magically excluded Pax Americana's elected enemies, like Hamas in Palestine or the Brotherhood in Egypt.
It also magically excluded Pax Americana's elected enemies, like Hamas in Palestine or the Brotherhood in Egypt.
With empire in decline, and Pakistan finally pivoting away from the DC-Langley nightmare it found itself in (see 2011), that worldview is losing relevance. It lingers, however, through what Nesrine Malik more generally calls 'native informants'.
Nesrine was paraphrasing Edward Said on Iraq War apologists (another Bush-Cheney cottage industry).
Her own piece was a broader critique of Islam's native informants, from blatant hate-mongers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali to clumsy hucksters like Maajid Nawaz. nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/…
Her own piece was a broader critique of Islam's native informants, from blatant hate-mongers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali to clumsy hucksters like Maajid Nawaz. nybooks.com/daily/2018/06/…
Pakistan, too, had its own set of useful idiots, though that's an expression better-suited to fellow travellers with honest intentions. Said informants knowingly or unknowingly advanced the State Department line through column inches, reform proposals, and the embassy circuit.
Classic native informant themes include:
* Pakistan's nukes are a source of Western worry.
* ______ has weakened a fragile democracy.
* Raymond Davis enjoys diplomatic immunity.
* Drone attacks are successful and necessary.
* Proximity to 🇺🇸 is a source of strength and status.
* Pakistan's nukes are a source of Western worry.
* ______ has weakened a fragile democracy.
* Raymond Davis enjoys diplomatic immunity.
* Drone attacks are successful and necessary.
* Proximity to 🇺🇸 is a source of strength and status.
Why this is so counterproductive is because it hurts the aspirations of millions of Pakistanis. They know what democracy is; they've voted in everyone on the spectrum. It's complicated, contested, and disturbingly subject to rollback – but it is theirs.
Not someone else's.
Not someone else's.
P.S. someone else isn't the American people. It's usually bloated defence contractors, with enablers in places like Heritage. This example has it all: heritage.org/middle-east/co… Threats, betrayal, 'do more', and trying to re-fight the same war they've been losing for 18 years.
Heritage is among the most influential public policy organisations in the US. But its prescriptions will grow more and more unhinged – see this: heritage.org/defense/commen… – because the rupture is here to stay. We can't go back to Condoleezza making deals and drones flying overhead.
Brookings should know better (or as better as can be expected from a supporter of both of Rumsfeld's illegal wars.) Countries with greater resources have fared far worse than Pakistan battling Covid-19, and yet we get the same DC tropes, frozen in 2009.
But even forgetting that these think tanks are only meant to advance the interests of Dow Chemical, such pieces don't help either side.
Readers get a laundry list of 'Henny Penny the sky is falling', with very little to do with Covid-19, and not a single solution.
Readers get a laundry list of 'Henny Penny the sky is falling', with very little to do with Covid-19, and not a single solution.
To conclude: this entire school of thought seems banal and empty now only because Pakistan travelled so much distance from where it was ten years ago – beholden entirely to the Beltway (even as Rome fell apart). It would be best to keep at it, or risk going backwards.
