AFTER 10 years of facing an existentialist threat from terrorism inflicted by extremist groups, Pakistan has finally woken up to the seriousness of the situation.

An indication of this came the other day when the cabinet defence committee decided that there was a “need to clearly identify the threat posed by terrorism including the underlying factors such as ideological, motivational, funding, weapon supply, training and organisational support for terrorist groups and those abetting the terrorists”.

THE government of Prime Minister Gilani is inconsistent, yet sometimes it surprises everyone with a landmark moment.

Though it is marked by questionable decisions and bad governance most of the time, periodically it pulls out political rabbits
out of its hat.

It defies the Supreme Court for months and remains at the tip of disintegration, yet frequently finds the energy to emerge with accolades in another area. For example, it nearly succeeded in making headway in Karachi, yet sold itself short at the altar of political expediency. The welfare of citizens is small change for such a government. Only time will tell whether we elected a government or an enigma in the 2008 elections.

THE recent report of the International Crisis Group (ICG) Aid and Conflict in Afghanistan is a critical appraisal of the efforts made during the past 10 years in that unfortunate country.

It warns, “There is no possibility that any amount of international assistance to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will stabilise the country in the next three years unless there are significant changes in international strategies, priorities and programmes.”

The ISI:  AN EXCEPTIONAL SECRET SERVICE
by Lt. General Asad Durrani

When Smashing Lists, a relatively unknown website, declared Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI, the best of its kind, it gladdened my heart but also had me worried.

Soon after the Soviet invasion ofAfghanistan, I met an old colleague, a Special Forces officer recently inducted in the ISI. He whispered in my ears: "we have decided to support the Afghan resistance". Understandably. With the "archenemy"India in the East and now not a very friendlySoviet Union on our Western borders,Pakistan had fallen between "nutcrackers".

A FEW days ago I attended a stakeholders consultation to review the effectiveness of district governance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the 2008 elections.

The findings of the research into the counter-insurgency suggest that a weak and an exploitative management system fans insurgency and that if there is a gap between expectations and people`s capabilities, the level of insurgency will go up.

The administration in Fata collapsed after the military was inducted into Waziristan in 2003. The administration suffered badly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the 2002 local bodies` reforms demolished the executive magistracy.

I WAS fortunate enough to participate in a meeting of experts organised by the West Asia-North Africa (Wana) forum in Jordan earlier this month to study the situation in this critical region.

The initiative was begun in 2009 by Prince Hassan bin Talal, regarded as one of the foremost progressive thinkers of the region.

The Wana region has large energy resources and remains constantly in the news. It stretches from Morocco to Pakistan and from Turkey to Sudan. It is a non-governmental, non-partisan civil society initiative that addresses pressing social, environmental and economic challenges whose solution is advocated as being based on peace, social cohesion, human security and human rights.

AFTER the 9/11 attack, the US began to put together its response to global terrorism based on its wealth and power.
The US is a strategic gorilla in a world of middling and poor states. It accounts for a huge 23 per cent of the world’s GDP and is also the biggest spender on the means of war — a whopping 43 per cent of the global military expenditure.

The other nations don’t come anywhere near these statistics. In another context, such abilities give the US an opportunity to define developments, at the same time providing the country the luxury of making mistakes and recovering from these fairly easily.

LARGE-SCALE protests have begun in Afghanistan. They commenced in Mazar-i-Sharif, and spread to Kandahar the following day with other cities following suit. Mobs of Afghans protested the burning of the Quran by Terry Jones, a pastor of a small church in Florida.

Jones, a former hotel manager, claims that the Quran incited violence, and said that he would go ahead with his own protest on April 22 in front of a Michigan mosque. He said, “Our aim is to make an awareness of the radical element of Islam.” These protests are harmful when innocent people — like the UN workers in Mazar-i-Sharif who were engaged in relief efforts — are killed. The protests in Kandahar and later in Jalalabad also resulted in the loss of lives. These events have coincided with protests taking place in the Middle East, where citizens are demanding greater rights, freedom and democracy. At the same time, a UN no-fly zone is in place over Libya, where Muammar Qadhafi`s sovereignty has been abbreviated.

I RECENTLY saw a TV programme on BBC World that examined the circumstances leading to the declaration of a `no-fly zone` over Libya.

Such a zone was declared after the adoption of a UN resolution that abridged Libyan sovereignty but supported the aspirations of the Libyans who were protesting and demanding greater freedoms, including an end to Muammar Qadhafi`s four-decade rule.

SOMETIMES one is stunned by Washington’s lack of vision in handling critical policy matters concerning its ally Pakistan.

Just when patience was needed for the Pakistanis’ anger to subside over the release of Raymond Davis, we heard of multiple drone strikes that killed more than 40 persons attending a jirga in Datta Khel, North Waziristan.

Both the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who is directly responsible for managing the tribal regions of Pakistan, and army chief Gen Kayani condemned the attack. Is it right for the sole superpower to act with lack of prudence? Or is this a message to Pakistan that the US doesn’t care?