Pakistan: what next?

14 Jan 2010

Richard Lindley introduces this debate on the future of Pakistan.

View the debate in full above or use the Chapter bar on the right-hand side of this page to view each of the panelists' speeches.

Opening the discussion, General Sir David Richards argues that the international community has been terribly good at coming up with bright ideas, but terribly poor at implementing them.

Imran Khan is heavily critical of the ways in which General Musharraf, President Asif Ali Zardari and the US have carried out their military offensive in the tribal areas of Pakistan since 2004. He said they had failed to distinguish between al-Qaida and the Taliban, which held limited ideological beliefs.

Anatol Lieven suggests that Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is our key strategic interest in the long term, and that the Western presence is driving radicalisation. He said he had been shocked to find that many Pakistanis regard the Taliban as they did the Mujahedeen, and support the Taliban’s right to fight against foreign occupiers.

Jonathan Paris foresees that, over the next one to three years, Pakistan will neither turn into a failed state, nor grow significantly. It would, he predicted, muddle through. Pakistan, he suggests, is not attracting enough investment, and needs to break away from the IMF stranglehold.

Farzana Shaikh reassesses the claim that the US is primarily responsible for Pakistan’s problems. Instead, she proposes, the country’s malaise lies in its historic conflict with India and uncertainty over the role of religion.

Jaswant Singh Jaswant Singh discusses the Future of Pakistan. Since the start of the 20th century, the whole of the South Asian region has been at the crossroads of a collapsed empire, be it Ottoman, British or Soviet. How is it possible, Singh asked, that 60 years after Independence, the region was once again subject to the whims of the West?

William Dalrymple points out that while the media has been only too eager to praise India as an emerging superpower, neighbouring Pakistan has been portrayed as a failed state - and the only US ally bombed regularly by Washington. This contrast, Dalrymple said, was a huge exaggeration.