Pakistan is Sinking: Time For Tough Love?

Pakistan is Sinking: Time For Tough Love?
Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest, August 25, 2010

The news from Pakistan remains dire. The flood waters now sweeping toward the Arabian Gulf have been far more devastating and the destruction more widespread than anyone predicted. They have cruelly exposed many of Pakistan’s glaring weaknesses: its corrupt feudal elite, its corrupt and ineffective bureaucracy, its lack of infrastructure, its weak civil society, and the presence (unsurprising given the decades long failures of the country’s public and private institutions to do their job) of radical religious extremism and terrorism emerging from the rage and despair of a people betrayed by its leaders.

The long term outlook is not good. Pakistan has failed yet again to educate a rising generation of children and the population is rising faster than the country can find jobs. While the IPCC may have overstated the problem of glacier melt, long term trends point to a decline in the flow of the rivers on which Pakistan depends. The growing power gap between Pakistan and India (the world’s two most hostile nuclear powers) is likely to destabilize the geopolitical environment for some time to come. The slow but inexorable decay of the Pakistani state, the rise of separatism in some parts of the country, and a depressingly long list of other problems greatly complicate the task of those in Pakistan and abroad who would like to help.

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China donates additional US $ 30 million in kind for Pakistan flood victims - APP
Americans Slower to Aid Pakistani Flood Victims - PBS Newshour
Pakistan races to protect two towns from surging floods - AFP
How Pakistan's Floods Have Made Women Too Visible - TIME
Pakistan Floods and Timber Mafia - UPI
US Secretary of State's Pakistan Relief Fund - US Department of State