This piece by MNA Farahnaz Ispahani (PPP) was published in USA Today on 27 March.
Just as many Americans are expressing frustration with what they see as Pakistan’s slow progress in defeating terrorism (most recently underscored by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s visit today to Islamabad), Pakistanis are equally frustrated with the increasingly ugly anti-Pakistan sentiment in the United States. Most Pakistanis simply do not understand how cutting U.S. economic and military aid to Pakistan advances the fight against terrorism.
Pakistan is projected by many in the international news media and by some in the U.S. Congress as a purveyor of terrorism but, in cold fact, it remains its chief victim. Three thousand Pakistani troops have been killed (more than all NATO losses in Afghanistan combined). Add to that 2,000 police cut down, the tragedy of 35,000 civilian casualties and the assassination by terrorists of our country’s most popular leader, Benazir Bhutto, and one might understand Pakistani exasperation. This recent al-Qaeda attack on a Pakistani Naval Base in Karachi, killing 10 of our sailors, again demonstrates that Pakistan is the principal target of terrorist rage.
How much of our people’s blood does it take for Washington to get it? British Prime Minister David Cameron said it most succinctly standing next to President Obama in London earlier this week: “Pakistan has suffered more from terrorism than any country in the world. Their enemy is our enemy. So, far from walking away, we’ve got to work even more closely with them.”
Another Marshall Plan?
At the onset of the Cold War, the U.S. understood that political stability in vulnerable countries like France, Italy and Greece was intrinsically linked to the viability of their economies. President Truman advanced the European Recovery Plan (the Marshall Plan) that brilliantly operationalized this thesis, and by doing so saved Western Europe from communism. The same construct should be applied to Pakistan as we jointly work toward the defeat of the terrorist menace and the rebuilding of a peaceful and stable South and Central Asia.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has spoken of Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act for economic development, health, education, energy and infrastructure. Yet only $179 million, according to Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., has actually been spent. The rest sadly has been bottled up in a bureaucratic quagmire within USAID.
The people of Pakistan, especially the poor who were most affected by last year’s historic floods, have yet to feel the effects of a U.S. policy that under President Obama was to re-craft the U.S.-Pakistani relationship beyond a short-term military alliance into a sustained economic and social partnership. It is that new relationship that will be the lynchpin to the long-term stabilization of Pakistan and our ability to contain and destroy the terrorist threat to our people, and to the world.
After World War II, the Marshall Plan spent $49.06 per capita in Greece and $30.02 in Italy. Today, the per capita U.S. assistance to Pakistan, adjusted for inflation, is only $7.90. That’s a dramatic 400% less than the Marshall Plan’s assistance to Italy. And let us be clear: The long-term stakes to world peace are as great or greater in South and Central Asia today as in Europe at the end of the 1940s.
Pakistan’s role
We are all aware that U.S. aid alone will not get the job done. For its part, Pakistan’s elected government has mobilized the entire nation, at great political cost, against extremist ideology and terrorist organizations. But if our government is to successfully win the war for the hearts and minds of our people, Pakistanis must feel the economic benefits of globalization. President Asif Ali Zardari has repeatedly emphasized the need for more market access in the West and expanded trade replacing aid over time. The enactment by Congress of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zone legislation, followed by a Free Trade Agreement between Pakistan and America, would not only open up America for Pakistani products but would provide a huge market for U.S. products and grain in Pakistan.
Ultimately, in the epic joint struggle against terror, a prosperous Pakistan with good jobs for our young people would suck the oxygen out of the terrorists’ fire. How better to set Pakistan on this path than a Marshall Plan model of economic reconstruction for a country devastated by war?
Farahnaz Ispahani is a member of Pakistan’s Parliament and media adviser to President Asif Ali Zardari.
Very nice article!!! I think being in various diplomatic advisory roles that should be raised along with the fact that as per the latest Economic review of 2010-11 which is I guess compiled by Ministry of Finance and with much connected advisory roles of various donor agencies like IMF, World Bank, etc. Pakistan lost almost US $68 billions in this war since 2001 -2011 and got the about US $ 20 billion of which US $ 8 billion was for reimbursement for coalition support funds:S There is no obvious US private partnership in Pakistan like we see in case of countries like China, Japan or Turkey, even Greece where you will see many Pak. China Schools, Tunnels, Highways and various things being run or constructed with support from private or public authorities of these countries with Pakistani People. There is no such thing here in Pakistan the only thing which we see that US is partnering would be may be the Hiring of CIA contractors, etc. etc. but no obvious which may be helping to bring some US $ to some families but at the same increasing the hate of Pakistanis toward Americans more.
Comments are closed.