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Editorial: Holbrooke and Qureshi are setting the direction right

In keeping with his campaign thrust, US president Barack Obama has got into top gear on Afghanistan. Last Monday, speaking at the first press conference since he assumed office, President Obama said that his “bottom line is that we cannot allow Al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region.” About Pakistan he said that “What we haven’t seen is the kind of concerted effort to root out those [Al Qaeda-Taliban] safe havens that would ultimately make our mission successful.” He then tempered this with: “It’s not acceptable for Pakistan or for us to have folks who, with impunity, will kill innocent men, women and children. And you know, I believe that the new government of Pakistan ... cares deeply about getting control of this situation, and we want to be effective partners with them on that issue.” About the current Afghan government President Obama said that it “seems very detached from what’s going on in the surrounding community”, a statement in line with Washington’s growing frustration with the inept government of President Hamid Karzai.
This is deft and complex signalling. Consider some more aspects.
Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in Islamabad and has had a flurry of meetings. As part of a new strategy, the two sides have agreed to set up an inter-agency team which will be jointly headed by Mr Holbrooke and Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi. The new team, we are told, would review all policies and plan a new strategy. Mr Holbrooke has even urged the Pakistani team to visit the US in March to complete the review before a NATO summit in April, a good idea.
In Washington, meanwhile, President Obama has ordered an inter-agency review to examine US policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan ahead of a NATO summit in April. According to White House spokesperson, Robert Gibbs, “The president has asked Bruce Riedel to chair an inter-agency policy review on US policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan to be completed before the NATO summit.”
While this is going on, Senator John Kerry, who recently visited Pakistan and is co-author of a bill with Senator Lugar that aims to help provide funds to Pakistan for Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in the tribal areas, has written in the Washington Post, arguing that “strengthening the Pakistani democratic government must be a key part of the regional approach to curb militancy in the region, and Afghanistan should not be allowed to destabilise Islamabad.” This is in sync with an earlier statement by President Obama about the direction of danger in the region — i.e., the danger flows west to east of the Durand Line rather than the other way round.
What does all this add up to?
One, it clearly puts Pakistan at the centre of the current problem in the region. There is a full-blown insurgency in Afghanistan and it has served to destabilise the border areas of that country as well as Pakistan. Two, because Pakistan has mounted some sort of an effort since 2002 to cleanse its tribal belt of these elements, there has been a backlash which has resulted in heightened terrorist attacks within and across Pakistan. Three, the entire effort has served to not only make the US more unpopular but also two successive Pakistani governments. The aim, very difficult, is to try and create a buy-in for the current effort on the one hand and to lower the bar on what is desirable by focusing on what is do-able.
This requires, as should be clear from the complex signalling, a multi-layered response. The US determination to continue with Predator attacks means the intelligence is proving effective in taking out high-value targets. Therefore, Washington will ignore public protests by Islamabad. However, there is need, simultaneously, to shield the Pakistani government from the negative fall-out of use of force. This is where reconstruction and development efforts come in. The joint mechanism also means the two sides want to arrive at commonalities; moreover, that the US wants to bring on board Pakistan’s security and other concerns. Islamabad has, for long, argued in favour of a strategy that is sensitive to local, Pashtun aspirations. The joint consultative mechanism should allow Islamabad to voice its concerns more effectively and get them plugged into US policy.
The situation is not conducive to any easy, or even perfect, solutions. The region needs to be cleansed of extremist elements. But utilising force effectively also means getting people on board, a tough challenge. The positive element, however, is setting the right direction. And that is where the current policy seems to be different from the old policy under former US president, George Bush. *

Second Editorial: Good work, Sindh, but caution is advised

The Sindh Health Department has initiated a
legislation process which is commendable and needs to be replicated in other federating units. The department plans to regulate private hospitals, take action against quacks and make blood tests of a couple mandatory before their marriage. As we write this, the draft bills of these three laws have been sent to the law department for screening.
Meanwhile, the Sindh health minister, Dr Saghir Ahmed, has said that the three bills will soon be tabled in the Sindh Assembly, after which legal action will be taken against quacks and private hospitals and clinics for charging patients heavily for substandard healthcare facilities, as well as compelling the poor patients to unnecessarily undergo different tests. The Sindh government, according to the minister, has also decided to provide a free health insurance facility, costing around Rs703.814 million, to 6.5 million deserving people of the province. Apparently, talks between the provincial government and insurance companies are in their final stages regarding this project, which will cost Rs138 million.
While it remains to be seen how well these measures will be implemented, because that is where the real challenge lies, there is no gainsaying that the measures are laudatory and must be supported. Pre-marital blood tests are necessary because they can lead to prevention of a range of diseases and avoidable problems during
childbirth etc. The same can be said for streamlining private hospitals. However, a word of caution on that score is in order. The best way to do so is to improve the functioning of government-run health facilities and hospitals rather than intervening too much into the running of private hospitals themselves. The latter course normally provides opportunities for graft to petty bureaucrats. However, if the government could run its own facilities efficiently, that would give the people the right alternative and by doing so also force the private hospitals to charge less and provide better facilities.
It goes without saying that all such measures must have oversight and accountability mechanisms. That is where the issue of correct and efficient implementation comes in. *

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