Pakistan Democracy

There has always been friction between the military and the elected government in Pakistan, but we now also see friction between the different components of the formal, constitutional branches of government.

The Pakistan Peoples Party seems incapable of finding leaders outside the Bhutto clan. Why must there be a glass ceiling for leadership in the party that carries disproportionately more power?

No matter how attractive or sought after a job can be, it is never easy taking on a role that immediately requires damage control on multiple fronts. By becoming the new Director General of Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, the Inter-Service Intelligence.

Members of Congress must clearly convey their intentions when taking on potentially contentious issues that risk undermining one of the Obama administration's most important strategic partnerships. Balochistan is clearly one of those issues.

In 2011, there were few on the outside who could find space for optimism with Pakistan, even some of my Pakistani friends living in the States. "Peopl...

Don't be fooled. Pakistan is too fractured to experience an Arab Spring-style mass movement. Pakistan's four provinces are often at odds, and ethnic and sectarian tensions are rife.

There has been much speculation about the future of democracy in Pakistan these days. Prophets of gloom are seeing generals at the ready. Optimists are hoping for a reconciliation. Reality lies between the two extremes.

Pakistanis hate these presidential antics. They do not want military rule either.

To me, the most striking thing about the text, which has both an authentic and an artificial ring, is the Pakistani obsession with and anger toward the Osama bin Laden operation.

Imran Khan has populist appeal with his stand against corruption and his criticism of US policy in Pakistan. But will he have enough support and gravitas to lead his country out of its economic slump and lack of moral direction?

Pakistan needs new leadership to take the country out of this spiral down into further poverty and despair, which historically leads to anger and extremist violence. More spending on the military will not prevent violence; it will only make it worse.

"Now's the time for the United States to adjust its ways and try more to engage with the people of Pakistan through their representatives in the shape of the country's mainstream political parties."

America should engage Pakistan's emerging civilian centers of power. The most likely path to a stable Pakistan involves empowering civilians to exert control over its security and foreign policies.

Politicians negotiating positions, impassioned youth taking to the streets, public debate about important issues -- these are the signs that the people of Pakistan have embraced democracy, not that they are turning it away.

In a nation of 180 million people, only two million Pakistanis pay taxes. This may at first glance seem a tragic consequence of poverty, but bear in mind that roughly 30 percent of Pakistanis live in poverty, not 99 percent.

The parliament has an obligation to explain to the public not only how and why Osama bin Laden was living in Abbottabad, but why the Taliban continues to carry out its bloody operations.

Policies of appeasement allow military contractors a free license to patrol and kill in Pakistan -- in the case of Raymond Davis, the ability to fire on his assailants 10 times.

There is a lot of work to do to continue educating the American public on our steep learning curve about the Muslim world in general and Pakistan in particular.

Adm. Mullen may be right in saying that the Pakistani military "knows what it has to do" to rout the Taliban and al Qaeda from their Pakistani sanctuaries, but does the U.S. military know what it has to do? The answer is increasingly apparent.

Terrorism will always make headlines, but given the political jockeying in Pakistan, many media groups are running alarmist, nearly hysterical headlines predicting the imminent doom of Pakistani democracy.

On Friday, Imran Farooq, a founding leader of MQM, the fourth-largest political party in Pakistan, was stabbed to death in London. Since 2009, more than 200 MQM workers and supporters have been the victims of targeted killings.