I'd like to propose an admittedly radical solution to what I believe is a rather significant problem. The problem, in a word, is Pakistan. The solution, in a word, is dissolution. To wit, I contend that Pakistan should dissolve from existence, cease to continue as a nation, and it should be divided up and annexed by its two immediate neighbors. Specifically, the provinces of Baluchistan, The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) should be annexed by Afghanistan; and the Sindh, Punjab, Northern Areas, and the little sliver of Kashmir under Pakistani control should be annexed by India.
First, let's briefly discuss why Pakistan is a problem. To begin with, the country itself is, for lack of a better euphemism, in shambles. On the verge of bankruptcy, Pakistan is an economic non-entity on the world stage. Furthermore, the Islamic "Republic" of Pakistan has been ruled by a military dictator for 33 of the country's 61 years of existence. Its most recent democratically elected leader was assassinated and her husband took her place. Since its inception Pakistan has continuously struggled between becoming a democratic republic with Islam as the state religion and becoming an Islamic despotism with Sharia law enforced by propagating a combination of fear and ignorance. I won't go too deep into the past, because it takes a few minutes of looking into Pakistan's history to see it is a country that came from nowhere with nothing and is going nowhere with nothing except violence and bloodshed.
Pakistan has always been a problem, yes; but why is it a problem today? Well, that's a soft-toss and so easy to hit out-of-the-park that I won't. I'll just briefly have you consider the following: the massacre in Mumbai in November; the attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in the summer; I'll mention again the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; the insurgency in Afghanistan being launched from Pakistan; the fact that Osama bin Laden is alive and well in Pakistan; and the fact that over the past year there have been over 50 suicide bombings on Pakistani targets by Pakistan terrorists within Pakistan. Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism, especially in the Subcontinent region. The worst part is, the ISI, Pakistan's version of the CIA, and its military not only neglect to do anything about the terrorists within their country, they actively work with these militants to terrorize their neighboring countries and their own citizens. They are clearly harboring bin Laden and keeping the US and NATO forces off his trail. To make things worse, the civilian government has essentially no control over the military, especially the ISI. Pakistan is a terrorist state. Pakistan = Terrorism.
This brings us to my solution. Violence begets violence, and retaliation of terrorist tactics breeds more terrorism. We're seeing this in Israel and Gaza today (and can discuss that in another post), and ending terrorism, actually ending it, seems pretty much impossible. But for the people of the Indian Subcontinent, with lots of resources and a reconstruction period unrivaled since the splitting of Berlin after WWII, terror may be defeated. Pakistan = Terrorism. End Pakistan = end the terrorism. Yes, there will be pockets of violent instigators who resent the new democratic rulers, but least the most organized, deadly, and vicious parts of terrorism, which are the ISI-backed cells spread across the madrasas and camps of Pakistan, can be stopped.
Baluchistan and the NWFP, which share language and culture with the Afghan people, has always been claimed by many fervent Afghans to belong to Afghanistan. Punjab, which is a State and language in India, and well as the Sindh, which really includes the Sindhi people on either side of the border, can legitimately be considered Indian lands. In this region, in 1947, the British crudely carved up a parcel of land for some tough young Indians in the Muslim League and it eventually led to the nuclear-armed disaster that we call Pakistan. My solution is: divide it up, give the culturally Afghan areas to Afghanistan, which, with the help of NATO, can hope to create a proud democratic nation from the ashes of nearly three decades of war; and the culturally Indian lands give back to India, which is a secular nation that holds more Muslims that Pakistan's entire population.
Many can argue that adding more Muslims to India, which already has problems dealing with sectarian violence and its periodic bouts of Hindu Nationalist, anti-Muslim movements, and having them even more enraged because of an occupation of their former-country, would do more harm than good. However, if there is an international effort to stabilize the region,this can be overcome. Because of the close cultural ties, assimilation into Afghanistan and India for the respective regions of Pakistan should take a generation at most, if done right.
I guess that's the hard part...doing it right.
Thoughts?
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