Sorry, I missed your comment. In the month since you posted it, the cabinet has expanded, but some important ministries remain leaderless. The problems in Pakistan are just snowballing; each new one is far worse than the previous. But that is no excuse for ignoring key structural and constitutional issues. They are, in fact, at the problems with law and order and the economy.

As for the long term impact, I am unsure. No meaningful change/reform has occurred; the only result I can foresee is continued institutional decay.

I wonder what you actually make of the remodeling of institutions by President Zardari. I’m personally unsure about what sort of long term impact Mr. Zardari’s presidency will have on the structure and constitution of state institutions.

The thing that scares me is that other actors, and the public at large, may be too preoccupied with dealing with the Economy and Taliban to realise that everything else has gone to the dogs.

Take for example the fact that the government has yet to appoint individual ministers to take charge of various ministries, as a result people like Ms. Sherry Rehman are responsible for more than one portfolio. (Ms. Rehman holds three charges: Information, Health AND Women’s Development; and as someone who works with pharmaceutical companies, let me tell you the Ministry of Health is in serious trouble.) In addition to this there has been a whole scale change in the bureaucracy and law enforcement, which is the wont of any new government, but due to the aforementioned pressing issues it’s pretty much all been done in the dark.

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Myra,

Unfortunately I’ve only been able to access the abstract.

Considering that the paper was written in 2000, I think he is referring to the patrons of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance at the time: India, Iran, and Russia.

It seems like he’s arguing that the Taliban have served as a source of much needed stability, and that foreign backed forces serve as an obstacle. A national and regional accord is necessary for bringing stability and progress to Afghanistan and neighboring states.

Ironically, such a proposal is being proposed nowadays — with some adjustment in terms of the alliances.

“Keeping Afghanistan broken and destabilized suits those who do not want the Caspian/Central Asian oil and gas pipelines to take one of the shortest and economical outlets over Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea.”

Did you manage to get hold of the whole of his research paper? (I can only find the extract so far).

Otherwise, do you know who he is referring to when he writes about those who want to keep Afghanistan destabilised?