Recent reporting, including the current concern in the Western press for the nearly million internally displaced persons in Pakistan, has made me return occasionally to my November 2008 post, “Toward the Iraqization of Pakistan?”

Six months ago, I warned of: Pakistan’s IDPs tripling in number, rising ethnic tensions in Karachi, the consolidation of anti-Pakistan militant groups, the spread of the Pakistani Taliban into NWFP’s settled areas, and increased terror attacks in Pakistan’s cities.

All this was foreseeable, but much was beyond the grasp of some who were obsessed with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons (presenting nightmares of Mullah Strangelove) and the idea of an imminent collapse of the Pakistani state.

Pakistan’s security situation today is indeed grave.  But the threats are specific. In order to understand and even preempt the threats, you’ll have to step out of Islamabad’s two forts (the Marriott and the Serena hotels), sweat it out a bit in the streets of cities other than Islamabad, and perhaps even be able to converse with average Pakistanis in their own language(s).

Recently, after attending a forum in DC on Pakistan, I was surprised by the fact that the many local Pakistan watchers still get their news on the country exclusively from U.S. publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — as if Pakistan’s English-language news channels and newspapers (available on the net) are inaccessible.

A few months of following Pakistan from an office in DuPont Circle, Foggy Bottom, or northern Virginia is not enough to learn how the country works.  Pontificating on Pakistan, especially by those who words are seen as authoritative, should come with disclaimers acknowledging one’s intellectual weaknesses (as Stephen Walt did recently). It is essential for every analyst to acknowledge what he or she doesn’t know.

With the ‘Pakistanization’ of war reporters and security experts in the United States, there is an abundance of quantity and dearth of quality.  Everyone and their mother is now a Pakistan expert.  But a good expert is hard to find.

There is a danger from the fact that poor reporting or outlandish statements from seemingly authoritative figures are not filtered — informally — by a more discerning class.  Sexy reports or statements play an agenda setting role and create realities of their own. For example, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s warning of Pakistan’s collapse being a “mortal threat” to the world had everyone in the DC Beltway alarmed, creating the false impression of the country’s imminent failure.

To be fair, Clinton’s statements were most likely designed to scare both the Pakistani government and the U.S. Congress into action.  To some degree, it has worked with the former.  It is difficult to say with the latter.

In the end, many are talking (and acting) on Pakistan, but few seem to have a grasp of what’s occurring on the ground and, more importantly, of what really needs to be done.  What is happening in Pakistan is a growing storm of monumental proportions, but one that the U.S. media and policy community is unable to accurately forecast and respond to.  If knowledge is power, then ignorance is, at the very least, weakness.

As for the Pakistan side of this mix, I’ll have my own critique on it later.

Recommended Reading:

Steve Chapman, “The Other Dangers in Pakistan.” Chicago Tribune.

PS: Though he has been overshadowed by the “team of rivals” in the executive branch, in the past two months, Sen. John Kerry has become the most articulate and sensible person in the U.S. government on U.S.-Pakistan relations.  He’s been hitting all the right points and speaking consistently with necessary nuance.