Author: Pran Kurup

How could the world’s most wanted terrorist be living in the midst of army personnel in Pakistan for over 5 years? When the US has been pouring billions for years into Pakistan for a whole host of reasons how could Pakistan play a double game? If it was not a double game how ridiculously incompetent is the country’s intelligence agency? These questions just scratch the surface of a barrage of questions that Pakistan is bound to face in the weeks and months ahead.

Ever since the 9/11 strikes it has been a weather-beaten joke at Indian social gatherings that Osama bin Laden was living “happily” in Pakistan. It was common knowledge among those who follow the news carefully that President Musharraf had made it a routine practice to make a splash every few months about nabbing some terrorists in order to keep the Americans happy. The killing of Osama bin Laden confirms that the Americans have finally seen through this game (after billions of dollars!) and stopped trusting Pakistan especially when it matters most. Hats off to the Obama administration for finally learning this rather expensive lesson!

Over the years the perception that Pakistan was a safe haven for terrorists has gained momentum. The investigations following the Mumbai attacks have helped further reinforce this perception. The Indian government has repeatedly accused Pakistan of harboring terrorists. Pakistan has always brushed this aside as India’s biased accusation despite clear cut evidence provided after the Mumbai attack among other well documented details. The killing of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, clearly provides further credence to this accusation. Pakistan being home to the most wanted terrorists is no longer just a perception, but a reality.

The people of Pakistan have been living in denial because they have been blinded by their deep-seated animosity towards India while this has been carefully harnessed and exploited by its politicians and its army over the years. A country that was carved out of India to serve as a homeland for Muslims has dismally failed and has been sadly left behind. Meanwhile, India has grown in leaps and bounds (relatively speaking); it has enjoyed a thriving democracy and is fast becoming a country to reckon with in the world. Pakistan on the other hand is not just a failed state but has all the notoriety of a “rogue state”. The average Pakistani is now faced with a highly corrupt political system, a weak President, an ineffective Prime Minister, an all powerful army that either has no worthy intelligence to speak off or is deeply in bed with the terrorists, and a dangerous environment where your neighbor could be a dreaded terrorist. In effect, with the killing of bin Laden in its own backyard, Pakistan has sunk to its virtual “ground zero.”

Can Pakistan recover from this quagmire or is the worst still to come?

The good news is that the US is still prepared to write billion dollar checks to Pakistan. However, after recent events these checks are going to come with some serious strings attached. The US should insist that a significant part of this aid goes to real education programs and other fundamental reform oriented long term investments. The challenge for the US would be to convince the Pakistani leadership that this aid is a long term commitment and not another opportunistic move that will die down should the US leave Afghanistan. There is no doubt that the US would in many ways attempt to exercise excessive influence (bordering on meddling in Pakistani internal affairs) in return for this aid. But Pakistan has little to chose from at this point. It is Pakistan’s opportunity to lose. Its time to come clean and “reboot.” — Stop state support for terrorists of any sort, hand-over the known terrorists to the US, improve relations with India by prosecuting or eliminating those responsible for the Mumbai attacks and expose those who sheltered Bin Laden, among other clean up acts that imply a genuine desire for a fresh start.

Most importantly, Pakistan should stop obsessing over India. To ease off on the Kashmir would be a big part of this much-needed change in mind-set. This is not in any way meant to be a justification of India’s handling of the Kashmir issue. It’s more an issue of drawing priorities for a country that is on the verge of a serious break down. The reality is that the country has far more critical issues at hand and Kashmir is at best a distraction that Pakistan can ill-afford to pursue at this point in time. When you are on a burning deck you can’t sweat over not having a cabin that isn’t large enough.

The intent is not to trivialize the challenges facing Pakistan and pretend as though there are quick fixes. But in order to extricate itself from this current situation, there has to be some definitive action that signifies a fundamental break from the past either by choice or by pressure from the US. In the long term, one can only hope that the country can transition towards a real democracy where there are elected leaders who can govern freely outside the shadow of the army. The killing of Osama bin Laden, hopefully, will spark some serious soul searching among the Pakistanis. Given the complete dearth of credible leadership at the political level perhaps a grass roots movement that would rally the masses and transform the country over the next several decades is very much in order.

The American economy is still struggling. The stock market is soaring, the fat cats on Wall Street are happy again, but Main Street is still hurting with high unemployment. Jobs from manufacturing to IT to services have moved overseas and are not coming back anytime soon. Companies are continuing to cut back. The housing prices show no sign of recovery in the near future. The deficit is growing, the Republicans are back in power in Congress with their tried and failed tax-cut mantra.  In this bleak situation, what can a President tell the American people that can make them feel better? Will the American people take bad news for an answer? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding “No.”

What can a President deliver under these circumstances? What did President Obama divvy up? He started off by patting the backs of Vice-President Joe Biden and newly elected speaker of the house, John Boehner [who I thought might break down :-)] with some kind words about how you can “make it” in America provided you work hard.

From then on, it was a difficult but elegant dance where he would jump two steps to the right by calling for a spending freeze, and promptly jump four steps to the left calling for infrastructure improvements from high-speed rail to broadband penetration in US homes; then again three steps to the right saying he would veto any bill with earmarks, then five steps to the left warning against repealing the healthcare bill; then four steps to the right calling for medical malpractice reform and an end to illegal immigration; this ultimately lands him smack in the political center.  The net effect of this wonderful dance is that he had something in his speech for everyone. It was like Santa Claus showing up for Christmas and praising everyone to the skies, but with no real gifts for anyone. In the end, those who believed that President Obama had turned Centrist are now somewhat convinced of their assessment. Those on the left are relieved that he is still thinking of infrastructure spending. Those on the right are somewhat hopeful that he might be open to cutting spending. Even the infamous Tea party types got some deficit reduction served up for them. And oh, last but not the least, there was the inspirational stuff—the clean energy push, the Sputnik moment, competing and winning the future, and so on—and the parroting of his accomplishments thus far—Healthcare, START treaty, Tax-cuts, Don’t ask don’t tell etc..

In short, it was a carefully planned speech, delivered in characteristic Obama style.  But the oratorical impact of it was significantly diminished by the “lovey-dovey” Republican-Democrat seating arrangement. Nevertheless, the intent was to remain ambiguous, to obfuscate, and thereby continue to be flexible with wiggle room on pretty much every issue.  That goal was achieved to a tee. Although President Obama is painted by the right as a big spending liberal, he did nothing like Bill Clinton who, faced with a similar situation in 1994, declared in his State of the Union address that “the era of big government was over.” On the contrary, President Obama delivered a speech which attempted to appease all constituencies without telling the country what he actually stood for or was willing to fight for—the hallmark of a truly savvy, career politician.

America is all about being positive, optimistic, and exuding the perennial can-do spirit, even in the worst of times. Unfortunately, over the years, this otherwise noteworthy trait has devolved into one of sugar-coating and outright delusion about the reality. No President aspiring for re-election can ever stand up before the country and deliver news such as, “We are screwed. We need to do something drastic or we are dead.” To their credit, the Republican and the Tea party Express responses did precisely that, but they had nothing to offer besides tax cuts for the rich. Those on the left deeply believe that the government must significantly increase spending. But this has to come at the expense of an increased deficit and relies heavily on successful execution of government programs.

Ultimately, “the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook” simply can’t agree on the future course of action to rectify the current mess it finds itself in. So as America muddles along from issue to issue, legislation to legislation, crisis to crisis, bickering over tax-cut versus spending, from one state of the union to the next, questions about America’s future continue to persist.

A year has gone by since President Obama took the oath of office. After the extremes of the George Bush years and the unimpressive McCain-Sarah Palin campaign, Obama seemed like a breath of much-needed fresh air.  With a clever Internet savvy campaign, Obama positioned himself as the right transformational candidate to repair the  endless damage caused by Bush and his team. Despite being relatively unknown, he ran a truly inspirational campaign that captured the imagination of many, especially the young. One year into his presidency, much of that momentum appears to have been lost and many of his ardent supporters have reason to feel disappointed. True, he was dealt the most difficult challenges in recent times. But his approach and accomplishments to-date leave much to be desired and are quite inconsistent with the promise his campaign displayed.

While there are a host of issues on which to evaluate his performance, three of them are particularly insightful: the financial crisis, the Afghan War, and the Healthcare battle. There is no doubt that President Obama inherited a financial mess. A year later — with unemployment at over 10%  – Main Street is hurting, Wall Street is happier with a healthy Dow/Nasdaq and “fat-cat bankers” are once again receiving hefty bonuses. Several experts feel/felt that the stimulus wasn’t exactly sufficient and that the response to the crisis wasn’t exactly “bold enough.” The jury is still out on his response to the the financial mess, though in large part it is by and large a continuation of the policies that President Bush set in motion.

The biggest decision he has made so far is the one to expand the Afghan war effort. While he did say during the campaign that the Afghan war was the “right war,” most people (especially those on the left) believed (or hoped!) that President Obama was opposed to war in general. Unfortunately, after four months of analysis-paralysis (or dithering as Cheney called it), he arrived at the exact same conclusion as the Bush-Cheney team and chose to expand troops, the drone attacks, etc. To top it off, there is complete ambiguity regarding whether the troops would withdraw after 18 months from Afghanistan. Once again, a lost opportunity to make a bold break from the policies of the Bush era.

A President who was deeply opposed to war should have called in his generals on day one and told them without mincing words that he was personally opposed to the war and  convinced them of his rationale.  Asking a general if he wanted more troops is like asking a senior VP at IBM if he wanted more resources to continue to pursue his  next generation project which was already  well over budget, was still understaffed, and unlikely to deliver a successful product. Of course the generals don’t like to accept anything that even remotely smells of defeat. Certainly they are going to ask for a troop expansion!  In fact, General McCrystal went a step further and got away with a premature public pronouncement about the need for 40,000 additional troops. It was a pre-emptive strike against an inexperienced President.

It appears as though President Obama agonized over the decision for four months because he was deeply conscious of the negative implications of war and the weight of the responsibility that comes with such a decision given the potential deaths of young Americans. He had to weigh this against his assessment of the political implications of a withdrawal. With  the nation deeply divided , the Congressional elections looming on the horizon, and the fear that Democrats would once again be labeled as “weak on national defense” President Obama caved in to his generals’ requests, dumped his widely believed left leanings and embraced what he suspected would move him “safely” to the political center. On this issue, clearly President Obama’s political instincts got the better of his perceived ideology. Furthermore, he failed to make a convincing case for why the effort in Afghanistan should be persisted with. His “evil in the world” rhetoric sounded more like George Bush minus the conviction.

The Healthcare battle on the other hand is more stark. The President came into this clearly signifying that he was strongly in favor of universal healthcare. But the devil is in the details as always. When it came down to the contentious issue of the public option, the winds of ambiguity began to take over as is  fast becoming the norm with this administration. Is he for the public option? Will he sign if there is no public option? Does he care enough for the public option to push for it? With the recent senate defeat in MA, the healthcare bill appears to be in jeopardy with no end in sight.

A big part of being a good administrator is to prioritize and be selective about what to pursue, estimate how long something might take, and then execute effectively. On all  these three fronts he has clearly faltered in his first year in office. He first promised a healthcare bill in summer of 2009 and then before last Christmas, and now  it  is completely open ended – a sign that his administrative experience is still unproven and questionable. (closure of Guantanamo being another example).

Despite all his shortcomings and the difficulties facing the country, President Obama still appears to be the right man for the job, especially when compared to the other aspirants for the presidency. He continues to seem like a “cool guy” whose heart is in the right place.  His speeches – the language, the delivery, the style – are easily one of the best (since Bill Clinton) in recent times in American politics. His genuine and consistent attempt to reach out to the Muslim world (referred to as the “apology tour” by the GOP) has helped the world see America a little more favorably today than it did in the Bush-Cheney years. He seems to care deeply about societal inequalities and clearly aspires to do something about it. His first year in office confirms that he is a shrewd politician who knows how to gain power (time will tell if he knows how to retain it), but isn’t very good at using it (unlike his predecessor),  in spite of a Democratic majority in Congress.

Unlike Bush, Obama does not evoke extreme emotions, partly because of his ambiguity on various issues. He is so guarded (he used a teleprompter when addressing 6 year olds!) that even the late night comics seldom find material to joke about him. Despite the accusations of his critics on the right, he does not appear to have a strong ideological bias, enough to  make dramatic shifts in policy.  In fact, given a chance,  I suspect President Obama would prefer not to have an opinion on any issue (as is consistent with his voting record in the Illinois senate).  For the rest of his term, he needs  to overcome the apparent lack of boldness, sharpen his administrative skills and  clear the pervading air of ambiguity that has been a consistent phenomenon of his first year in office. After having rallied the country around cries of “yes we can” he needs to show us how he actually can over the next three years.