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Thank you to Rick Barton, Karin von Hippel, Craig Cohen and the many experts, including Tezzi Schaeffer who worked on this study. I have felt the need for just this study for a long time. It asks and answers the essential questions that American policy makers need to consider as we remake our relations with Pakistan for the long term. I would like to highlight several points in the report that particularly impressed me.

First, the report provided solid documentation that our assistance and policy is not focused enough on people and their most pressing concerns or aspirations. I have made this point based on intuition, but frankly intuition is not good enough. We needed the research based on a sound methodology, and for that CSIS is to be commended.

The report pulls together the various streams of aid the US has invested in Pakistan since our relations opened up following 9/11. As far as I know, this had never been done before.

The conclusions confirm what we all feared.
· The US is indeed investing a great deal in Pakistan --$10 billion since 2001, but that it is overwhelmingly going to the Pakistani military and military assistance.
· This aid is not aimed at addressing the needs of the Pakistani people, but rather at our short-term counter terrorism objectives narrowly focused along the border with Afghanistan.
· Because our efforts are not addressing the underlying fault lines in Pakistani society, it is perceived to be working against the people, thusly aiding the militants.
· In the words of the report, the United States has less influence in Pakistan than we think, or Pakistanis fear.

The report draws the right conclusion. U.S. long- term policy with Pakistan must focus on meeting the aspirations of its people. Nothing I have seen or read in recent years is more important than this point.

The report recommends that the US address the main drivers of conflict, instability and extremism, and defines these accurately as a culture of impunity, discontent in the provinces, ethnic and sectarian tensions, a rapidly growing and urbanizing youth population, and extremist views among traditional allies.

Secondly, the report offers a straightforward explanation as to why a coherent and effective policy toward Pakistan has eluded us. In a word, it has been our own lack of clarity of purpose. I was particularly struck by table II.1 on page 21 that outlines different approaches among American policy makers– the Status Quo view and Activist critique. The chart pairs views such as:
· Musharraf is doing the best he can to root out the Taliban/al Qaeda v. Musharraf is playing a double game.
· Islamism is on the rise and military rule prevents its assent v. the myth of Islamic peril is used to justify anti-democratic force.
· Musharraf has sought peace with India v. Musharraf has refused to address Kashmiri militants.

Everyone who is an expert dealing with Pakistan since September 11 ---and that is just about everybody – has a view. Policy positions are cogently argued and firmly held. And, as the chart points out, the assumptions on Pakistan can be diametrically opposed, often counter productive. I found that chart humbling, because I suppose I am just as guilty of this as others.

The point the study makes very clearly is that our efforts in Pakistan have been overly focused on counter-terrorism to the extent that we have misunderstood what is going on in the country, and that has been counterproductive and is unsustainable.

The stability of Pakistan quo Pakistan and the welfare of its people are too important for us to get it wrong. One very disturbing example of this tracks US approval ratings in Pakistan following the earthquake assistance effort. American popularity soared from 23% before the earthquake to 45% in November 2005. By January US approval ratings had dropped precipitously to 15%. The event that precipitated the fall was a US predator strike on a madrassah in Bajaur along the Afghan border, killing many civilians and alienating the nation.

I endorse the report’s conclusion that the US must develop a comprehensive, interagency, integrated policy approach and that this process must lead to a new definition of our relations with Pakistan. If we fail to do this, we are condemned to undercutting our broader interests, wasting our investments, stunting Pakistan’s potential for development, and endangering the region.

Third, the report hammers home the horrifying truth that we have no plan B for Pakistan. The other example of a foreign adventure in which we stubbornly rejected the advice of many to develop a plan B was Iraq. The consequences there are now painfully evident.

Timing is important. In the early months following 9/11, I believe the United States made the right decision to trust President Musharraf. The thinking in the very early days was that the US should address quickly the most immediate threats to Musharraf and the decision he made to support the US in Afghanistan. He faced uprising in the streets, a faltering economy, a shunned military, and a deeply ingrained popular belief that the US would soon abandon Pakistan as we did after the Soviet withdrawal.

Our response was to provide immediate assistance to the military, stabilize the economy so that Pakistan could qualify for World Bank programs with grant aid to buy down the debt, and lift sanctions to quickly engage at all levels. This seemed to work.
· The economy enjoyed sustain growth between 5-7% for three years
· Foreign reserves are now at $15 billion, up from $1.7 before 2001
· The Musharraf government is able to spend more of its own budget on services to the people – education, health.
· Pakistanis themselves regained confidence to invest in their own country and world wide remittances multiplied.

The Embassy also recommended immediate education, health and infrastructure aid so that the central government could make a positive entry into the FATA area. However, this did not happen. I am glad to see the Administration is now providing $750 million but this is 6 years later, and it may be too late. Timing is important.

Our initial recommendations were meant to be immediate but not to be enduring. We recommended instead a longer-term plan.
· USAID should be reestablished in Pakistan to implement longer-term development goals, primarily in education and secondarily in health and democracy.
· Help build a professional, disciplined Pakistani civilian police.

The CSIS report admirably recommends strengthening the police, but I would like to give greater emphasis to this point. We all recognize the huge influence the Pakistani army plays in their society. We also recognize the critical importance of safety and security for the civilian population. We argued in 2002 and I still think it is important today that more balance be developed in the national security plan. Police development has been largely ignored.

Today we hear complaints from the growing “extremists” critical of the government that the army is intruding into domestic security affairs throughout the country, deep into the villages in the countryside. There simply is a vacuum but it should not be filled by the national army.

Within our government there are strongly held views that the US should not get involved in police training lest it be tied later to police abuses. Moreover, there is also no single agency that owns overseas police training. I’d like to argue that this should not stop us. The US did an admirable job sponsoring police training and development of an ethnically integrated force in Kosovo and Bosnia. We should have done it from the very early days in Iraq and are now paying a price for not having trained police.

We can still help Pakistan in an area of its greatest deficiency. A professional, disciplined, technologically modern civilian police is a critical element of building a trustworthy judicial system -- both are needed to restore the rule of law. This was part of our proposed plan B in early 2002. The administration never really moved beyond our initial response. We must do so now.

There is another element of timing I would like to raise. Our unspoken compact with President Musharraf in the early days after 9/11 was that we supported his enlightened moderation platform. He promised to move the country to an elected civilian government. Now he must do it.

There are risks with every scenario in the upcoming election:
· Musharraf declares a modified martial law after the Supreme Court rules against his bid to bypass the constitutional provision requiring all Public servants to step down for two years before running for office.
· A more likely scenario is that the Supreme Court allows Musharraf to run with his uniform on and that all or most of the opposition parties resign their seats in the national assemblies.
· The followers of Nawas Sharif within the PML-Q defect to form an alliance with the religious parties on the right and polarize the country along anti-American, anti-Musharraf anger.
· Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto fail to reach an agreement on power sharing and the large PPP party gets frozen out as the country moves to the right.

These are only four illustrative scenarios that could conceivably end in violent protests in the streets that would be defined by anti-Americanism. What should we be doing to avoid a backlash? The CSIS report makes several good recommendations for the long term that applies to this very immediate situation.

The US must make clear that our relationship is with the Pakistan people, and not one man or woman or party or institution like the Army, but the people. This will require our envoys and diplomats to be visible, active, and courageous in actions and words. The Pakistanis are very sensitive to any indication of our preference for President Musharraf in the election. This hurts him.

Benazir Bhutto will visit Washington starting tomorrow and will receive a great deal of publicity. In fact, my own organization, the Middle East Institute, will contribute to the coverage by hosting an event in the Russell Building at 10:00am Tuesday, September 25.

We should not leave any ambiguities in our support for the democratic process, rather than for individuals running for election. Ultimately our Plan B means the US must support a fresh group of leaders drawn from Pakistan’s overwhelming young population, support reforms of its democratic process, and push for services for the people.

My final point is that the report makes the right conclusion that we must be realistic in our aid goals. US assistance will not be able to remake Pakistan, but it could be useful as catalyst for change.

One of the more valuable aspects of the CSIS report is its clear presentation and endorsement of management by results. All too often we provide aid and then report on its success by listing the activities the funds supported. This is not enough. Perhaps we build 3,000 schools. But how many students were educated? How many of the educated students found jobs? Said differently, what was the impact of those schools on people?

In another example, the US spending $10million on a children’s hospital would be one measure, but a more telling metric would be to report on the decrease in infant mortality or the under five death rate.

The report is smack on in calling for results-based management of USAID and other programs. This is not easy. USAID, and for that matter all other national aid agencies as well as the UN, have become little more than contracting agencies. During the 60s and 70s, US aid programs were delivered more directly – and not through NGOS to the degree they are today. This eliminated a lot of overhead expense, but it also brought US officials into closer contact with the people being assisted. The bond was tighter, communication better, involvement and inclusion more natural. We need to rethink our aid to Pakistan, but really throughout the world.

On that note I will stop. My enthusiasm for the report is evident, and I think it opens many more lines of inquiry and work.