By Shaukat Aziz

When I returned home to serve our beloved country as finance minister, I brought with me thirty years of observation and study from some of the fastest growing regions of the world, regions as diverse and far removed as the formerly communist Eastern Europe, the Far East, the Middle East and Latin America. Despite their great diversity they had one thing in common: they suffered from varying degrees of deprivation and different kinds of backwardness despite their immense potential. Some had very poor populations; others had wealth imbalances between people and regions; still others whose human resource development was lacking despite great wealth. And I saw how so many pulled themselves out of the mire of backwardness and reached the doorstep of the Twenty-First Century. As I saw, so did I learn, because, not least, I also had the opportunity of participating in the development of some of those countries as a senior banker. It was a unique experience indeed. I saw an economic miracle unfold before my eyes as country after country transformed itself from relative backwardness to positions of great affluence and development, literally in a single life span.
Why canÕt we develop like that too, I often asked myself? Why canÕt we, with our far greater human and natural resources, become a force to be reckoned with economically and not just geo-strategically? We have the potentialÐ-much more than most others. What we lacked was a clear vision in which everyone has a stake and which we all own collectively. It is this vision that leads to modern and contemporary policies with continuity and consistency.
Making history is in our genes. We made an unmatched history when, led by the Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah the Muslims of India struggled for and won Pakistan against unimaginable odds. They succeeded because they were fired by unity of purpose, faith in Allah and in themselves and enormous discipline. They won not only freedom, they made a new country. Thus it has always been my conviction that with AllahÕs blessings and the implementation of sagacious policies, Pakistan too can perform such a miracle and many more during our lifetimes. We too can witness the emergence of Pakistan as a highly developed, prosperous and modern Islamic state.
Since returning home five years ago, I have witnessed firsthand the great ability of our people to face hardship with great dignity and patience, what tremendous resilience they have, what a hardworking and God fearing people we all are. Given the right environment we have the character to achieve any goal, climb any mountain. Our moment has come. I am determined that we will not lose this moment.
Why am I so convinced that we will reach our goal of a prosperity that is shared equitably by all? Because after a long time and much sacrifice we have reached the stage where we can achieve fairly high rates of economic growth and look forward to doubling our national output every decade. A per capita GDP target of $1,500 by the year 2015 is well within our sights. This will translate into higher incomes and a much better quality of life for the vast majority of our people. This is our major long-term goal and will require our GDP to grow by around 7 to 8% every year on a sustainable and consistent basis.
I am mindful of the fact that achieving this kind of growth will be challenging, but it is eminently attainable. To do this we will need to excel in and achieve mastery over the entire value chain in our traditional fortes, like the textile industry, for instance, and agricultureÐ-especially agriculture. At the same time we will need to graduate into higher value added and fast growing sectors like construction, energy, engineering, electronics, information technology and bio-technology.
It is the God-given right of the people to expect the State to endow them with the ability to acquire the best knowledge, have access to healthcare and to justice. All this requires major and continuous investment in human beings. Our people have to be equipped with the technical and managerial skills to enable them to participate fully in the world economy.
In order to have a population with a modern and contemporary education, we must learn English. This in no way militates against our national language or any of our mother tongues. Language is but a tool of learning which equips people to acquire the most up-to-date knowledge as fast as possible. It does not replace or alter oneÕs identity. Do you think that people like me got so far in the world simply because we are very intelligent?
A healthy nation is a productive nation. This has become a truism precisely because it is true. Thus it is my goal to launch programmes that lead to primary healthcare for all within the next ten years. In the same timeframe, and as part of our overall health strategy, we will initiate programmes that provide safe drinking water for everyone in rural and urban areas alike.
To improve the quality of life of the people, I am determined to improve the quality of public service delivery to the people at their doorsteps. In this respect, amongst other services like education, health, water and sanitation, a fair and affordable justice system at the grassroots level that provides justice to the poorest and least empowered in a reasonable period of time will be provided. This is an imperative.
Our human development strategies, our initiatives in the industrial, agricultural, services and natural resource sectors will be designed to make Pakistan a regional economic powerhouse that is recognized as an economic lynchpin of the region. Our goal is to become the trade and manufacturing hub that connects North Asia, Central Asia, West Asia, the Middle East and South Asia.
Now let me get down to brass tacks. Years of neglect have deprived our agriculture of new ideas, processes and products. We will reverse this. We will bring the results of world class research to our farmer so that we can leapfrog productivity gaps prevalent in Pakistan.
In manufacturing we will provide a hassle-free environment to our industrialists. We plan to develop modern production and export enclaves. Industrial estates will be developed that will have all the requisite infrastructure and modern facilities. We will support manufacturing clusters by programmes that upgrade their technological capabilities, improve their connections with the international markets and provide state-of-the-art training to their workforce. We will rationalise and reduce the number of taxes, create a tax system that promotes employment-creating manufacturing, improve labour laws and deregulate arcane regulations.
As the economy grows there will be tremendous opportunities in the energy sector. We plan to boost domestic exploration and development of oil and gas resources and bring in oil and gas pipelines from Central and West Asia. The power sector will witness a major expansion. We intend to be the most energy-efficient and energy-sufficient manufacturing economy in the region.
But success will elude us if we donÕt maintain a high level of political stability, with both the government and the opposition ensuring the viability of the system and working towards making Pakistan truly democratic, which means, first and foremost, continuously and consistently improving the human condition. We have to avoid political point scoring and develop a working and stable consensus between the opposition and the government. All countries that have developed had sound and stable political processes.
Our external relations should so develop that the international environment becomes conducive to our development efforts. Regional peace and cooperation have to be promoted and access to global and regional markets enhanced. We have to ensure an investment-friendly climate that promotes both domestic and foreign investment in our economy. This would require us as a nation to protect our internal security environment from deterioration and join the government in challenging and eliminating all forms of violence in our society. We have to create an image that is not threatening to Pakistanis and foreigners alike, be they visitors or investors. Terrorism of all types and dimensions will be rooted out, but while doing so we must remain cognizant of the causes that lead to this horrific effect so that this monster does not raise its ugly head again in our sacred land.
Pakistan is a moderate country. President Pervez MusharrafÕs initiative of Enlightened Moderation is the way to proceed for the Muslim world at large and the rest of the world too. The Organisation of Islamic Conference and the Muslim ummah need to do a lot more and Pakistan has its role to play here. If Pakistan projects an image of a modern, vibrant Islamic state, it will help improve the image of Muslim ummah too.
Our foreign policy is driven by national interests. The way to expand relationships with other countries is to create mutual dependencies. Our priority will be to have closer relations with the Muslim world while pursuing a path of peace and diplomacy that ensures the recognition of the rights and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. China is our strategic ally, as always.
Our vision is to be a vibrant, modern Islamic state where the people have a myriad of opportunities. Never imagine that the heavens will open and riches will start falling out of the sky. God does not help a people that do not help themselves.
The writer is prime minister of Pakistan

John Negroponte

The nomination by President George Bush of John Negroponte for the new post of director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing all the burgeoning intelligence operations of the United States, is both obscene and predictable.
Negroponte, currently the U.S. ambassador to Iraq and, unofficially, the head of the U.S. occupation of that country, is a career foreign service officer on paper, but in fact a veteran CIA operative responsible for some of the blackest crimes of murder and torture in Central America during that region's dark days of civil war, revolution and counter-revolution in the late 20th Century.
As U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, Negroponte played a key role in organizing the military repression in the poorest of Latin American countries, and in creating and running the so-called Contra's, the U.S-organized military operation to undermine and overthrow the elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
What makes Negroponte the perfect candidate to be America's KGB chief is his refined cover. He has the Republicans on the Republican-dominated Intelligence Committee in his pocket anyhow, and as a career diplomat, urbane and fluent in five languages, he also appeals to the mushy national security state Democrats like John Rockefeller, Evan Bayh, Diane Feinstein and Ron Wyden, who will be asked to join in rubber-stamping his nomination.
If his appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during hearings on his nomination for the post of ambassador to Iraq is any indication, he will breeze through this next "test." Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Joseph Biden gushed over him at those earlier hearings, and didn't ask anything about his role in promoting death squad activities or in covering up human rights abuses in Central America, which included the murders of several dozen priests and nuns.
Americans concerned about our vanishing civil liberties, and about the expanded use of official state terrorism against American citizens and resident aliens should be concerned about this appointment, however. The new intelligence chief will be responsible for overseeing the nation's vast $100-billion spying operation and its ballooning, largely secret budget.
This man's record is not encouraging.
Negroponte deliberately falsified State Department human rights reports every year of his ambassadorship in Honduras. According to the Maryknoll Order, many U.S. missionaries and other religious activists were murdered in that country in the 1970s and especially the early 1980s by CIA-trained Honduran soldiers of the so-called Battalion 3-16, whose operations they claim Negroponte oversaw, or "at best overlooked."
Even The New York Times credits Negroponte with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua"-an effort which the paper fails to note was illegal, and which ultimately included the trading of guns for drugs on CIA-financed aircraft. Negroponte helped with this massively corrupt and illegal war effort of the Reagan administration even after it had been expressly banned by the U.S. Congress.
One would think that kind of insult to the Congress would elicit at least some opposition to Negroponte's appointment, but not a word about it came up during his ambassadorship hearings (Sen. Dodd actually said, "I happen to feel he's a very fine Foreign Service officer and has done a tremendous job in many places."), and it seems unlikely he'll be asked about it this time around.
COUNTERPUNCH.COM

Muhammad Hussein Adeli, the Iranian ambassador to the United Kingdom, said last Thursday that his government had lent substantial help to the United States in fostering a "calm atmosphere" for the holding of elections on Jan. 30 in Iraq. He revealed that Iran had contacted Sunni Arab groups with which it had influence and attempted to convince them that the elections were in Iraq's best interest. [Al-Hayat]
As I predicted, the United Iraqi Alliance not only has 51 percent of seats on its own, but has already made a coalition [Arabic link] with some smaller parties. The three representatives of the Cadres and Chosen Party that is close to Muqtada al-Sadr will join the large coalition, as will the three deputies of the Turkmen National Front and a few independents. Only twelve lists were seated in parliament in the end, and most of them have joined the Shi'ite coalition. If the UIA can come to an agreement with the Kurds, it can easily form a government and then rule parliament.
The UIA is looking to given Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, former national security adviser, an important post. It will definitely sack interim Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan, who is vehemently anti-Iranian.
Tony Karon of Time profiles Ibrahim Jaafari, who will most likely be the new prime minister of Iraq. He says "...Jaafari is a 'Shi'ite modernist,' according to an AFP profile carried in the Tehran Times. He has signaled a moderate Islamist position on questions of religion and the state, advocating that Islam be constitutionally recognized as Iraq's official religion and a source (but not the sole source) of legislation, and that no laws will be passed that contradict Islamic values. At the same time, he favors protection of minority religious and ethnic groups, and insists that the first priority of a new government is not only to be as inclusive as possible of those who participated in the election, but also to draw in those who stayed away--almost half the eligible population (42 percent), including the vast majority of Sunnis ... The U.S. is now faced with negotiating a relationship with a new government that reflects limited U.S. influence, and whose leaders enjoy historic ties with Iran."
Phillip Kennicott of the Washington Post does one of the best Western press profiles of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani yet. It is a judicious exploration of Sistani's thought on matters of religious law and social mores.
"While American leaders emphasize that Sistani isn't like the clerics of Iran, others point out that the Shi'ite tradition leaves Sistani little wiggle room on fundamental topics, including women's rights.
'It is important to keep in mind that there are certain issues in the Shi'ite community about which no ayatollah can afford to deviate in his deliberations and final ruling,' Abdulaziz A. Sachedina writes in an e-mail from Iran. A professor of Islamic studies at the University of Virginia, Sachedina met with Sistani several times in the 1990s, and on one occasion Sistani criticized his writings and issued a ruling against Sachedina's public comments on matters of faith. Sachedina's inside view of Sistani and Sistani's organization lead him to consider the ayatollah more conservative than do other observers. Sistani's views on women 'are restrictive and in his personal communication to me in 1998 he made it very clear that he abides by the age-old opinions regarding women's inequality with men, and that he regards their testimony, as extrapolated from the Qu'ran, half of a man's testimony in value,' the scholar writes."
Juan Cole
ANTIWAR.COM

It's good news, bad news time again for the Middle East. The good news is that what you are witnessing in the Arab world is the fall of its Berlin Wall. The old autocratic order is starting to crumble. The bad news is that unlike the Berlin Wall in central Europe, the one in the Arab world is going to fall one bloody brick at a time, and, unfortunately, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa and the Solidarity trade union are not waiting to jump into our arms on the other side.
No one is more pleased than I am to see the demonstration of "people power" in Iraq, with millions of Iraqis defying the "you vote, you die" threat of the Baathists and jihadists. No one should take lightly the willingness of the opposition forces in Lebanon to stand up and point a finger at the Syrian regime and say "J'accuse!" for the murder of the opposition leader Rafik Hariri. No one should dismiss the Palestinian election, which featured a real choice of candidates, and a solid majority voting in favor of a decent, modernizing figure- -Mahmoud Abbas. No one should ignore the willingness of some Egyptians to demand to run against President Hosni Mubarak when he seeks a fifth--unopposed--term. These are things you have not seen in the Arab world before. They are really, really unusual--like watching camels fly.
Something really is going on with the proverbial "Arab street." The automatic assumption that the "Arab street" will always rally to the local king or dictator--if that king or dictator just waves around some bogus threat or insult from "America," "Israel" or "the West"--is no longer valid. Yes, the Iraq invasion probably brought more anti-American terrorists to the surface. But it also certainly brought more pro-democracy advocates to the surface.
Call it the "Baghdad Spring."
But we have to be very sober about what is ahead. There will be no velvet revolutions in this part of the world. The walls of autocracy will not collapse with just one good push. As the head-chopping insurgents in Iraq, the suicide bombers in Saudi Arabia and the murderers of Mr. Hariri have all signaled: The old order in this part of the world will not go quietly into this good night. You put a flower in the barrel of their gun and they'll blow your hand and your head right off.
I write all this not to suggest that we are on a fool's errand in Iraq. I write it to underscore that we are on the first step of a long, long journey. The fact that the extremists and autocrats have had to resort now to unspeakable violence shows how much they have failed to win the war of ideas on the Arab street. But the emerging progressive forces still have to prove that they can build a different politics around united national communities, not a balance of sects, and solidarity from shared aspiration, not a shared external enemy. There is still, throughout the Arab world, a very weak notion of statehood and citizenship. And there are still very few civil society institutions outside the mosque, and little historical experience with a free press, free markets or real parliamentary democracy to build upon when the walls fall.
Thomas L. Friedman
NYTIMES.COM