EWI board member Ikram Sehgal sees reasons for hope for Pakistan despite recent turmoil and lays out recommendations for the country’s establishment in 2010.

Among the positive developments of 2009, Sehgal lists the recent Supreme Court ruling against the National Reconciliation Ordinance, a 2007 law granting amnesty to officials accused of corruption. Sehgal urges Pakistani authorities to follow through on this opportunity to combat corruption. “To be truly credible, accountability must not be selective and should be applicable to all,” he writes. “The corrupt among the judiciary and the armed forces must not escape justice.”

Sehgal suggests that the military should stay out of the fray and resist the temptation to act against the civilian government, now seen as vulnerable because of the alleged corruption of many of its leaders. “The 2010 resolution for the army: confine themselves strictly to their professional military obligations and let the Supreme Court do its job,” he writes.

Sehgal also sees hope in the Pakistani military’s initial success in campaigns against militants in the Swat valley and Pakistan’s restive tribal areas. But he sees a longer road ahead. “Countering terrorism remains the major challenge of 2010,” he writes. “The vicious terrorist attacks in 2009 of the most inhumane kind are a desperate attempt to break the public's morale and use the resultant clamor to stop the army's relentless onslaught against the terrorists' strongholds in Swat and South Waziristan.”

He urges the Pakistani government to continue the fight against extremists, specifically by staffing the newly-established, independent Pakistani anti-terrorist mechanism with “the very best professionals.”

Such measures will be necessary for a renewed foreign policy effort, Sehgal suggests. “The resolutions for 2010 must seek to improve Pakistan's image by strengthening political institutions, introducing long-term structural political reforms in our political system so that we are perceived as a stable, sovereign entity, and not a rogue state with nuclear weapons,” he writes. “Broad and pragmatic foreign-policy initiatives are needed, instead of inveterate friends and/or inveterate enemies. We must aim for reasonable balance in our nation-to-nation relationships."

Click here to read Sehgal’s article in The News.