Letter to Imran Khan.

Dear Imran,


In the next few days, even in the face of accusations of poll rigging, you will be installed as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. If your 22 years in politics thus far was a difficult journey, the years ahead as head of the government will test you in ways beyond one's imagination. Your character as a human being will be put to test, and your values and morality will be challenged and more importantly you will learn that some situations will need an out of box thinking and a resolve that makes the difference between leadership and failure.

You will be surrounded by sycophants, people who will feed your ego and while the small favor for someone may seem small it will be the mark of your government; will you bend the rules or break them? While we as families go back a generation or more, my few meetings with you left some impressions which need to be shared today. I admire your resolve and your honesty in financial matters, however, what I have always felt is that their is a self centered aura around you, which is not uncommon with famous people. This results in the use of the "I" more than the "We", the team then seems a means to the goals you have for yourself rather than the team. Successful leaders rarely use the world "I" and this might be a small but important change forward.

On the broader front I ask you to reader Qaid i Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah's speech of Aug 11, 1947. You will notice the whole speech not once mentions the world Islam, but it talks of the guiding principles of governance that our founder wanted for the country. I recall you once saying to me that "Pakistani Muslims have an identity crisis". Yes they do because we are Arabizing society, we are using the words Muslim and Islam more often than is necessary as if we have to remind ourselves who we are. The problem with our country is that we have misused our religion to the extent that we have created differences amongst ourselves and perhaps you are the only leader today who can fix this!

I would like to see a more tolerant Pakistan, a rule of law, a respect for freedom of the press, the upholding of the judicial process and most of all to bring all the stakeholders in the country, including the defeated opposition to a consensus that the politics of revenge must end. Your stubborn nature may stand in the way of negotiating the way forward but as much as politics is about compromise the trick is to know what you can compromise on?

I do feel the Jinnah speech of Aug 11,1947 should be something you embrace and set it as the key to governance. This will mean protecting the minorities, and to immediately put a stop to the politics of division and end to the intolerance that the Mullahs have imposed on our social structure forgetting we belong to a faith which preached tolerance.

Your biggest two challenges will be the economy and foreign policy.

The economy is crippled and even though ending corruption will slow the bleeding the patient can only return to health with a careful review of the economy and to expand the economic base with an export driven economy. Manufacturing and industry not only need power but also the rule of law and the creation of an economic environment where foreign companies will want to set up production in Pakistan. Imagine if Chinese industries set up their factories in Pakistan, nearer the ports, closer access to markets and a large work force that can be trained. This means investment in vocational skills colleges, we need more technical people in the work force and less political science degrees. Incentives over a tax breaks and ease of investment all will help. But underlying this the politics of violence will have to end for this the militants will have to find havens in other countries.

On foreign policy Pakistan's failures have resulted in Pakistan's foreign policy akin to a blind man walking in an empty corridor calling out if anyone is there to help him. Can you imagine we are a nuclear power and we are the ones asking for attention; surely it should be the other way around. It is vital that dialogue with both Afghanistan and India commence on a new footing. With Afghanistan the politics of interference by both sides has to stop and stakeholders within the military in Pakistan have to be convinced that we should not worry about the complexion of the government in Kabul and mind our own business just as Kabul must be told that influencing the militants within Pakistan is a no-go-zone. With India the history is more complex but both sides must accept that the issue of Kashmir cannot be rolled back to 1947 as too much water has flowed down the Ganges and the Indus. Kashmiri's perhaps want an independent country and it might be worth while considering that the status quo remain and Azad Kashmir be given a provincial status within Pakistan. After all India considers their part of Kashmir as one of the states of their federal structure.


Relations with the big powers will be more difficult and while cementing the already strong relationship with China should continue Pakistan must reset it relationship with the United States and Russia. Given the fractured landscape of international politics an effort to make the EU more pivotal in Pakistan's foreign policy should be considered. The most important element of foreign relations has to be improving the image of the country. This does not happen over night and will need you to ensure career diplomats re of a better calibre and the ambassadors you choose have an interest not only in just meeting their own kith and kin but also developing solid links within the countries they are posted to.


Imran, you have been considered as a candidate upon whom the hope of the people rests. This includes the women of the country who have been down trodden and marginalized for too long. In addition you have to take cognizance of the minorities and protect them more fiercely than just speeches on their status. Your slogan of a new Pakistan implies you have to redefine many aspects within society and this may mean breaking down the perceptions of the many intolerant souls within our society.

I wish you the best and while my blog may be critical of you and your government at times, remember that this is the time not to seek praise only but to take criticism in the spirit that people like me do not want to see you fail, because your failure will be the death knell of our country.

Trump: Why is he weak with the Russians?

For the ardent students of history, especially in my age bracket, we have seen since the Cold War meetings between former Soviet and now Russian leaders with regular frequency. From the  spirit of detente to establishing a new World Order, the mood of these meetings ranged from the icy cold to the cordial and warm; yet the language of the dialogue and the public exposition of the content of the meetings was carefully picked. Each word, each gesture was carefully put in place to ensure that each side, especially the US was asserting its position.

President Donald Trump always has asserted that he has been more 'hard' on Russia than any of the recent Presidents before him. Talking the talk has been easy for this President, but when it came to walking the talk this week in Helsinki, President Trump not only stumbled but fell flat on his face at the feet of a gloating President Putin. One must assume that the diplomats and national security staff around this President would have briefed him in detail. Then we have to remember President Trump fancies himself as the most intelligent human on the planet and without a sense of history he failed miserably.

One has to then wonder why a President who has been tough on his allies, ripped up agreements, ridiculed opponents and anyone who has had the gall to criticize him suddenly is played by the Russians in plain view of millions of viewers. If he had come back from Helsinki after a bout of being tongue tied one could have asked why he didn't say this or that. On the contrary in one sweeping stroke he said he speaks for Russia, implied he believed in the Russian President more than his own intelligence experts and asked about the DNC servers, almost forgetting that he was in Helsinki and not on some right wing Trumpette political rally. So what is it that makes Trumps knees go shaky and his temperament become so submissive when it comes to a man called Putin?

Speculation is that the Russians have some smut on the man who sits in the Oval office from his raunchy (alleged) nights when he was in Moscow years ago. Personally I think this is not something that would bother Trump enough to sell out his country over; after all his loyal supporters, including the evangelists, forgave him for grabbing women by their........So what is the Russian Achilles heel that prompts this out of character submissiveness.

Here is my theory, and I insist it is a theory but it merits a thought.

Perhaps prior to 2015 Trump had borrowed money from Russian banks and oligarchs to build his golf course in Scotland. This could well be around $400 million. We know that a Chinese bank leant Trump companies $500m related to an Indonesian project. So it is likely that with US banks unwilling to lend to him given his past defaults, he often did turn to foreign banks. It is possible that before he announced his bid for the Presidency he could have transferred these loans to either his sons names or his daughter's in laws companies. However it is possible that the underlying assets did not change hands and the loans were simply taken over. 

Now imagine that these loans are in default or chronic delays in payments! Given that Trump never disclosed his tax returns for this period because doing so would show the changes on the liability side of the balance sheet. This puts the Trump Presidency at huge risk because it violates election laws and thus keeping all this silent is what the Russians have on him. 

To me the leverage on Trump has to be more than sex, and this can only be a money connection hence my theory.

Trump: Visited again.

My friends joke that I seem to have a vendetta against a certain Donald J Trump, even though I admit I am at times infuriated by his words, and actions and the persona of the man who has debased the office of the President of United States and conned millions of people into believing he is the real deal. Yes he has done a few good things, the initiative with North Korea (still a long way to go) and reduced taxes but most of all the only good he has done is made us realize how gullible we can all be.

D J Trump, the ultimate opportunist, was clever to notice the cracks in American society and in the American mind set and no matter how ugly the consequences of prying open that crack he felt it was the one ace he could play that might just work. This crack revealed the fears of the disfranchised Americans, the blue collar,mostly white workers, the ultra conservatives who in their hearts never liked the 'others', the many who privately felt their jobs had been stolen by not only the immigrants, both legal and illegal, but also the worker in China, Indonesia or where ever he may be. Opening this crack wider would be flirting with the likes of the KKK and their many cousins, calling a ban on 'all Muslims' from entering the United States of America, and even picking an ugly fight with a gold star parent.

Politicians bend the truth rather habitually, Mr Trump, as candidate Trump, went one step further, he habitually told lies, even privately gloated about how he told a lie to the Canadian Prime Minister. Till last count he had crossed 2,149 misleading statements, and he is by no stretch of the imagination finished this ploy. He talked of a wall that Mexico would pay for, and then when that was not going to happen he brought the immigration issue including the DACA regulations to the forefront and deflected from his promise of Mexico paying by suddenly asking Congress to approve the cost.

The Democrats, led by Hilary Clinton and her clan, played into the game, running a reactive campaign, over confident that Trumps gaffs, including his boast of grabbing women by their private parts would sink him. So much so Hilary and Co lost sight of the fact that their vote bank of blue collared workers was slipping away and she did not even bother to go and bolster support amongst the very people who normally would have voted Democrat, but Trump somehow spoke to their fears better than she ever could. Tinged with over confidence Hilary Clinton faded, even though one may argue that the email scandal so near the election eroded her vote bank even more drastically in the key states. While the popular vote remained in her camp she just did not have a strategy for the electoral college.

I assumed after the election Donald J Trump would somehow become Presidential in his demeanor, somehow the Oval Office does that, we saw that with Bush Jr, and others before. The resonance of the oath taking ceremony had not yet left our ears and the first of the many lies came from the White House over the size of the crowd at the inauguration ceremony. This time it was not President Trump but his press secretary lying for him. But the undertone was even more sinister, it was like President Trump and his cronies want the world to somehow accept that he is more popular, more smarter and better loved than his predecessor, Barrack Obama. In the months that followed everything that President Obama did had to be unscrambled and attacked. It was almost like some White Supremacist had drawn up a list of things that need to be attacked that were done by the first black President of the United States.

On a global level President Trump has embarked on an even more bizarre journey. Hugging the adversaries of the US, ridiculing its allies, and in the midst of it all launching a trade war which no one, not even the mighty United States can win on its own. The Russian President Putin could not have asked for a more likable ally in the world than Donald J Trump; after all he is dismantling or at least undermining NATO, imposing tariffs on the best trading partners of the US, and in a sinister sense working to Kremlin's agenda and perhaps the slogan of Making America Great Again is working to Making Kremlin Great Again.


I then stop to think of this is a more societal context. Perhaps Donald J Trump is right that the soul of America does not want immigrants, that the average American does not want a Muslim living in his neighborhood, that the US farmer wants America Great Again even if he has to burn his crops because the trade war means he cannot sell his grain to China! Perhaps in the past two decades the average American I met in my many visits to that lovely land has changed from the curious, warm hearted welcoming American, to a NRA sticker branding white supremacist who this time around would not welcome me for the BBQ in his back yard. Perhaps the US is going to become isolationist leaving the world for the Chinese and Russians to carve up between them, and withdraw itself into closed borders (as opposed to controlled borders), nagging problems with neighbors and torn up alliances and abandoned allies.

The impact of this is far reaching as social media exaggerates the platform of debate. Indeed people do not discuss issues they argue them now and even blatantly fight over them, throwing in the good measure of fake news to skew the battle lines in their favor. Political tolerance has been washed aside to the extent that even social tolerance is now not visible on the edges of this divided society. Discussion even with facts does not work because of perception of facts have been bent out of shape on both sides of the divide. One has to now define our friendships with those of differing political views with the adage 'lets remain friends but not discuss politics!'

Whether Trump caused this societal paradigm shift or merely saw it as a useful tool to exploit is debatable. The fact he fueled the fires of hate was enough and when he had that one historical moment to change the tempo and tenor of his message to one of tolerance he let it go after his inauguration.  Instead he embraced the division, fed the fire with more lies and hate, creating a sense of the victim remedying the flaws of many Presidencies before him. The appeal of the evangelists who see him as some Christian savior resonated in his sense of self importance and perhaps he truly sees himself in the only possible way he can; as the greatest of all times!

If this is a societal shift then the politics of hate and division that President Trump started as an election ploy have now seeped into the grain of the US national psyche; something that cannot be washed away with soap and water. Yes poison does leave the body of the victim, before it kills him, but this will not go away on its own. His base, as he calls it, will forgive him for his fornication, for his hatred, for his lies and hell even if he steals, but then is his base larger than the values that have always held the United States of America as the land to which the hopeful aspire for freedom and liberty?