Can pakistan survive?
Well it might, it might not, something only time will tell if the US, its allies, and international aid agencies were to suspend all aid and put future relations on hold but people took the example of 1993-2001, sure but the same decade is termed as the lost decade as well, are you guys ready for similar lost decade/s and at that point in time you were not really on the wrong side of bigger powers, a certain senior bush and mr Clinton still had a soft corner for Pakistan.
Atleast the aid flowing in is making sure Pakistan is not going bankrupt, which it would have, had the friendly countries and the US in particular directly and through aid agencies not pushed in the aid money, also don’t forget the bulging external debt which stands at a staggering 31%, which if all the donors stand today on your doors asking all the money back will become an impossible herculean task. I hope people do realize what it means going bankrupt and ripple effect on the economy, with investments coming to a stand still, flight of capital, wealthy Pakistanis fleeing with all their money, remittance dropping drastically, rupee on an uncontrollable downward spiral, with little or no access to basic things of day-to-day needs, with inflation which would see a new high every day, where a Zimbabwe would look a comparable or possibly a much better case.
People also proudly talk about the decade that followed once musharraf stepped in, but was it all his doing that one saw on display or were there a lot of other underlying factors which had outside support that made it for Pakistan then, reflect and look at the actual picture, not based on rhetoric but on pure hard facts.
More than the economics of it, I think najam sethi rightly put it, what to expect in Baluchistan, Khyber pakhtunkhwa and Karachi, which could all go up in flames and all you will end up will an economy completely in tatters with little or no hope and people all over fighting against the state with full vigor for a separate nation with international vested interests keenly supporting. A civil war would be an understatement, add to that the international interest in pak nukes, far from being in a situation to anyone’s liking who all posting in support of cut all aid and relations with the US, and then there are the extremists waiting to take over the state.
Guess what, isn’t it surprising the pak army is keeping mum on the issue. Those chaps there pretty well understand how horribly wrong it all could go and for the same reason I wont be surprised they along with the civil administration will work out a deal where this American dude will be let off on one ground or the other.
One can understand the high emotions that are being displayed but think about it calmly and not purely on high sense of jingoism and not that I expect Pakistan to not listen to what they are being told by the US, if not today but then most certainly tomorrow, there isn’t a way out!