The conversation we owe Kashmir

By Aleena Saif Ullah The writer is an MPhil Scholar in International Relations, specializing in global defence and security, University of the Punjab, Lahore. On February 28, the first day of Operation Epic Fury, a strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in Iran’s Hormozgan province. Iranian state media reported that 168 children and 14 adults were killed. Anadolu reported two strikes roughly forty minutes apart. President Trump said on March 7 that in his opinion Iran had done it, citing Iranian inaccuracy with munitions. Bellingcat had already established otherwise. Its researchers identified a Tomahawk cruise missile — a munition no other belligerent in the conflict fields — in footage released by Iran’s Mehr agency, and geolocated the strike sequence. The New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN reached compatible conclusions through independent satellite and video analysis. By March 11, NPR reported that a preliminary Pentagon assessment had determined the United States was at fault. Five months later, the accountability failure is not the one I described when I first wrote about this case, and the actual failure is more instructive. A process was initiated. On March 13, Secretary Hegseth announced a formal command investigation, with CENTCOM appointing a senior officer from outside the command to lead it — the correct procedural choice. Lawmakers have said that officer submitted an initial report in April. CENTCOM has held it since. On May 19, Admiral Brad Cooper told lawmakers under oath that the investigation was complex, near completion, and that “I’m fully committed to transparency” once it concluded. No findings have been published. Then in July, CNN reported the detail that reframes the case. Within a week of the strike, the first two stages of the battle damage assessment were complete, establishing that American forces had hit the location. The third stage — the standard review in which Defense Intelligence Agency analysts examine the full body of satellite imagery and intelligence to determine holistically what occurred — had not been ordered as of early July. One source familiar with the matter told CNN there had been no detailed analysis and that CENTCOM had locked down the investigation. NBC reported that preliminary findings pointed to outdated intelligence as the likely cause. This is a different kind of institutional failure from the one international lawyers usually describe, and it is worse. An absent process can be demanded. A process that ran, produced a document, and stopped is much harder to move, because officials can accurately say an investigation took place. The context makes it harder still. On May 13 the Pentagon’s own Inspector General found that the Department had systematically failed to implement its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan, with all eleven objectives reclassified as at risk and the legally mandated Civilian Protection Center of Excellence lacking key staff and leadership. The architecture built specifically to prevent and account for incidents like Minab had been allowed to decay before the war that tested it. Congress has asked the right questions and been ignored. A letter led by Senator Chris Van Hollen and signed by more than forty senators asked Secretary Hegseth directly whether American forces conducted the strikes, what the intended target was, whether AI tools were used in targeting, and whether a no-strike list was established before operations began. Answers were requested by March 18. More than 150 House members signed a parallel letter on the broader civilian toll. The comparison the Pentagon itself invites is unflattering. As NBC noted, the Department has publicly disclosed its role in comparable incidents before: a special forces raid in Yemen, a bombing in Iraq that killed more than a hundred civilians, the strike on an Afghan hospital that killed at least forty-two, a drone attack in Afghanistan that killed ten. Disclosure in those cases was not generous, but it happened. What Minab demonstrates is that the binding constraint on accountability is not evidence. Volunteer open-source investigators, working entirely from public material, established the essential facts within nine days. The state that conducted the strike established them internally within seven. The constraint is that no mechanism exists to compel publication of a report a government has decided not to publish — not the Rome Statute, to which the United States is not a party; not the Security Council, where it holds a veto; and not the Inspector General, who can find institutional failure but cannot release another command’s findings. One lever remains, and it is domestic rather than international. Congress can require declassified release of the findings through the National Defense Authorization Act. Whether it does will indicate more about the state of accountability for civilian harm than any further open-source analysis. The evidence is not missing. The report is not missing. Both exist. Neither can be read.    

When France first levied a 3% tax on the domestic revenues of large technology companies in 2019, the move was presented as a modest, temporary fix. Five years later, the temporary fix has become a global patchwork. More than 20 countries now operate some form of digital services tax, the United States has threatened retaliatory tariffs, and the multilateral replacement intended to tidy it all up remains unsigned.   The question at the heart of the scramble is disarmingly simple and technically complex: where should a company that sells everywhere but is physically located almost nowhere pay its taxes?   For most of the last century, international tax rules rested on physical presence. A company was taxed where it had offices, factories, or personnel. That principle struggled as companies like Google, Amazon, and Meta built business models in which value is derived from users, data, and online advertising in one country, while profits are booked in another, often lower-tax, jurisdiction.   The scale of the mismatch sharpened after the 2008 financial crisis. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project in 2013, estimating that profit-shifting cost governments $100 billion to $240 billion annually in lost revenue. By 2018, public pressure to act on highly visible technology firms accelerated political timelines faster than the OECD process could move.   The result was the rise of the unilateral digital services tax, or DST.   Unlike corporate income taxes, DSTs are typically levied on gross revenues, not profits, generated from specific digital activities online marketplaces, search engines, social media platforms, and targeted advertising within a country’s borders. Rates are low, generally 2% to 5%, but they apply broadly. The United Kingdom’s 2% DST raised over £800 million in 2024-25. France, Italy, Spain, Austria, India, Turkey and others adopted similar measures, each with slightly different thresholds, definitions, and scopes.   Proponents argue DSTs restore a basic link between economic activity and taxation. “If a platform earns substantial revenue from French users watching French ads, the French tax base should reflect that,” a senior official at the French Ministry of Finance said in 2023. For many developing economies, where consumption of digital services is large but physical presence of providers is minimal, DSTs are also a matter of fiscal sovereignty.   Critics, including the technology companies themselves and the U.S. government, point to three problems. First, taxing revenue rather than profit can penalize low-margin businesses and be passed on to small businesses and consumers who use the platforms. Second, the proliferation of different rules creates compliance complexity and the risk of double taxation, where the same income is taxed in multiple jurisdictions. Third, Washington has long argued DSTs are discriminatory by design, targeting predominantly American firms.   That third argument carried trade consequences. Under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) investigated DSTs adopted by France, India, Italy, and others, concluding that several did discriminate against U.S. companies. Tariffs of up to 25% on selected imports were prepared, then suspended pending a global deal.   That deal was meant to be Pillar One.   In October 2021, 136 countries and jurisdictions representing more than 90% of global GDP agreed to a two-pillar framework brokered by the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework. Pillar Two, a 15% global minimum corporate tax, has largely moved forward and is now in force in dozens of countries. Pillar One is the more ambitious and more fragile.   Under Pillar One’s Amount A, a portion of the residual profits of the world’s largest and most profitable multinationals  those with global turnover above €20 billion and profitability above 10% would be reallocated to market jurisdictions where their customers and users are located, regardless of physical presence. The scope was deliberately expanded beyond tech; excluding extractive industries and regulated financial services, it would cover roughly 100 multinationals across sectors.   In exchange, countries would be required to withdraw DSTs and similar measures and commit not to introduce new ones. A Multilateral Convention (MLC) would implement the rules, replacing a web of unilateral taxes with a single, coordinated mechanism. The OECD estimated in 2023 that Pillar One would reallocate $200 billion in profits and generate $13 billion to $36 billion in additional global tax revenue annually, a figure comparable in aggregate to existing DST receipts, though distribution would differ markedly by country.   Negotiations have since slowed. The original goal of signing the MLC in 2023 was missed. A target for 2024 was also missed. In 2025 and early 2026, several governments, including the UK, revised their internal planning assumptions to 2027, while confirming that their DSTs “remain in operation” until a convention enters into force.   Several factors explain the delay. The convention requires ratification, including in the United States, where any tax treaty must secure a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Bipartisan skepticism about ceding taxing rights and concerns about revenue impacts have made ratification uncertain. Some emerging economies have argued that the thresholds for Pillar One are too high and the reallocation too small to benefit them meaningfully, preferring instead to retain DSTs or pursue a parallel negotiation at the United Nations on international tax cooperation that could run until 2027. In Washington, meanwhile, successive administrations have maintained that any acceptable deal must include robust DST withdrawal provisions.   The result is a holding pattern with real costs. In October 2021, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and the United States announced a transitional agreement: as long as Pillar One progressed, the U.S. would not impose retaliatory tariffs, and European DST liabilities would be creditable against future Pillar One obligations. That truce has largely held, but it depends on continued progress.   For businesses, the uncertainty complicates planning. A multinational may face a DST in India, a diverted profits tax in the UK, a Pillar Two top-up in the EU, and the prospect of Pillar One reallocation all with different calculation bases and documentation requirements.

The preceding part of this series ended with a limit that productive finance cannot cross. Illness, unemployment, education, disability, orphanhood and temporary distress cannot always be converted into profitable investments. Human vulnerability itself cannot become another financial product. That is where a riba-free order must move beyond banking. A society may successfully redesign murabaha, musharakah, salam or ijarah and still remain unjust if a family facing cancer treatment must borrow at any cost, a student must enter adult life under debt, or a widow depends upon a local patron for survival. Prohibition of riba becomes socially meaningful only when basic human need is protected from financial extraction. Pakistan does not have to invent the institutional vocabulary from zero. It already has Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal, established under the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal Act, 1991. Its official mandate includes assistance to the destitute, widows, orphans, persons with disabilities and other needy citizens, with support extending to medical treatment, education and rehabilitation. Its official position is that assistance is available to the poorest without differentiation of religion, creed, sect or region. This is an important foundation. It is not yet the structure required for a just financial order. Bait-ul-Mal should cease to be understood primarily as an agency dispensing discretionary relief to the “poorest of the poor”. Its larger purpose should be to guarantee a legally defined social floor. Food in destitution, essential healthcare, basic education, protection of children without support, disability assistance and temporary subsistence during involuntary unemployment should become matters of entitlement under transparent criteria, not favours obtained through political access. This distinction is fundamental. Charity depends upon the generosity of the giver. Entitlement rests upon the responsibility of society. It is one of the most emphasised Quranic directive on this idea. The directions given in the holy Quran need not be accepted in totality. This principle is accepted in all the classical juristic traditions. The practical discussion on this is important. In the transitional phase, all the scholarly works envisage gradual movement rather than an overnight abolition of existing economic arrangements. Individuals progressively devote more of their resources to collective purposes while organised society assumes responsibility for the basic necessities of life.   The transition, in any pragmatic scheme, is institutional rather than merely charitable. That insight deserves attention. An Islamic polity cannot measure success by the number of ration bags distributed after deprivation has occurred. Its test is whether institutions progressively remove the conditions that force citizens into dependence upon creditors, property owners, political patrons or charitable intermediaries. Bait-ul-Mal should therefore form the first pillar of social finance: the guarantee against destitution. The second should be waqf. Waqf historically converted wealth into enduring social capital. Whatever the juristic differences concerning its precise legal character, its institutional genius lies in removing an asset from ordinary private consumption and dedicating its benefit to a continuing purpose. Land, buildings and income-producing properties can support hospitals, schools, hostels, water systems, vocational institutions, research centres, shelters and community infrastructure across generations. Pakistan already possesses statutory waqf institutions. Punjab’s Auqaf Department, for example, operates under the Punjab Waqf Properties Ordinance, 1979, for the administration and regulation of waqf properties. Income arising from properties under its control is credited to the Auqaf Fund under the statutory framework. The potential is much larger than administration of shrines and mosques. Pakistan should develop professionally governed public waqf institutions—waqf lillah—at national, provincial and local levels. Public land lawfully dedicated for community benefit, voluntarily endowed private property and other permissible assets could constitute permanent pools of social capital. Their corpus should remain protected while their income finances clearly defined public purposes. This cannot become another avenue for bureaucratic or political capture. Every waqf property should be digitally registered. Its title, purpose, valuation, income, expenditure and beneficiaries should be publicly accessible. Independent audit, professional management and strict conflict-of-interest rules are indispensable. No minister, shrine manager, political family or local notable should be able to convert property dedicated for public benefit into an instrument of patronage. The third pillar is zakat. It should remain distinct from both the ordinary budget and waqf. Its compulsory redistributive character and specified purposes give it an institutional identity of its own. Combining every form of social finance into one government account would destroy these distinctions. The fourth pillar is qard hasan. Not every person requiring temporary liquidity is destitute. A worker may face a medical emergency. A small farmer may need funds after a flood. A graduate may require equipment to begin earning. A household may need a short bridge between unemployment and a new job. Such circumstances do not necessarily call for a grant. They require finance without extraction. Revolving qard hasan funds administered through Bait-ul-Mal, public waqf institutions and local cooperatives could provide precisely that bridge. Principal would return when the recipient regains capacity, allowing the same pool to assist another household. The institution earns no commercial return from distress; society recycles solidarity. This connects directly with the cooperative model discussed in Part IV. The ultimate objective cannot be to create permanent classes of beneficiaries. Social protection should lead towards economic agency. A citizen receiving emergency assistance today should, wherever possible, become tomorrow’s producer, saver and member of a cooperative financial institution. Bait-ul-Mal prevents collapse. Waqf creates enduring social assets. Qard hasan provides a bridge back to economic activity. Cooperatives enable citizens to pool savings, own institutions and finance one another. These mechanisms should operate together rather than as isolated schemes. The structure can be visualised as a ladder. At its base is an enforceable social floor below which no citizen is allowed to fall. Above it are education, healthcare and skills supported partly through public waqf. Temporary setbacks are met through qard hasan. Productive citizens then move towards cooperative and commercial risk-sharing finance of the kind discussed in Part IV. The direction is from dependency to capability, not from one form of dependency to another. Governance will determine whether this succeeds. Pakistan has repeatedly created institutions in the name of disadvantaged citizens and then allowed

“Nato is a giant military alliance where there are 32 countries. We have started here as three countries and we have to take very humble but concrete steps”—Makkah defence pact technically same as Nato’s Article 5: Turkish minister, The News, August 9, 2026 The above words of Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan deserve careful attention. Speaking after the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement between Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, he went considerably further than the diplomatic language normally accompanying defence cooperation. He described the arrangement as technically the same as NATO’s Article 5 principle of collective defence. More importantly, Fidan disclosed something about its intended institutional evolution. A ministerial committee resembling NATO’s structure is to be created, a permanent secretariat will be established in Saudi Arabia, and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan does not envisage an organisation permanently confined to its three founding members. Egypt is already being mentioned as a possible entrant. The question we raised immediately after Makkah has therefore acquired greater urgency: are we witnessing the embryonic formation of an Islamic NATO? The answer requires more caution than either celebration or alarm. The Makkah agreement is unquestionably important. Saudi Arabia combines enormous financial and energy resources with a pivotal position in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Türkiye possesses NATO’s second-largest military, an increasingly sophisticated defence-industrial base and strategic access linking Europe, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Pakistan is a nuclear-armed state located at the intersection of South Asia, China, Central Asia, Iran and the Arabian Sea. Taken together, the three constitute an unusual coalition of middle powers. Their convergence is also occurring at a moment when the regional order constructed around American predominance is under extraordinary strain. The latest Middle Eastern war has again demonstrated that overwhelming military capability can destroy infrastructure and degrade adversaries without necessarily producing political order. Michael Fuchs recently argued in Foreign Affairs that the United States should finally relinquish its attempt to dominate the Middle East militarily. The proposition is important, but it raises a larger question. If American primacy recedes, what replaces it? International relations offers no reason to assume that withdrawal by a dominant external power automatically produces regional peace. It can produce strategic autonomy. It can equally produce competitive balancing, arms races and struggles among regional powers seeking to fill the resulting space. Makkah Defence Agreement represents both an opportunity and a danger. The opportunity is the emergence of indigenous collective security. For much of the modern history of the Middle East, regional states have depended upon external powers for protection while simultaneously fearing abandonment by those same protectors. Britain once performed this role in the Gulf. The United States subsequently constructed a much larger military architecture based upon bases, arms supplies, bilateral guarantees and partnerships. Dependence created security, but never complete strategic autonomy. Saudi Arabia’s search for alternatives must be understood against this background. Türkiye has followed another path: remaining inside NATO while steadily expanding its capacity for independent action. Pakistan maintains a strategic partnership with China without severing its relationships with Washington, Riyadh or Ankara. These are not states simply changing camps. They are practising what contemporary scholarship increasingly describes as hybrid or non-exclusive alignment: cultivating overlapping relationships rather than accepting the rigid binaries of Cold War alliance politics. This makes Fidan’s second assertion as important as his comparison with Article 5. He insists that Makkah is not directed against Iran or any other country. That principle must survive implementation. An alliance requires deterrence; it does not necessarily require a permanent enemy. If the emerging arrangement becomes an anti-Iran coalition, it will institutionalise one of the Muslim world’s most dangerous fault lines. Iran is not a temporary presence in the Gulf. It is a major civilisation and regional power whose geography cannot be altered by sanctions, regime change strategies or military pressure. Pakistan has particular reason to understand this. Iran is its neighbour. Internal sectarian peace, Balochistan, border security, Afghanistan and regional connectivity all make a permanently hostile Pakistan-Iran relationship strategically irrational. Nor should Makkah become simply the Muslim military response to Israel. The Palestinian question cannot be removed from regional security, as proponents of the Abraham Accords sometimes appeared to assume. Normalisation and economic integration cannot indefinitely substitute for a political settlement guaranteeing Palestinian rights and viable statehood. At the same time, transforming the region into two permanent military camps would hardly produce the peace Palestinians themselves require. The better possibility is, thus, not an Islamic NATO in the literal sense. NATO emerged from the particular conditions of post-war Europe and bipolar confrontation with the Soviet Union. The Muslim world is geographically dispersed, politically heterogeneous and internally divided. Its states have very different relations with Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Tel Aviv. Türkiye itself demonstrates the difficulty of imposing a binary model: it would simultaneously belong to NATO and to the emerging Makkah Accord. That apparent contradiction may actually tell us something important about the international order now taking shape. The twenty-first century may be characterised less by fixed blocs than by overlapping arrangements through which middle powers seek room for manoeuvre between larger powers. This is also where geoeconomics becomes indispensable. Saudi finance and energy, Türkiye’s manufacturing and defence technology and Pakistan’s geography, human resources and access towards China, Central Asia and the Arabian Sea could create something considerably more important than another military organisation. Egypt’s eventual participation would add the Suez Canal, the Arab world’s largest population and another major military power. A security structure built around such capabilities could eventually support trade, energy corridors, defence production, technological cooperation, food security and infrastructure connectivity. Without this economic foundation, an Islamic NATO would remain largely an exercise in military coordination. China will watch these developments closely. Beijing requires Gulf energy, values Iran, has deep interests in Pakistan and maintains substantial economic relations across the Middle East. It is unlikely to wish to inherit America’s expensive role as regional military hegemon. A regional arrangement capable of providing stability without forcing states into an

As Pakistan enters another monsoon season, the central question is no longer whether the country will experience floods, but whether we have learned enough from previous disasters to diminish their catastrophic impact. Memories of the devastating floods of 2022, which submerged one-third of the country, displaced more than 33 million people and caused economic losses exceeding US$30 billion, continue to haunt us. Four years later, Pakistan still remains on the frontline of the global climate crisis, with another challenging monsoon season unfolding in 2026. Climate experts warn that escalating global temperatures are intensifying the hydrological cycle, resulting in heavier rainfall events, rising glacier melt and frequent weather extremes. Pakistan, despite contributing less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, consistently ranks among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. Recent forecasts by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) show an enhanced likelihood of heavy rainfall, flash floods, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) and urban flooding. Against this backdrop, an important question arises: Are the Pakistani Government and people aptly prepared for the potential floods in 2026? Since the 2022 floods, the Pakistani Government has introduced several measures aimed at reinforcing disaster preparedness. The NDMA, Provincial Disaster Management Authorities and district administrations have boosted coordination before each monsoon season. Emergency response plans are updated regularly, while rescue agencies conduct preparedness exercises in vulnerable districts. This year, the government has demonstrated a clear commitment to strengthening the country’s flood preparedness. In early July, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired a meeting to review monsoon readiness, approving the formation of a national Emergency Response Committee and directing the establishment of an emergency fund for intense weather-related disasters. The Prime Minister also ordered federal and provincial institutions to deploy their full resources to facilitate the public throughout the monsoon season. A cornerstone of Pakistan’s 2026 preparedness strategy is the transition from conventional early warnings to predictive disaster intelligence. This shift, coordinated through the National Emergencies Operation Centre, aims at significantly enhancing the ability to foresee risks and issue timely advisories. International cooperation has also played a key role in this technological advancement. Pakistan has deployed a localized version of China’s MAZU AI meteorological early warning platform, developed jointly since 2023. The cloud-based system allows forecasters to monitor risks associated with floods, droughts and other extreme weather events with greater accuracy than ever before. In addition, a smart flash flood early warning system developed by a Chinese-Pakistani research team has been deployed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Swat Valley and a district of Punjab. However, these improvements regarding flood preparedness remain inconsistent and uneven across the country. Population surge, rapid and unregulated urbanization, deforestation, encroachment on floodplains and deficient drainage systems have further enhanced Pakistan’s exposure to flood hazards. Many flood protection structures need rehabilitation, while aging dams, canals and drainage systems continue to face maintenance issues. Urban drainage remains inadequate in several large cities, increasing the likelihood of severe urban flooding during intense rainfall. Moreover, despite progress, Pakistan’s disaster management system still faces several structural fragilities. First, disaster management remains greatly focused on emergency response instead of long-term risk diminution. Second, coordination among federal, provincial and local governments often becomes inconsistent during emergencies. Third, many local governments lack the financial resources, trained personnel and equipment needed for efficient disaster readiness. Rural areas in all the provinces often struggle with inadequate emergency infrastructure. Finally, climate adaptation financing remains below the scale required to address the country’s surging climate risks. Despite international support, Pakistan’s climate adaptation needs continue to exceed available resources. Another major challenge is the uncertainty caused by India’s unilateral suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty in 2025, which has stopped the sharing of critical river flow data. This move has forced Pakistani authorities to rely on less credible sources, including social media, to make flood assessments. The state of public awareness and preparedness, particularly at the community level, also remains weak. A 2025 scientific study “Assessing societal perceptions and adaptive responses to GLOF and related hazards in the upper Indus Basin, Pakistan”, found significant public awareness and training gaps, with 30.55% of respondents highlighting deficiencies in existing hazard management practices. Furthermore, 98.15% of participants acknowledged that climate change and global warming are major contributors to GLOF events, but this awareness has not translated into adequate preparedness. Another study of rural communities in southern Punjab found high attitudinal vulnerabilities linked to “poorly perceived flood risks and low preparedness measures”. The 2025 floods provided a stark reminder of these gaps. Despite advanced warning systems, over 842 lives were lost, 1.2 million people were displaced and more than 4 million were affected. Local communities often serve as the first responders, and their knowledge about disasters is vital, yet their input is frequently unheeded in formal disaster management. In view of these gaps, Pakistan needs to move beyond reactive aid towards a strategy of real-time planning and community engagement. Disaster experts argue that Pakistan still spends more resources responding to disasters than preventing them. Long-term flood resilience requires investments in climate adaptation rather than emergency relief alone. In this regard, priority areas include restoring forests in upper watersheds; protecting wetlands that naturally store floodwater; expanding urban green spaces; modernizing drainage systems; strengthening dams, levees and embankments; enforcing zoning laws to prevent settlement in flood-prone areas; promoting climate-smart agriculture; expanding crop insurance and disaster insurance; and improving early warning systems at village level. The expected floods of 2026 should be viewed as another warning that climate resilience is no longer optional but a national imperative. By coalescing scientific forecasting, efficient governance, informed citizens and long-term planning, Pakistan can minimize future losses and better protect both lives and livelihoods in an era of mounting climate uncertainty. The looming monsoon season of 2026 will be a critical test of whether the lessons of previous disasters have been learned and acted upon in time.

I have stood in places most policymakers only read about in briefing papers. I spent time in Afghanistan during the Ashraf Ghani years, and the whole of 2010 in what was then Ex-FATA — a zone so dangerous that even seasoned aid workers called it the place where devils refuse to go. Later, I worked on rehabilitation efforts in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. None of what I am about to argue is theoretical. It is drawn from villages of EX-FATA I walked through, water I watched women carry for miles on donkeys, and children I saw crossing frozen ground without shoes while, an hour’s drive away, the Afghan elite lived behind walls that looked like fortresses. That contrast is the whole story of why the Taliban won. Over two decades, the Western-backed Afghanistan collapsed not primarily on the battlefield but in the space between Kabul’s donor-funded skyline and the rural provinces that never saw a rupee — or a dollar — of that money trickle down. Billions moved through Kabul. Almost none of it moved past it. Into that vacuum, the Taliban did not need to conquer the countryside. They simply had to show up where the state never had, and offer order where there was only neglect. In 2010, in FATA, I watched the same mechanism recruit teenage boys into suicide bombing — and the driving force was rarely ideology in its purest form. It was poverty, weaponised by men who understood exactly how to turn deprivation into obedience. I say this because Pakistan is now watching its own soldiers and citizens bleed in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and we keep mistaking the symptom for the disease. In Balochistan, it is poor living conditions and the absence of work that push young men toward the BLA and other militant groups — not some inherited hatred of the state, but the calculation of someone with nothing left to lose. In KPK, mining activity that could employ tens of thousands sits frozen, and extremist preachers walk into that economic silence with a ready-made narrative of grievance, exactly as I watched happen in FATA 16 years ago. In Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), where I subsequently served on the front lines of post-disaster rehabilitation, the work executed under the leadership of General Musharraf and Lieutenant General Nadeem was nothing short of extraordinary. They transformed the region—erecting world-class infrastructure that spanned rural housing, modern hospitals, and state-of-the-art universities. Having witnessed his work firsthand, I can unhesitatingly attest that Lt. Gen. Nadeem exemplified the highest standards of professional integrity and selfless duty in the field. Regrettably, subsequent regimes, particularly the current political regime, failed to capitalize on this monumental achievement. Worse still, political negotiators deliberately suppressed these successes under strict orders to deny General Musharraf the credit he rightly deserved It was neither the foreign conspiracies spun about Modi nor the shadow plays attributed to Netanyahu that brought us to our knees—it was the quiet, deliberate treason of our own. The true architects of our ruin sat comfortably in our own cabinets, presiding over the Ministry of Planning and the Ministry of Petroleum. Let the record be unsealed, and let the ledger of corruption show the reality of our sabotage. While the global solar revolution was gaining unstoppable, undeniable momentum as far back as 2012, our planners turned a blind eye to the sun. Instead, they peddled dirty imported coal and structurally flawed LNG infrastructure, deceitfully masquerading them as national “game-changers.” They were not mistakes; they were choices. They willfully shackled this nation to predatory FSRU contracts, riddled with toxic force majeure loopholes that bled our public treasury dry to enrich foreign syndicates and domestic middlemen. Their actions expose a chilling, unvarnished truth: capital was never the bottleneck. Financial constraints were a myth. The true poverty of this nation was the shameless, treasonous lack of political will to break free from the payout loop and build a sovereign future. According to Pakistan’s own energy regulator, NEPRA, consumers were burdened with roughly Rs1.81 trillion in capacity payments in fiscal year 2024–25 alone — fixed payments to power producers simply for having plants available, regardless of whether they generated a single unit of electricity. That figure made up 61 percent of the country’s entire power purchase cost. On a per-unit basis, Pakistanis paid roughly Rs14.3 for capacity alone, compared to about Rs9.0 for the energy actually consumed. Multiply that pattern across recent years and the country has handed over trillions of rupees to keep idle machinery on standby, while Pakistani manufacturers pay electricity rates nearly double what their competitors pay in India and Vietnam, hollowing out the very industries that could have employed the young men now being recruited by militants instead. Even a third of what has been paid out in capacity charges over the past five years — redirected honestly into youth employment programs in KPK, Balochistan, and AJK — would have done more to end this insurgency than any military operation conducted so far. This is not sentiment. It is arithmetic that any finance ministry could run in an afternoon. And here the accountability question becomes unavoidable. The man who, as federal minister for petroleum and natural resources from 2013 to 2018, championed the LNG import architecture that helped lock Pakistan into the very capacity-payment structure now crushing consumers, later became Prime Minister of Pakistan. He subsequently faced formal NAB proceedings, an indictment, and questions in court over unexplained deposits connected to that period — a matter of public record, still contested by his supporters as political victimization, but investigated nonetheless by the country’s own anti-graft body. I raise this not to relitigate one man’s guilt or innocence in a courtroom I am not sitting in, but to make a structural point: the same energy policy architecture that produced Pakistan’s capacity-payment crisis was built, negotiated, and defended by people who moved seamlessly from ministry to premiership to private life, largely untouched by the consequences their decisions imposed on