Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

I’m so tired of Pakistan

Remember the Clash song "I’m So Bored with the USA"? Similarly, over the summer I noticed that I am finding it harder and harder to read about Pakistan, though more out of frustration than boredom. I have no hope for the place. Its elites strike me as fundamentally irresponsible and destructive to their nation. I ...

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Flickr

Remember the Clash song "I'm So Bored with the USA"? Similarly, over the summer I noticed that I am finding it harder and harder to read about Pakistan, though more out of frustration than boredom. I have no hope for the place. Its elites strike me as fundamentally irresponsible and destructive to their nation.

Remember the Clash song "I’m So Bored with the USA"? Similarly, over the summer I noticed that I am finding it harder and harder to read about Pakistan, though more out of frustration than boredom. I have no hope for the place. Its elites strike me as fundamentally irresponsible and destructive to their nation.

I know, the same might be said about American economic elites, who over the last three decades have relentlessly grabbed a bigger piece of the economic pie even as inequality increases and our infrastructure crumbles. But I am pretty sure that this situation eventually will be corrected. I sense no such resilience in Pakistan. I am thinking of just stopping paying attention to Pakistan, at least for a year or so.

I wonder what a "Pakistani spring" would look like. Bloody, probably.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1

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