What Pakistan Was Supposed to Be

Open war with Afghanistan. Bombs over Kabul. And inside Pakistan's own cities, the slow erasure of every value the country was created to protect.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes from watching something you love destroy itself. Not from outside, not from an enemy’s hand, but from within, through choices made by people who were trusted with its care. Anyone who has spent real time in Pakistan, who has felt the generosity of its people, the depth of its cultural memory, the extraordin…