It is hardly controversial for us to accept and embrace the fact that we cannot keep complaining about the alleged

abuse we endure at the hands of America on the one hand, and constantly seek direct and indirect American fiscal generosity on the other. The fiscal contradiction, between the money we want to run Pakistan, and the money we have to ask others to provide to us to do so, is at the heart of the Pakistani republics deep and abiding dysfunction. Let us put it a different way. o Pakistani could ever dream of any scenario better than one in which Pakistan en!oys and e"ercises full and unmitigated sovereignty. This re#uires crisp and utter clarity about things like drone strikes conducted by another country in Pakistani territory. If they take place without an e"plicit agreement authorising them, drone strikes are illegal $ always have been, always will be. It also re#uires crisp and utter clarity about things like terrorists safe havens. All territories that are identified as Pakistan on a map, must be places where the Pakistani government, national, subnational or local, can go safely, and dictate terms. %hen areas within a country fall outside this definition, such as the situation in orth %a&iristan, then that is a full and uncomplicated breach of Pakistani sovereignty. o matter how much love there may be for the Taliban in 'ansoora, or Akora (hattak, or )I (han, as soon as any authority emerges that successfully and sustainably challenges the state for a monopoly over violence, then that states sovereignty is immediately in #uestion. *oth these aspects of sovereignty are well e"plored in the current Pakistani milieu. ationalists like myself can spend hours e"plaining and emphatically making the case for how drone strikes undermine Pakistani sovereignty and therefore violate both the international order and the boundaries of what is legal behavior between states. 'eanwhile, many friends of Pakistan have already spent hours, and hours, e"plaining to the Pakistani military and civilian leaders about the dangers to Pakistani sovereignty of allowing terrorists to establish safe havens in which neither the Pakistani police services, nor the Pakistan Army, nor even the Pakistani clandestine services are able to operate freely. +owever, there is one aspect of sovereignty that has not been fully e"plored, despite some of the stellar work that has been done domestically by !ournalists like ,mar -heema and commentators like +u&aima *ukhari and Ikramul +a#. -an any country be truly sovereign in the absence of fiscal freedom. /r to be more provocative about it, how can Pakistan e"pect to be taken seriously by ,ncle 0ohn *rennan in Langley, 1irginia when he knows that ultimately, we will go running to ,ncle 2ichard /lsen in Islamabad as soon as we run out of money to pay our bills. 0ust like it is uncontroversial to argue for sovereignty in the conte"t of drone strikes, we must develop a narrative that makes it uncontroversial to talk about fiscal sovereignty. Too often friends on both left and right use these notions of fiscal independence, and freeing ourselves 3from the shackles of international aid4 merely as rhetorical instruments. *ut for centrists, the notion of fiscal sovereignty is a serious issue that has

grave conse#uences for economic growth and, both by e"tension and directly, for national security. To be fiscally sovereign, Pakistan has to raise and spend money from within Pakistan. To do so, it has to raise ta"es on the rich, dramatically, and it has to rationalise ta"es on the middle class, substantially. As long as the rich and the wealthy continue to ride the coattails of direct and indirect American generosity, the vast ma!ority of Pakistanis will continue to feel a burning sense of indignity every time our leaders engage with the ,5 government. It is useful to clarify the use of the term fiscal sovereignty in the Pakistani conte"t. The most recent instance of the use of the term fiscal sovereignty that I think has salience for Pakistan is within the conte"t of the 6uropean ,nion and 6uro&one. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 7889 and the rolling avalanche of fiscal emergency across many 6uropean countries, fiscal sovereignty became an issue within the conte"t of the behavior of 6uro&one states. /ne of the 788: obel laureates in economics, 'ichael 5pence wrote of this in 78:8. +e argued for curtailed fiscal sovereignty in the 6uro&one, because everyone having their own fiscal policies, whilst sharing a currency, and invariably sharing the liability for poor fiscal behavior, was not sustainable. In short, 5pence was saying that countries like ;reece and Portugal have to sign up to be more like ;ermany, to prevent sustained fiscal irresponsibility by those countries at the e"pense of ;erman ta"payers and policymakers $ both of whom, for all their other ambient faults, are better fiscal managers than the ;reeks or Portuguese <or Irish or Americans or Italians for that matter=. %hat does this mean. %ell, 6urope obviously doesnt have the very recent and ambient baggage of the Afghanistan war, like Pakistan and the ,5 do. 5o when we look at 6urope, and we can find a similar narrative amongst 6uropean countries, as we do today between Pakistan and the ,5, perhaps we can e"amine the realities without the weight of geopolitical gobbledygook. o country should have to pay for another countrys shopping habits. ;reece, Portugal and Pakistan <among many others= make poor fiscal choices, we know this. In Pakistan, these poor choices have produced among the worlds highest maternal mortality rates, among the worlds highest out of school children population, and poverty rates that should embarrass decent people everywhere. >et we also have one of the worlds biggest armies, and one of the worlds most ambitious national narratives $ fortress of Islam, Land of the Pure, Imrans tigers, 5harifs lions, *huttos trailblasing arrows. And we are all about sovereignty when it comes to drones. It is all terribly inspiring. 6"cept when we reach the cash register and it is time to pay. %hen it is time to pay, we trot our 5haukat A&i&, or 5haukat Tarin, or +afee& 5haikh, or 5arta! A&i&, or Isha# )ar. All competent, and all with well?deserved reputations for integrity. *ut will anyone ever confuse any Pakistani finance minister as a balance?the? budget fiscal 2obin +ood. /r to be more blunt, have we ever wondered why popular

leaders keep picking unpopular <and unelected= @inance 'inisters. The short answer is because a popular <and electorally answerable= finance minister would be much more conscious of fiscal sovereignty. And this consciousness would eventually <not immediately, but eventually= lead to dramatic increases in revenue, and a lot less time negotiating with the ,5 ambassador and the I'@ missions that regularly come to assess Pakistan <to )ubai=. /ur fiscal chickens have come home to roost. If Pakistan wishes to en!oy real, meaningful sovereignty, it must begin to dramatically increase revenue by raising ta"es. %e must pay our own way in the world. /nly when we approach the ,nited 5tates as fiscally sovereign e#uals will our appeals to international law and friendship be heard. Till then, we will continue writing sovereignty che#ues that our fiscal ability cannot cash. The writer is an analyst and commentator. www.mosharraf&aidi.com