“The elephant in the room is the India-Pakistan relationship,” said Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “India-Pakistan relations are the only thing that Pakistan really cares about in terms of changing its behavior.”

Pakistani women have brought home the Nobel Peace Prize and Oscars. A woman has been Prime Minister and despite constituting only 22 per cent of the total membership of the National Assembly, women have been responsible for nearly half of all parliamentary business conducted at the national and provincial levels in the last four years. Women are CEOs of major banks and run some of the most successful businesses in the country. Women are flying fighter jets and are combat ready in Pakistan’s Air and Armed Forces. They write award-winning books and produce some of South Asia’s most powerful literature. They have scaled the highest peaks in the country and hold their own against global competitors in the workforce, on the sports field and in classrooms and laboratories.

Maria Zelaya, an Eastside Spanish teacher, was selected as one of four “peace teachers” by the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Andrew Wilder, vice president of Asia programs at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), pointed to the upcoming Afghan presidential elections in 2019. The last election in 2014 required heavy U.S. involvement. Scott Worden, director of Afghanistan and Central Asia Programs at USIP, said that, on one hand, Trump wants to protect the U.S. from terrorism emanating from Afghanistan, but on the other, 30 years of non-democratic institutions in Afghanistan have led to more violence. Belquis Ahmadi, a senior program officer as USIP, said it is now “up to the Afghans to address the needs of its people.”

To discuss this issue, we turned to Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador to France and Canada. Shahmahmood Miakhel, the country director of the United States Institute of Peace for Afghanistan, joined our discussion from Kabul. I contributed from Prague while my colleague Muhammad Tahir, RFE/RL’s media relations manager, moderated our discussion from Washington.

آج کے شو میں امریکہ کی افغانستان پالیسی اور پاک بھارت سفارتی تعلقات کی بدلتی نوعیت؟ اوریہ پالیسی افغان عوام کے لیئے کیسے مستقبل کی تصویر پیش کرتی ہے۔ قدیم لاہور کی گلیوں کی خاص رونقیں ، اور روبوٹس جو بنارہے ہیں پیزا ۔

“Pakistan’s spoiling power in Afghanistan is really unlimited,” said Moeed Yusuf, a South Asia expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace. “They could make a mess of things much more so than they have now.”

“There is pressure on Pakistan to change,” said Scott Worden, the director of Afghanistan and Central Asia programs at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “That’s been tried in the past. A lot will depend on what carrots and sticks are offered to see whether it marks a change."