In its chequered history, Pakistan has endured turbulent times, and today it faces some of its biggest challenges: governance of a nation comprising five disparate entities—Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, Pashtunistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK)—the extremist monster created by it in the 1970s and 1980s, political instability and, to top it all, a collapsing economy. In desperation, Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, had in July personally appealed to the US to…