Pakistan, May 11 -- I've spent a good part of my life working across South Asia - in Bangladesh, in Pakistan, across the region - and one thing has always struck me as almost farcical. These are countries that share everything: the same rivers, the same food, the same music, and the same family trees in many cases. And yet, when I went to Bangladesh a few weeks ago, I travelled for 14 hours, whereas, it should have been no more than 3 hours. It struck home how broken South Asia is.

It is notable that getting from Dhaka to Karachi until just a few months ago meant flying through Dubai. Two neighboring countries, 14 years without a direct flight. Not because the planes didn't exist. Because the politics got in the way. That, in a nutshell,...