Pakistan, Oct. 29 -- Earlier this month I hosted a delegation of young Bangladeshi leaders in Pakistan: tech founders, policy researchers, think tank members, thought leaders, as well as political actors. Most of them had not been to Islamabad before. By the end of the week, they were already planning return visits. All of them had reached Islamabad in a circuitous and time-consuming manner, through Bangkok (in one case, through an overnight in Karachi). A flight of about three hours had turned into a 15-hour journey.

I know the feeling. When I was invited to speak in Kathmandu recently, on short notice, I discovered that the trip from Islamabad, roughly two hours as the crow flies, would take me 11 to 15 hours. My choices were to fly we...