WHEN World Trade Organization members agreed in Doha in November to launch a global trade round, they hoped to meet the challenge posed by the increasing fragmentation of the world trading system. This challenge has come in the form of proliferating regional trade arrangements (RTAs). According to one calculation, about 200 RTAs are already in place and interest in them spread rapidly in the 1990s.

The European Union, itself the product of such an arrangement, has been an active exponent of RTAs. It is behind the creation of several supra-national trade associations in Africa. More recently, Latin America and East Asia have also begun to take interest in them. Japan and Singapore, once staunch defenders of multilateralism in trade, are now advocating regionalism. China is considering deals with Hong Kong and East Asia.

In the United States, one of the few initiatives taken by the administration of Bill Clinton that President George W. Bush has not pushed to the back burner is the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the FTAA. In fact, the Bush administration, while actively supporting the Doha round, is also pursuing opportunities for bilateral and regional trade deals.

It is only in South Asia that regionalism in trade has not made much progress. The main problem is the intense rivalry between Pakistan and India that continues to frustrate the efforts of the smaller countries in the region to bring about some kind of a trading arrangement in the area. If South Asia’s two large countries cannot work together then what are the options available to Pakistan? As I said in this space last week, size is important in today’s global economic structure.

In spite of Pakistan’s large population, a reasonably large economy and a sizable middle class, it will need to associate itself with some countries in the region to become an attractive destination for the desperately needed foreign direct investment. The question is which countries should Pakistan associate with? In phrasing the answer to this question I will begin with a few words about President Pervez Musharraf’s recently concluded visit to Washington.

Midway during his visit, President Musharraf addressed a large gathering of Pakistanis resident in the United States. More than a thousand Pakistani-Americans were invited to a dinner by Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi on February 13. The president spoke for more than ninety minutes and he covered a wide ground. He spoke about his vision of the country he now leads. He talked about the role of Islam in Pakistan.

He dwelt at length about his government’s economic strategy. And he analyzed Pakistan’s evolving relations with the countries in its neighborhood, in particular with Afghanistan and India. His presentation ended shortly before midnight and was followed by a standing ovation by an enthusiastic audience who were impressed by his knowledge and understanding of what was happening in and around Pakistan.

He spent a fair amount of time talking about Afghanistan and how that country, once it was stabilized, could be part of what he described to be his vision for Pakistan. He said that Pakistan and Afghanistan, working together, offered a gateway to the landlocked countries of Central Asia which were only now entering the world and joining the global economic system. These countries had been kept bottled up for more than a century, first by Russia and then by the Soviet Union. They were now independent, economically autonomous and eager to be part of a world that was changing rapidly all around them. Afghanistan and Pakistan, said General Musharraf, could work with the Central Asian countries to bring them out of their decades of isolation.

This is also a theme that I have explored for several weeks in these columns. I have argued that Pakistan must relocate itself in the global economy by detaching itself from South Asia and thus distancing itself from India. Instead of continuing to explore regionalism through an arrangement such as the SAARC which is not going anywhere, Pakistan should proceed on a different road. It should become an important part of a new assembly of nations. I have called this entity West Asia and defined it to include the entire Muslim world between Morocco in the west and Pakistan in the east.

On returning to Islamabad, President Musharraf addressed the 10th meeting of the science and technology standing committee of the Organization of Islamic Conference — the OIC. He suggested that the Islamic ummah should contribute to a research and development fund. To get the fund going he announced a sizable contribution by Pakistan and indicated that he was sending Prof Atta-ur-Rahman, minister of science and technology in his administration, to the Middle East to gather support for such a fund.

A fund was needed, he said, to bring the Islamic world out of backwardness. He used a number of interesting statistics to underscore his main point — that the countries with Muslim populations had fallen way behind the rest of the world in terms of education, science and technology. The entire Muslim world had 500 universities; Japan, with one-tenth of the population of the Muslim countries, had 1,000 universities. The Muslim countries produced only 500 PhDs a year. The United Kingdom, with one-twentieth of the Muslim world’s population, graduates 3000 PhDs every year.

There is no doubt that the Muslim countries had fallen way behind most of the world in education, science and technology. The knowledge gap between them and the developed world was increasing rapidly. Many emerging markets, especially those in East Asia, had done much better in educating their citizens and improving the technological base of their economies than the Muslim ummah. The Muslim world could not afford to continue to fall behind and remain backward.

President Musharraf used some other statistics about the Muslim world which differ considerably from the data I have been putting out in my “West Asia articles.” He said that the Muslim ummah accounts for one-fourth of the world’s population. This translates into 1.5 billion people. This is a much larger estimate of the size of the world’s Muslim population than used commonly. President Musharraf reaches a much larger figure by including in his count, presumably, the citizens of such large countries as Nigeria and Indonesia as well as the Muslim population of India.

I have used a figure of 600 million for the West Asia region. President Musharraf says that the gross domestic product of the Muslim ummah is $1.2 trillion. I have been using the figure of $864 billion for the West Asian Muslim region. It is hard to imagine how one arrives at a figure for the gross domestic product of the Muslim ummah where fairly large numbers of Muslims live in countries that cannot be counted in the Islamic world. India has 125 million Muslims; China another 50 million; Europe, probably, about 30 million; North America about six to eight million.

Why am I focusing on these two different sets of numbers, one for the Muslim ummah, the other for the two dozens or so Muslim countries of West Asia? The answer is that these two sets of statistics imply two very different approaches to getting the world of Islam to work together. By speaking about the ummah we are suggesting that the people professing a particular faith — in this case Islam — should work together. By talking about West Asia, we suggest an approach that would bring together a number of Muslim states in a particular region of the world. The second approach is more practical since the world of today is organized into nation states.

It has been exceedingly difficult to make any other organizing principle to work for any length of time. The Catholic Church tried for centuries to impose its domain over Europe but did not succeed. European communism attempted to do the same and it too failed. I don’t think we should advance the concept of the ummah as a way of politically and economically organizing the world’s Muslim population.

But isn’t there a contradiction in advancing the idea of West Asia as a workable regional arrangement while suggesting that religion is a weak basis for bringing countries and people into one organization? I believe this position is not necessarily contradictory. My suggestion that West Asia could work as a regional arrangement among a number of countries is based only partly on religion. But there are a number of other reasons as well and these I have explored in some considerable detail in several articles written for these columns over the last several months.

Nonetheless, religion is an important bond. It has played a part in the more successful regional arrangements of recent years. I remember a dinner attended by the senior managers of the World Bank in the winter of 1992-93. The guest speaker was a senior French editor and he spoke about the evolution of the European Union after the Second World War. He said that ultimately the EU will embrace all of Europe north of the Bosphorus and west of Russia. This statement surprised a senior member of the World Bank’s management who belonged to Turkey. “Why haven’t you included Turkey in your vision of Europe?” he inquired. “For a simple reason,” responded the Frenchman. “Europe is Christian. It will never bring in a large Muslim country such as Turkey in its fold,” he told his shocked audience.

The point I want to emphasize is that while religion can — and in fact has — played an important role in making regional organizations successful, it should not be used as the most important organizing principle. That was what the concept of an Islamic ummah suggests and that is something we should certainly avoid.

If West Asia is to be organized into a viable political, economic and trading regional organization, Pakistan will have to play the role of a leader. Going by the recent pronouncements of General Pervez Musharraf, it appears that he is prepared to do precisely that: push the Muslim countries to work together within the framework of a regional organization. During his three-day stay in Washington, he talked repeatedly about the geographic advantage Pakistan has with respect to the land-locked countries of Central Asia. These include not only the five “stans” - the former republics of the Soviet Union—-but also Afghanistan.

There is, of course, a great deal of work to be done in this part of the world before the seven “stans” — Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — can come together and form a workable regional economic, political and trading bloc. But how does a “stans”-based regional organization relate to the concept of a West Asian association of Muslim states that I have been espousing for a while? An organization of “stans” could become a component of West Asian collection of states — it could be the first stepping-stone towards the formation of a larger regional entity. However, before we can get the “stans” to work together, a great deal of patient work has to be done. I will get to that subject next week.

ONE does not normally learn of the death of a close friend through the obituary column of a newspaper. Yet that is how I learnt that A.J. Kardar had died.

It took me some time to connect the obituary notice to the AJ, whom I had known all these years and who could easily have become a film maker in the rank of a Satyajit Ray had he been able to resolve the quarrel he appeared to be having with himself.

AJ had moved to London and it was there that I had last met him. This was in 1992 when I had gone to England to cover Pakistan’s tour. The late Athar Ali had given me his telephone number, I had lost touch with him, and I called him. He was living in a flat on Edgware Road and it so happened that we were practically neighbours. He was over in a flash and like all friendships, you simply resume from where you left off, the intervening years of no-contact do not come into the reckoning.

AJ had always been a private person, self-contained, he kept to himself and it could not be said that he was “everyone’s friend,” and though he was not anti-social, he was not outgoing. But he was in good spirits and he told me that he was teaching Cinema at a polytechnic, making enough money to keep body and soul alive. “You mean you’re broke as usual,” I told him.

He said he was living modestly. He was not a man given to self-pity but he must have been lonely. He told me that he was working on a script on the trial of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and said he would show me the script. I told him that I thought it might make a good documentary for television but not a feature film but I would be happy to read the script.

AJ had a strong film connection through his elder brother A.R. Kardar who had been one of the luminaries of the Indian film industry. One would have imagined that that would have given him an easy entry. But AJ was his own man and was not interested in commercial cinema. He wanted to make serious films, what are known in the trade as ‘art’ films.

He had had an unlikely background for a film maker. He had gone to the Dufferin, the training ship for merchant shipping harboured outside Bombay’s harbour. When World War II broke out, he joined the Royal Indian Navy, first as a midshipman and then became an officer. To hear him tell it, he could have won the war all by himself if Truman had not decided to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But cinema was in his blood and he went to London and took some training. He returned to Pakistan and teamed up with Faiz Ahmed Faiz and made Jago Hua Savera. As expected the film was a commercial flop but it won several awards. I found it a rather melancholic film set in a fishing village in the then East Pakistan but it had a certain lyrical quality.

I cannot recall how I first met AJ but when PIA wanted to make a documentary film, AJ’s was the first name that came to mind. I contacted him and we met in Lahore, in the small garden of the Faletti’s Hotel. AJ had had an accident and his foot was in a plaster-cast and he walked on crutches. We discussed the film and I told him that final approval lay with Nur Khan and I would arrange a meeting. Nur Khan took to AJ and liked him.

It was during the making of this documentary that AJ and I became good friends and soon we had established a small circle of friends which included Faiz Sahib, Yunus Said, Bashir Khan (Bash) and later Z.A. Bokhari. These were splendidly convivial evenings.

The PIA documentary would cover PIA’s main international destinations and PIA was on the verge of starting its trial-blazing services to the People’s Republic of China and I went on the proving flight and took A.J. Kardar and his film crew along with me as well as the renowned Swiss photographer, Rene Burri. And thus we were able to get into the documentary the arrival of PIA’s inaugural flight which received a tumultuous reception at Shanghai’s airport.

AJ was a demanding film maker but the Chinese were equal to meet each of his demands. We were not so lucky with Moscow and though filming permission was not exactly denied, such was the bureaucracy that we were told that it would take several weeks to find out which department we had to approach to get permission. It was on this China trip that I really got to know AJ.

We would sit in my hotel room in the evening and talk about life in general and we both shared a vague kind of discontentment, it was hard to put a finger on it but we fond the human condition troubling. I told him that he should make a film on the partition riots taking a cue from T. S. Eliot’s lines: “The eyes are not here, there are no eyes here.” He thought it was a good idea “but Pal, it would need big money to make it.” I told him I was sure the money could be found. “In that case I’ll make it,” he said. We never did.

AJ was a man of big ideas but he suffered from that most fatal of diseases — idealism. He wanted his films to have social, uplifting message and through his films he wanted to raise the banner against tyranny and injustice in all its forms. He didn’t have a chance and he had an obstinate streak and was not willing to compromise. The most he was willing to do, by way of a compromise, was to make documentaries such as the one he made for PIA.

I had been busy with cricket and was not able to spend much time with AJ in London. My typewriter had konked out and he and I had gone to one of the shops on Edgware Road and I had bought a portable, manual Olivetti. When I was leaving London, I left the typewriter with him, for safekeeping, for my next trip to London. I got a letter from him asking permission to “hock” it as he was a little “short.” It was the last time I heard from him. God bless, A.J. It was an honour knowing him and such a lot of fun.

THERE are two over-riding factors that currently affect our internal and external security. First, the world around us has critically changed in the aftermath of the events of September 11.

It is abundantly clear now that the world will no longer tolerate armed intervention by outsiders to help the freedom struggle being waged in any country, no matter how legitimate. Second, almost the entire military strength of India is arrayed on our borders and the Indian leadership continues to hurl all manner of demands and threats at us.

Needless to say, all this has placed us in a tight corner and is causing serious security concerns. But, perhaps, the situation is not as disappointing as it used to be not too long ago. Our economy had virtually collapsed and we were on the verge of defaulting on debt repayments with catastrophic implications.

Our traditional friends, both near and far, had almost abandoned us and we had all but been branded as a failed or a terrorist state.

The only friends we had were the Taliban who, despite all our help and support, harboured the terrorists who had committed unspeakable crimes in Pakistan, and whom they refused to extradite despite repeated requests. And, most daunting of all, it seemed only a matter of time when our own extremists, cast in the mould of Taliban, would usurp the reins of power and throw the country back into the dark ages. Had an external threat materialized in that period, it could well have resulted in the complete undoing of our homeland.

That scenario has now changed and the problems and threats we face today, though severe, appear amenable. The first and foremost duty of a country’s rulers is to restore law and order and to ensure the security of life and property of its citizens, a duty that successive regimes have consistently failed to address seriously. A beginning has been made in the right direction, but a progress in this area is possible only if all militias are disarmed and all unauthorised weapons recovered.

The bedrock of a country’s strength and the cornerstone of its internal security are a vibrant economy and good governance. These vital areas must receive the priority they deserve; ignoring them is tantamount to inviting disaster.

Some groups are crying hoarse over the presence of some foreign troops in Pakistan. If this enhances our overall security, why should we object to it? For more than half a century, England, Germany, Japan and South Korea have had hundreds of thousands of foreign troops on their soil, and this does not seem to have eroded their sovereignty in the least.

Is our sovereignty so fragile and brittle that it would disintegrate under the weight of some foreign troops we have allowed temporarily to operate from our soil? It would be relevant to recall that we had contingents of American military advisers with the army and the air force in the early sixties when we had received American weapons in substantial quantities, and this did not compromise our sovereignty in any way. In fact, it was with these weapons that we were able to meet the challenge of the much larger Indian forces in 1965.

So if we provide some facilities to the International Coalition in exchange for which we may be able to alleviate poverty and provide education and basic health care to our people, what is wrong with this arrangement?

And now a few words about the external threat. So long as India maintains a threatening posture, we have little choice but to respond in kind and maintain a high state of alert. We do not seek war but at the same time we cannot leave our flank unprotected in the face of a real threat. All possible measures should be taken to avert a break-out of hostilities which can never be of any advantage to us. Placing on a firm footing our relations with powerful and influential countries itself promotes overall security and helps neutralize foreign threats. Attention to this important aspect should go hand in hand with military preparedness.

The outcome of any conflict between India and Pakistan, should it be forced upon us, will be determined on land — and not at sea or in the air. Of course, air and naval forces should also create a favourable situation in their own areas so that they are able to provide adequate support to the land battle.

As our air force is much smaller, utmost care would be necessary to ensure its survival and to conserve its effort so that it can play a decisive role in the areas that are really vital to the successful prosecution of the war. The air force’s primary role would be to hit the enemy’s vital lines of communication and supply, and also direct support to our formations in any crucial land battle by attacking the enemy’s ground forces.

Similarly, the navy’s job would be to protect the Karachi region against naval attack. For this role the navy needs appropriate aircraft, attack helicopters and fast boats with missiles, and not ships like frigates and destroyers or even submarines. Sinking a few ships on the high seas with destroyers or submarines is not likely to have any effect on the land campaign on which would hinge the ultimate outcome of the conflict.

Therefore, continuing to develop a conventional surface fleet seems to be a waste of our scant national resources. Faced with the considerable Indian naval forces, it does not seem realistic to talk about keeping the sea lanes open and escorting convoys carrying supplies. In any case, unless things suddenly change in ways beyond our comprehension, the war will be fought with the weapon systems, ammunition, oil, etc, that we already have when the baloon goes up, and not with some imaginary supplies that may not reach till after it is all over. Perhaps, there should be an open debate to assist the authority responsible to decide the role of the navy in the emerging environment and the wherewithal needed to implement it adequately.

It would be sheer madness to suggest that we should use nuclear weapons at any stage of the conflict. This would be a sure recipe for national suicide. In a nuclear exchange we shall suffer as much if not more than the other side, for our country is smaller and their stockpile of these weapons bigger. So, only a mad man can think of using these weapons and end up destroying his own country. We should also bear in mind that there are more Muslims in India than in Pakistan.

This does not mean, however, that nuclear weapons are useless, because when the other side has them, we too must have them, and also deploy them effectively to ensure that the enemy does not use them for fear of suffering unacceptable damage. Thus, nuclear weapons only deter a nuclear attack, but are no guarantee against a conventional onslaught which must also be resisted with conventional weapons.

And it goes without saying that, in the long term, we must settle our disputes with India honourably and equitably, and establish a stable relationship that will be to the advantage of both countries. This will enable us to reduce expenditure and to pay greater attention to the economy and the welfare of our people, wherein lies the real strength of a country and which were also the principal objectives of the creation of Pakistan.

To conclude, a few words about the current process of accountability. It is good that some dishonest people have been taken to task, but the credibility and effectiveness of this process will be established only when the Accountability Bureau also nabs some privileged persons.

These include certain politicians and some who had held high rank in the armed forces, and the progeny of some no longer with us, all of whom, as surely we all know, are revelling in ill-gotten millions and billions in broad daylight. Calling them to account should also have a salutary effect on the society at large and, therefore, on the situation of internal security. The writer is a retired air chief marshal of the PAF.

DRIVEN by hegemonic ambitions, India plans to emerge as a mini-superpower in the region, particularly to counter Chinese influence. Indian eagerness to acquire the Security Council membership is not surprising.

In its calculation, with veto power it would he able to contain, counter and suppress regional separatist movements, in east and south of India and more particularly Kashmir’s movement for self-determination. Reform and restructuring of the UNSC has been on the agenda of the UN General Assembly since 1993. One may recall that during the past 50 years, several medium-to-large size countries have been elected to the Council more frequently. It is also a fact that 77 other countries, including some founding members, have never been elected to the Council, while 44 have been elected only once.

In other words, for two-thirds of the general membership, participation in the Security Council has either been completely blocked or severely restricted. There are about 10 countries aspiring to become permanent members with or without the veto power. India, Germany and Japan have been in the run ahead of others. Sharp division and differences have appeared among the members of the General Assembly.

The motivations for opposing the expansion of permanent membership vary from country to country. Pakistan is determined to prevent India’s entry. Italy and Spain are opposed to Germany alone becoming a new permanent member among European countries and some countries are against an increase in permanent seats because they do not want to see the veto extended to more states.

It is also speculated that the countries like Canada and South Korea would find it difficult to accept as permanent members large developing nations to which they extend aid. But despite their different motivations, these countries have joined hands to form a Coffee Club, whose common aim is to prevent any expansion of the permanent membership. They also want to make sure that only non-permanent seats are added if considered necessary. Coffee Club is spearheaded by Pakistan, Argentina, Italy, Mexico and Egypt, which meet regularly to consider and counter clever tactics of the aspirants. The number of participants in Coffee Club meetings varies between 15 to 40.

In contrast, except for cooperation between Japan and Germany, the countries aspiring to become permanent members do not have a coordinated approach to the issue. In Africa, achieving a unified approach among the three aspirants (Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt) does not seem to be a strong possibility. And in Latin America, among Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico there is a wish not to disturb the present delicate balance in the UN, or they present themselves as rivals, and this has made any discussion on coordinating their positions vis-a-vis the Security Council reform difficult.

The situation is even more complicated in Europe. The prospect of a common foreign and security policy of the European Union (EU) is giving rise to talk of awarding a permanent seat to the EU in place of the seats held by Britain and France, and Italy is making no secret of its interest in access to permanent membership via Brussels.

In addition, there is a prevailing view among the UN member states that any Security Council reform will require careful consideration over an extended period of time. After all, fewer than ten states are seeking permanent membership, and Security Council reform does not directly concern the national interests of a majority of the 189 UN member states.

Against this backdrop, initially, the United States, Britain, France, Japan and Germany tried to produce a “framework resolution.” India tried to chip in here too. That resolution spelt out the main conditions for Security Council reform on the basis of the proposal put forward in 1997 by the then president of the General Assembly, Ambassador Razali Ismail of Malaysia. That approach was initially thought to have a strong chance of success.

However, prospects of its success faded in the face of a fiercer opposition from the Coffee Club members. It also became apparent that collaboration among the US, Britain, France Germany and Japan irritated Russia and China. It also alienated many other member states, particularly those in the developing world. Any reform of the Security Council will necessitate amending the UN Charter, which requires the affirmative votes of all the permanent members and two-thirds of the UN membership as a whole. Hence, the “framework resolution” lies dormant.

The first major issue to be addressed is the question of how large an expanded Council should be. The only other time the Council’s composition was enlarged was in 1963, when a decision was taken to expand its membership from the original eleven (five permanent and six non-permanent) seats to the present fifteen. Since then, the membership of the United Nations itself has risen from 112 to 189 countries; hence the need to expand the membership of the Security Council.

The United States has adopted a most conservative stance, insisting that an enlarged Council should not have more than twentyone seats. However, almost all member states believe an expanded membership of twentyone would be too small. Some argue that it is pointless to discuss Security Council reform so long as the United States remained rigid on that position.

Since the beginning of 1999, India, Germany and Japan are trying hard to rally support for expanding both the permanent and the non-permanent membership of the UNSC and to defeat manoeuvres by the Coffee Club to channel the reform debate in the direction of expanding only non-permanent membership.

In the General Assembly session in September 2000, representatives of 169 member states stressed the importance of Security Council reform. More specifically, 98 states spoke in support of the principle of expanding both the permanent and non-permanent membership. It may be said that as many as 155 states, well over two-thirds of the UN membership, support the idea of expanding both categories of membership.

Apart from expansion, two other extremely difficult issues remain unresolved: one concerns the veto and the other is related to deciding which countries are to be elected as new permanent members. Both questions are highly political and have strategic implications for many countries. Their solution will require a demonstration of political will in the course of negotiations among the world’s capitals.

The difficulty of the veto issue lies in the divide between the overwhelming majority of member states that want to abolish the veto or see its use curtailed, and the permanent members, which are nearly unified in wanting to protect their prerogative. A way to bridge the divide has yet to be found. To further complicate matters, the veto problem is linked to the thorny issue of selecting new permanent members from among the developing countries. The idea of giving veto power to permanent members from the developing world has generated serious reservations among the developed nations.

More fundamentally, the reform itself depends on obtaining the agreement of all the existing permanent members, for any one of them can veto a reform package it does not agree with. While they generally support Security Council reforms, their positions on specific issues vary. Moreover, for obvious reasons, their attitude toward reform is generally passive, although China and France are more positive than the other three. Thus, an important task is to engage the permanent members, particularly the United States, more positively in the reform effort.

Endeavours of countries with aspirations to permanent membership on the Security Council has met with little success in the reform debate because of the arguments and strategy of the Coffee Club members. Here again, it is widely believed at the United Nations that if and when the United States commits to accept an expanded Council of at least twenty-four members, that would prompt the hitherto hesitant aspirants (and also the Coffee Club members) to engage in serious negotiations aimed at putting together a final reform package.

The states aspiring for a permanent status need to coordinate their positions on the questions of which countries should be permanent members and how they should be selected. To this end, it is crucial for the aspirants to be given a clearer prospect for Security Council reform, for otherwise no country will dare to engage in the difficult and delicate exercise of negotiating its position with its rivals. In this regard there have been some noteworthy developments since last year.

In September, Egypt reaffirmed its intention to seek a permanent seat. This may be seen as a move to avoid falling behind other major states of Africa aspiring for permanent membership. In December, Mexico, which had shown little interest in serving on the Security Council announced its intention to stand for election as a non-permanent member. It seems that for these two countries, Security Council reform has begun to move forward.

It is sad that the Security Council responsible for addressing these issues is still monopolized by the victors of World War II (and their successor states). It must also be noted that the Council’s failure at times to respond to a crisis in a timely and proper manner is often the result of differences among the present permanent members. The handling of the Iraq question is a case in point.

The need to reform the Security Council in such a way that it truly reflects the reality of today’s international relations can hardly be disputed. Indeed, such reform is essential to reinforce the Council’s credibility.

The writer is Chairman of Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi.