THERE isn’t a more powerful meddler in other countries’ affairs than the United States, and no other nation impinges on the rest of the world, for better or for worse, as does the US. The State Department’s daily briefing, which articulates American foreign policy, is therefore one of the most important assignments on the beat of a foreign correspondent based in Washington.

The briefings are important not only to understand America’s responses to various international events, but often also how America views domestic developments in countries such as Pakistan or regions such as the Middle East where it has developed vital strategic and political interests. It has been fascinating in the two years that this correspondent spent in Washington to watch US attitudes towards the Musharraf regime change from what they were before September 11 to their current phase of warm, at times positively effusive, backing. But even beyond Pakistan, the post-September briefings have assumed a new dimension as America’s ‘war on terrorism’ has gradually expanded in reach and depth.

The person who has had to handle the world’s press in the changing environment is Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Richard A. Boucher, who every afternoon that he is in Washington and not away with Secretary Colin Powell on one of the latter’s missions abroad, has walked up to the podium with the day’s briefing book and fielded questions from American and foreign journalists.

After finishing another day’s briefing last week, Mr Boucher took time off to talk to Dawn about his job and the fresh challenges created by the September attacks. “We all have this sense, not of the additional burden, but the additional gravity of what we’re doing right now. Hopefully, we’re doing it more seriously, more carefully, but also with more devotion and diligence.”

Sometimes, from the viewpoint of a Third World journalist, the spokesman may be put in the position of defending the indefensible, such as the US support for Ariel Sharon in the current Middle East confrontation. Sometimes he can face questions from the privileged front bench of wire service correspondents, led by doyen Barry Shweid, that are meant to rile. And at all times he is supposed to maintain his sangfroid.

Sept 11 brought worldwide exposure to the State Department briefings, as indeed to similar sessions at the White House (which previously used to be almost entirely focused on domestic issues) and the Pentagon. “You know,” Mr Boucher says, “it wasn’t too long after 9/11 when one of my staff took a snapshot off my four-screen TV — you know, where you have four channels going at once — and I found myself on every single channel. That was a bit scary.”

He denies that there are any differences on policy or in nuance between the various government agencies. Most things, he said, were worked out carefully in advance. “Where we get ourselves into trouble is when we jump on something and they jump on something and we jump in slightly different directions. But usually we all agree with each other. One shouldn’t make too much of nuance. I like to say, ‘Nuance is only there when it’s intended.’ People look for differences in words when the policy is the same, the activities of the US government that we are describing are the same.”

Did this mean that the nuance, where it existed, was calculated?

“Well, that’s the question: sometimes it’s calculated, and sometimes it just happens. This is a reporter’s problem. Reporters shouldn’t always read too much into a nuance unless they are told that we actually did this on purpose. I’ve told reporters sometimes that ‘we used this particular word today because we wanted to drop a suggestion to somebody or offer a message to somebody.’ But in most cases, when I am talking and when Ari Fleischer (the White House briefer) and others are talking, we may use different words without there being any particular importance to the fact.”

Q: But you realize of course that, because of America’s position, nuance or a word here or there....

Boucher: Oh, yes. Yes. And we do try to be very careful. And what’s important, we figure it out in advance and use the same words. But it’s not always intended. I guess that’s my only point.”

A senior foreign service officer, Mr Boucher has served as spokesman or deputy spokesman for the State Department under five secretaries of state and as chief of mission two times. You wondered how a spokesman could reconcile with a change in administration. “Well, in some ways, it’s like watching a card game: you are not sure how much the difference is in the player or in the cards that he was dealt. And each of the players has to play the cards that he’s dealt. So I’ve managed, I think, to try to understand and explain US policy which, whatever the administration in charge, still has certain fundamental principles involved.

....And maybe that’s the secret of being able to speak for different people. In a sense, my view of the United States and our role in the world is continuous and doesn’t differ a whole lot from year to year or even decade to decade. And the fact that these people apply it in different ways is as much due to circumstances as it is due to personality.”

Mr Boucher went on to explain his position further in terms of what he called his personal evolution. “There comes a point in one’s career when you understand that you need to answer questions, you need to be accountable, you need to explain yourself, and you need to get support. And I think there’s an increasing realization now that we live in a world of democracies. And even places that aren’t democracies have to deal with public opinion. And if we want to be successful, from a policy point of view, we’ve to be successful in getting the support of our own public and getting the support of foreign publics as well. So I think what you have is ....understanding the need to be out there and explaining yourself.”

Looking back since 9/11, did Mr Boucher think that the situation, in as far as it related to Islam or ‘Islamic terrorism’, could have been handled differently? “What we were looking for in the early days was to have Islamic voices out there, not just the Americans, saying ‘this is not about Islam’. Our embassies were going to governments and saying it’s time to decide, it’s time to speak out.

“President Musharraf spoke out very quickly, making a decision in a couple of days about where he was going to stand. That was really important not just for Pakistan, not just for the Taliban, but in terms of the Muslim world, and in terms of showing Americans that there is a clear choice and some people are making it.

“And as we heard more Muslim voices around the world speaking out, this Al Qaida idea that somehow we were fighting the Islamic world went away quickly. We did as much as we could, but it really was the other people who spoke out who really made the difference — the Muftis in Cairo and Saudi Arabia and people like that who have more authority when they talk about Islam than we do.”

Mr Boucher is modest in saying he cannot anticipate all the questions. A lot of work goes into compiling the daily briefing book, with some persons labouring on it since 4.30 or five in the morning. Mr Boucher himself has extensive consultations with officials at all levels to get the US position right on each issue likely to come up and he may see the secretary several times a day. But, then, “there’s 10 per cent (of questions) where I get that dumb look on my face and say, ‘Really’. Where you just don’t know, because you can’t know everything. And I do say I don’t know.

“And if it’s important, I’ll try to get something for people, or get it the next day. But the fact is you can never know all the answers on test. You just have to accept that. In terms of history, background and knowledge of the issues, there are always people there (among the reporters) who know more than I do.”

One forgot to ask how many questions put during the Dawn interview Mr Boucher had anticipated. Looking back, probably all, which does not seem like a very good commentary on the acumen of this reporter.

LET me now get to an analysis of what may be the real intentions behind India’s recent dealings with Pakistan. This is what I have described as the unconventional view in the article that appeared in this space last week. To understand this interpretation of India-Pakistan relations, let us step back and see how India now views its own role in the 21st century world.

This view has changed remarkably following the collapse of European communism, the break-up of the Soviet Union, India’s own economic success in the decade of the nineties, and the increasingly important role it is now playing in the world of technology — not only information technology but increasingly also in health sciences. All this has given the Indians a tremendous amount of confidence about their future prospects and the role they can play in the evolving global economic and political systems.

New Delhi now looks at the world as a solar system with the United States at the centre, a few planets in Washington’s orbit and each planet with a number of moons and asteroids circling it. The European Union, Japan, China, Russia, India and Brazil are the planets. Each of these regional powers is responsible for maintaining the economic, political and social order in its sphere of influence.

Viewed from New Delhi, all of South Asia, some of Central Asia (certainly Afghanistan), a bit of Africa and a bit also of East Asia falls within the Indian sphere. It would like to work with China and Russia to ensure that the definitions of the spheres those two countries would like to influence do not seriously conflict with the way India sees its own reach. A dialogue with these two countries, with the United States hovering in the background, watching the process evolve, should ultimately result in a neatly ordered world.

However, there is one problem with this view of the world and that is Pakistan. Although with an economy that has been seriously weakened by years of mismanagement, with a military whose strength has been reduced by various sanctions imposed by the West on the purchase of hardware, and with a society that has become increasingly polarized, Pakistan has retained the ability to checkmate India’s regional and global ambition. In the words of Henry Kissinger, India sees Pakistan as a thorn in its side.

Although Pakistan has not clearly defined its own view of the world and its own place in that world, it is certainly not the one to which India subscribes. For a quarter of a century after achieving independence, Pakistan continued to believe that although one-seventh the size of India in terms of geography and population, it was its neighbour’s equivalent in every other way. Rapid economic growth during Ayub Khan’s eleven-year rule and the rapid modernization of the economy in the same period gave Pakistan the confidence which India could not match with its anemic “Hindu rate of growth.” But the 1971 civil war in East Pakistan, the emergence of East Pakistan as the independent state of Bangladesh, the destruction of economic institutions and the institutions of governance during the periods of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Ziaul Haq changed Pakistan.

The country lost economic dynamism. Its rate of economic growth fell to the level that had once made India the sick man of Asia. India had remained in that position for nearly four decades while Pakistan made impressive economic strides. At one point, Pakistan overtook India in terms of the income per head of the population. As a recent World Bank report said of the Pakistani economy: “In the ‘sixties Pakistan would have made anyone’s list of Asian countries most likely to enjoy miracle-level growth rates over the ensuing decades. This did not happen. While the growth rate in the 1980s was still over six per cent a year, after the early part of the 1990s it fell to around four per cent a year. Pakistan became the slowest growing country in South Asia, an exact reversal of its previous role.”

Pakistan became the new sick man of South Asia. While the Indians began to reform their economy in the 1990s, Pakistan’s economy began to flounder. It failed to erect a durable political structure and that created enormous political instability.

Most troubling, Pakistan began to lose the respect of the world. The West, in particular, saw little in its future. Some analysts began to call it a ‘failed state’. One of them — Robert Kaplan, the journalist who has written extensively about the developing world — predicted that Pakistan would soon fracture into a number of mini-states, each orbiting around India. And then two things happened that placed Pakistan on the world map once again.

On October 12, 1999, General Pervez Musharraf assumed political control banishing from the country two individuals — Benazir Bhutto and Mian Nawaz Sharif — who had alternated between themselves as prime ministers for eleven years. The administrations they led were extremely corrupt, incompetent and unable to provide any direction to the economy. General Musharraf promised to change all that. He promised Pakistan’s economic revival. He also promised to give the country a political system that would be durable and provide voice to all segments of society. These promises did not sway the West. The return of a military dictator in today’s world is not a popular event. As such, Musharraf’s actions did not win many friends outside Pakistan. He was shunned by most world leaders. But then September 11 happened and General Musharraf’s decision to support the American war on terrorism not only won him Washington’s friendship, he also found the welcome mat put out for him all over the world. For some time, Musharraf was one of the world’s most popular leaders.

There were immediate economic rewards for Pakistan for switching its support from the Taliban to Washington. The US provided cash support of $600 million to Islamabad. The European Union gave Pakistan’s textile producers easier access to its markets. Japan removed all economic sanctions on the country and started providing economic assistance once again. This easing on the external account came at a time when the Musharraf government had already adopted a set of policies aimed at stabilizing the economy and introducing a number of long delayed structural reforms.

In the spring of this year, Pakistan seemed well on the way towards economic recovery. To quote from another World Bank report, more recent than the one referred to earlier: “Pakistan entered the new millennium with more hope. Starting from a position of extreme vulnerability at the end of the 1990s — a financial crisis, domestic tensions, and external isolation — it has achieved a remarkable turnaround. A major factor behind this turnaround is strong leadership in the country with internal cohesion and a clear sense of direction. The government is engaged in fundamental political, institutional, economic, social and gender transformation for Pakistan’s transition to a modern Islamic state.” The same report projected that with this policy stance continuing into the future, Pakistan’s rate of GDP growth could accelerate from 2.7 per cent in 2000-2001 to 4.7 per cent in 2002-2003, and 5.2 per cent in 2003-2004.

With economic strength restored and with GDP growing at the rate matching that of India, Pakistan would be reluctant to become a satellite of its neighbour. It would remain a thorn in India’s side.

How to take out this thorn? The Indian leadership perhaps believes that this can be done in two ways. By further weakening the Pakistan’s economy, and by creating some distance between Washington and Islamabad. India has already exacted a heavy economic toll on Pakistan by massing its troops on the border. As a result, I doubt that Pakistan’s economy will climb any time soon out of the low-level equilibrium trap into which it has been caught now for several years. For it to do so it must increase the amount it invests from its own income in economic development. And, in addition, it must also get foreign direct investment to come into the country. Neither will happen for as long as India maintains a menacing presence on the border. In such an environment, it would be exceedingly difficult for Pakistan to divert resources away from defence into development. For instance, the budget for the 2002-2003 fiscal year, announced a few days ago, promises a cut of four per cent in public sector expenditures. Already Pakistan has the lowest public sector spending on development of any major developing country. This will only exacerbate its difficult economic situation.

With Pakistan already on its economic knees, a little push could get it to fall on its face. This is what the continuing massing of the Indian troops on Pakistan’s border may really mean. Pakistan and India have fought many near-wars over the last half century. But they were not long-drawn-out affairs. Something would provoke one side to march its military men to the border. The other side would respond and the two armies would glare at one another for a while and then pull back.

No previous near-war has lasted for so long. India began bringing its troops to the Pakistani border in December last year and leaks to the press by the Indian leadership has indicated that there will not be any significant pullback until October, when the part of Kashmir it occupies is scheduled to elect a new government.

If India persists with these plans, it could cause considerable difficulties for Pakistan and thwart the recovery in Pakistan’s economy expected by the World Bank and other donors. Continuing military pressure by India will produce at least three adverse consequences. One, it will divert the attention of Islamabad away from economic issues to the important task of defending the country’s borders. The policies that changed the world’s view about Pakistan’s economic prospects were the product of considerable diligence on the part of General Musharraf and his team. Distracted by India, this team will not be able to give the economy the time it needs and deserves.

Two, there will be pressure to spend more on defence. Defence expenditure in recent years was reduced from over six per cent of GDP in the 1980s to a budgeted 4.3 per cent in 2001-2002. As a result of September 11, defence’s share is expected to increase to 4.7 per cent. If the military confrontation with India continues, it may well reach five per cent in 2002-2003. This will have a negative effect on development.

Three, continuing uncertainty caused by the massing of troops by India will not produce a serious interest in the Pakistani economy on the part of foreign investors. As I have suggested on a number of occasions, Pakistan at this time in its economic history desperately needs foreign direct investment to revive its economy. If what I have said above is correct, India’s real motive for its continuing confrontation with its neighbour may not be to settle the Kashmir dispute in its favour. It may well be to weaken Pakistan to the point where it would be forced to become an Indian satellite.

JULY 4 seems to be an appropriate day to remind the American people that their independence came about through an armed struggle, that the freedom they value so much, was won on a battle-field, that the revolutionaries who took up arms against the British were not terrorists. I think the Americans would do well to remember their own history.

I write this in the context of America’s present superpower status and the power it wields to influence world events. The power is formidable, both military and economic but there is no matching ideological or spiritual power that can serve as a beacon.

The perception is that of a country in love with itself, a country that believes that the world is flat and it is the centre of the universe, a Ptolemaic vision rather than Copernican, of a multiplicity of worlds. This status of pre-eminence is accepted grudgingly and this grudging acceptance is turning into resentment and to borrow from the title of Ayub Khan’s book, we want America as a friend, not a master.

My book As Time Goes By describes the years I spent in the United States as a student. They were, in some respect, the happiest years of my life. I value those years as I do the countless friends I made. There is a scrap-book in my mind of those years and as I turn the pages, and there are memories of kind and decent folk who treated me, as if, I was one of their own.

I cannot ever be anti-American but I find it hard to reconcile that America with the present one that is profiling Muslims, in one uneducated swoop, and looking at them with the darkest suspicion and treating them, not quite as the Nazis treated Jews, but only slightly better, all in the name of homeland security.

I have heard from many Pakistani families living in the United States and though they pretend to put on a brave face, they seem to be homesick, more than ever. How can a rich and powerful nation, blessed with so much goodness of heart and with some of the best universities in the world and state-of-the-art technology, be so singularly irrational and ignorant and lump together so many people as potential enemies, the only commonality being the faith of these people.

All this doing is breeding a culture of intolerance and, in the long run, it will be this culture of intolerance that will pose the deadliest threat to the American way of life which proclaims so stridently that it is a land of free and home of the brave, an open society.

There is a perverse association of ideas that links the Middle East to terrorism and George Bush’s hard-line call to the Palestinians to replace Yasser Arafat and get themselves a new and different leadership, far from being a solution, makes the problem worse. Ariel Sharon appears to have convinced George Bush that Yasser Arafat’s ouster will bring an end to the suicide-bombings, as if, Arafat is masterminding them.

On the contrary, it should be obvious even to the meanest intelligence that Arafat’s replacement, who will be a stooge (both of America and Israel) does not have a hope in hell in reigning in the militants. Palestine must have credible leadership and one that enjoys the confidence and respect of the Palestine people.

The United States must not make the mistakes that were made in Vietnam when Diem was ousted in a coup that had tacit American approval. Diem and his brother were murdered. Many consider that to be a turning point in the Vietnam war. From being a South Vietnam war, it became an American war. History teaches us that history teaches us nothing. Diem’s ouster was seen as giving the South Vietnamese government a chance to fight the communists with more vigour and more internal cohesion. It did nothing of the sort. It brought in more and more American troops, fighting the wrong war in the wrong place for the wrong reason.

Ariel Sharon is delighted by George Bush’s speech for it has given him the green light to annex all Palestine territory. Israel has celebrated by launching a massive military action, killing more men, women and children, demolishing more homes, creating more refugees.

The Americans are puzzled why there is so much anti-American feeling in many parts of the world. The Americans like to believe that these people are envious of the United States, its wealth and its democracy. This in itself is a kind of arrogance. It is simpler than this. The Americans give the impression that they are bullies and that might is right.

This fourth of July, the Americans should spend in doing some soul-searching. They must go back to being the great arsenal of democracy and into believing in liberty and justice for all people of the world not just themselves. America must match its military might with moral might. That’s what the founding father had in mind. America needs to back to its ideals, to dear hearts and gentle people of a Norman Rockwell painting.

US President George W. Bush’s Middle East plan on ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was delivered as the Israeli army occupied six Palestinian-ruled towns, and tanks yet again confined Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to his already battered West Bank compound in Ramallah.

The plan apparently is pro-Israel. Bush didn’t say a word to restrain Israel’s military campaign, triggered by back-to-back suicide bombings that killed 26 Israelis last week, and implicitly gave Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon green light to go ahead.

The plan was a major victory for Sharon, who saw his policies for dealing with the Palestinian uprising fully backed by Bush. He stressed that a Palestinian state won’t come into being unless three conditions are met:

The Palestinians must elect a new leadership “not compromised by terror”; the Palestinian Authority, which rules enclaves in the occupied territories, must be transformed into a democracy; and Palestinian leaders must “engage in a sustained fight against terrorism.”

As for Israel’s part in the bargain, Bush sounded like he was reading from one of Sharon’s speeches. Only when the Palestinians leaders make progress in cracking down on the extremists should Israel be required to lift the siege of Palestinian towns and withdraw its troops to the positions they held before the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising 21 months ago, Bush said. Israel would then have to freeze all construction in the Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, he added.

But Israeli opposition leader Yossi Sarid is more realistic. According to him, Bush’s statement will do nothing to stop the violence. “It’s an American vision that is more appropriate for distant and peaceful Washington and less for Jerusalem and Ramallah which are wallowing every day in blood,” said Sarid, head of the left-wing Meretz party.

So was Tommy Lapid, head of the secular Shinui party, who commented: “This was the most Israeli-friendly speech ever given by an American president. He didn’t even try to be even-handed.”

Palestinian officials also described Bush’s roadmap to peace as unrealistic, and insisted that Arafat will remain Palestinian leader. “President Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinian people and this must be respected,” said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Khatib, a leading Palestinian analyst and pollster before Arafat recently appointed him to his cabinet, described Bush’s implicit call for Arafat’s ousting through elections as a “mistake.”

“How can (Bush) call for new elections and suggest the results of those elections at the same time. That kind of thing shouldn’t be coming from the president of a major democracy,” Khatib said.

Arafat should be in bind in cracking down on the extremists, when Israeli forces in helicopters assassinated four Hamas militants, and killed two other Palestinians, with missile strikes that hit a taxi cab in the Gaza Strip. The attack came hours after Arafat ordered the house arrest of Sheikh Ahem Yassin, Hamas’ founder and spiritual leader. Several other suspected militants were also arrested by Arafat’s police.

Arafat’s police officers then fired on a group of Hamas supporters trying to converge on Yassin’s house, wounding one Palestinian. But the missile strikes after Yassin’s house arrest made Arafat look like a collaborator in the eyes of the Palestinians militants.

Arafat, who can’t control young militia leaders even from his own Fatah movement, is preoccupied with his own political survival more than anything else. The only way he’ll risk his shrinking credibility among the Palestinians — and a showdown with the militants by cracking down — is if he gets a concession he can portray as a victory after almost two years of violence and hardship. But, that doesn’t seem to be coming.

A Hamas statement vowed to avenge the death of their members in the missile strike — and defy the Palestinian Authority — with more suicide bomb attacks. “We emphasize our right to continue the jihad and resistance and to intensify the martyrdom operations as a reaction to the policy of the occupation and the (Palestinian) Authority,” the group said.

By adopting Sharon’s strategy in the uprising, Bush has backed the conditions for ending the violence that few western diplomats believe can realistically be fulfilled. Like Sharon, Bush insists that the Palestinian Authority must reform its corrupt and undemocratic ways, but Israel’s military siege of the Palestinian towns makes it virtually impossible to hold the essential element for reform — new elections.

Sharon wants Arafat to crack down on the extremists — even as he writes Arafat off as “irrelevant” — but has consistently allowed the Israeli army to target the Palestinian police forces expected to do the job. Sharon then rolls tanks into Palestinian towns and puts thousands of Palestinians under a military curfew. In the process, civilians often are killed or injured.

Even Israeli defence minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer admits the tactic of invading Palestinian towns inevitably backfires. “Unfortunately, while the (Israeli army) is carrying out these necessary actions, the operations themselves become a hothouse that produces more and more new suicide bombers,” Ben-Eliezer said in an interview with Haaretz daily newspaper last weekend. “The military actions kindle the frustration, hatred and despair and are the incubator for the terror to come,” he added.

Bush’s prescriptions for the two sides are:

Palestinians should elect new leadership and adopt a new constitution with fully empowered parliament. The United States and partners would help organize multiparty elections by end of year; implement financial reforms. United States would increase humanitarian aid; overhaul security forces; Palestinians could then count on US support for a provisional state, with final details to be negotiated between Israel and Palestine.

Israel should withdraw forces to positions it held on West Bank two years ago and stop building homes on West Bank and in Gaza; ultimately, Israel should agree to end occupation that began after 1967 war and pull back to negotiated “secure and recognized boundaries,” according to the United Nations resolutions; restore freedom of movement in Palestinian areas; release frozen Palestinian revenues “into honest, accountable hands”.

Simply put, in other words, the US has abandoned its historic role as a mediator in the Middle East — at least for now. And, by calling on the Palestinians to elect a new leader to replace Yasser Arafat, President Bush chose to see the conflict as another battlefield in the war on terrorism that could not be solved by diplomacy.

By making the demands for new Palestinian leadership, Bush, thus, effectively froze US diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is a key victory for hardliners, who now see the administration becoming an observer, not an active mediator.

The call for a new regime has another implication. Bush already insists on the ouster of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. By declaring Arafat a barrier to peace, Bush made it clear that the United States would now actively work to change regimes to resolve disputes in the world, specially in the Middle East.

Many Middle East analysts had expected the long-awaited address to offer at least minor concessions to the Palestinians. Instead, Bush’s speech led to an intensified public perception in the Arab world that the US government was anti-Arab.

The intra-department battles in the Bush administration marked the first time in recent memory that Defence Department officials have had a major say in the Middle East policy, which had been the domain of the State Department and the National Security Council.

Edward S. Walker, who was assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs in the State Department early in the Bush administration commented: “The reaction is going to be very negative among the Arabs. A lot of it has to do with what you hear first, and the first two-thirds of this speech were what the Palestinians have to do.”

But, noted Walker and others, the Palestinian Authority’s record on elections, legislature, and judiciary are in some cases much better than other Arab governments. In 1996, for instance, President Carter said that the Palestinian elections, which installed Arafat as leader, were generally free and fair.

“If we support democracy and you hold free and fair elections there and the people vote for Arafat again, does that meet your criterion for building a Palestinian state?” Walker asked.