THE attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001, marked a seismic challenge to the concept of sovereignty that has been the legal foundation of the international system since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Its organizing principles were that foreign policy was a matter for states conceived as legally equal and obliged not to intervene in the domestic affairs of each other.

On Sept. 11 the world entered a new period in which private, non-state organizations have proved capable of threatening national and international security by stealth attacks. The current controversy about preemption is a symptom of the impact of this transformation. At bottom it is a debate between the traditional notion of sovereignty and the adaptation required by modern technology and the nature of the terrorist threat. In my view, preemption is inseparable from the war against terrorism, but the objectives for which it is implemented require careful thought and national and international dialogue.

Osama bin Laden’s base was on the territory of a national state, but his was not a national cause. Highly disciplined operatives were scattered around the globe, some on the soil of America’s closest allies and even within America itself. They enjoyed financial and organizational support from a number of states — most frequently from private individuals ostensibly not under the control of their governments.

Training bases for terrorists were established in several countries but usually in areas where the governments could plausibly deny control or were actually not in control, such as in Yemen, Somalia or perhaps Indonesia. In this manner, the international system based on the sovereign nation-state was challenged by a transnational threat that had to be fought on the sovereign territory of other nations over issues that transcended the nation-state.

By challenging the United States directly, the terrorists ensured that the struggle would be shaped by the special character of the American nation. For America has never thought itself as simply one nation among others. Its national ethos has been expressed as a universal cause identifying the spread of democracy as the key to peace. American foreign policy is more comfortable with categories of good and evil than with the calculations of national interest of European cabinet diplomacy.

European critics holding more traditional concepts have accused America of overreacting because terrorism is a phenomenon new primarily to Americans and that Europeans overcame terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s without undertaking global crusades. But the terrorism of two decades ago was of a different character. It was on the whole composed of nationals of the country where the terror took place (or, as in the case of the IRA in Britain, by a group with special national grievances of its own).

Though some received foreign intelligence support, their bases were in the country where they operated. Their weapons of choice were mostly suitable for individual assaults. By contrast, September 11 terrorists operate on a global basis, are motivated less by a specific grievance than a generalized hatred, and they have access to weapons by which they can give effort to this strategy of killing thousands and ultimately more.

In the immediate post-September 11 period, this difference in emphasis was submerged in a general shock which brought home to most nations the importance of the United States as the guarantor of international stability in the traditional sense. The intelligence and police aspect of the war against terrorism — the part most compatible with the cooperation among sovereign states — received almost universal support from the international community.

Since the attack on the United States was launched from the sovereign territory of a nation-state, the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan generated widespread cooperation as well. But as soon as the Afghanistan operation was substantially concluded, the next phase of the anti-terrorist campaign was bound to raise the issue of how to deal with incipient rather than actual terrorism. Unlike the Westphalian period when the movement of armies foreshadowed threat, modern technology in the service of terror gives no warning, and its perpetrators vanish with the act of commission.

Hence, if there is a serious prospect of the emergence of a terrorist threat from the soil of a sovereign country, some preemptive action — including military action — is inherent in the definition of the challenge. Countries that harbour terrorist headquarters or terrorist training centres cannot take refuge behind traditional notions of sovereignty because their territorial integrity has been preemptively violated by the terrorists.

At this point, the issue of general preemption against terrorism merges with the issue of Iraq. Perhaps the most important long-term problem faced by the international community is the problem of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, especially in states with no internal checks on their rulers’ decisions. If the world is not to turn into a doomsday machine, a way must be found to prevent the spread of these weapons. Cold war principles of deterrence do not apply when there is a multiplicity of states, some of them harbouring terrorists in the position to wreak havoc.

The cold war world reflected a certain uniformity of purpose on each side and a certain conformity in the assessment of risk between the two sides. But when many states threaten each other for incongruent purposes, who is to do the deterring and in the face of what provocation? And what must be deterred is not simply the use of weapons of mass destruction but the threat of them. Is the United States to undertake this role on a global basis in every contingency? Some international system of preempting the spread of weapons of mass destruction is imperative.

Therefore the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq cannot be separated from the post-Afghanistan phase of the war against terrorism. Iraq is located in the midst of a region that has been the hotbed of world terrorist activity from which the attack on the United States was organized. The challenge posed by Iraq is not the precise degree of its relationship to Al Qaeda — though Iraq has used terrorism against its neighbours, against Israel and as far away as Europe.

For the United States to acquiesce in growing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction where the new form of terrorism has been spawned is to undermine restraint not only with respect to weapons proliferation but with respect to the psychological impulse toward terrorism altogether.

The unimpaired continuation of these stockpiles for more than a decade after the Gulf War and in the face of blatant evasion of weapons restraints imposed by the United Nations as a condition of the armistice would symbolize to terrorists and their supporters a lack of will or ability of threatened societies to protect themselves. From this perspective, action against Iraq is not an obstacle to the war on terrorism but a precondition for it. (Some argue that these stockpiles neither exist nor will soon exist. I am prepared to accept the word of the Bush administration on this subject.)

Compelling as is the case for the principle of preemption, it is not self-implementing. As the most powerful nation in the world, we have a special capacity to vindicate our views. But we also have a special obligation to rest our policies on principles that transcend the assertions of preponderant power. World leadership requires the acceptance of some restraint even on one’s own actions to ensure that others exercise comparable restraint. It cannot be in either our national or the world’s interest to develop principles that grant every nation an unfettered right of preemption against its own definition of threats to its security. Thus the case for preemption should be part of a serious effort of consultation to develop general principles that other nations can consider in their interest as well.

To be sure, consultation is not a magic cure-all, and some urge it as a means of procrastination. Nor is there unlimited time available for it. Delay for another year would amount to acquiescence in the status quo with all its implications. And, in the end, the United States will reserve the right to act alone. But it makes all the difference whether America acts alone as a last resort or as a strategic preference. Above all, once the president has announced his decision and provided the administration speaks unambiguously with one voice — as it has not in recent months — it is hard to believe that our allies will jettison a half-century of Atlantic partnership.

Too much of European comment is driven by domestic politics. The administration’s concern about proliferation in the Middle East involves one of the fundamental issues of the emerging international order. It should not be dismissed with comments about adventurism and is unlikely to be when the American direction is clear and European electoral pressures have subsided.

The subject-matter of consultation should be the destruction of weapons of mass destruction as provided by the UN resolutions. This would avoid seeking to establish the right of a single nation to bring about regime change as a principle of international policy. Nor should emphasis on weapons of mass destruction imply restoration of the previous failed inspection system. Instead the administration should put forward its idea of an airtight inspection system to be instituted with a strict time limit.

This must include on-demand inspection and unlimited access and must not allow any interposition of Iraqi officials between the inspectors and their goal. To give teeth to such a system, an internationally sanctioned military force should be established with stand-by authority to remove any obstacle to transparency. In practice, such a system would lead to regime change, for Saddam Hussein’s system is incompatible with the required transparency.

Such a strategy would also permit us to define sustainable political objectives. The idea that a military occupation should be undertaken on the model of America’s role in post-war Germany and Japan to bring about a democratic Iraq clashes with the realities and emotions of the post-colonial period. The American military role cannot go beyond destroying the weapons of mass destruction and an initial period of reconstruction. Any further goals must be left to political processes and Iraqi political forces. Iraq is not a national state; it was created at the end of World War I as a balance wheel of regional rivalries. A united and responsible Iraq remains important — but we cannot know at this point the precise measures such a policy requires.

The goal of democratic governance is inherent in the American purpose. But bringing it about takes time. It requires the ability to distinguish between those who use the slogan of democracy to achieve power but not to share it, to dissolve the existing structure without improving it, and the leaders genuinely dedicated to an open system. After all, in Turkey, the only democracy that exists in the region, pluralistic democracy came about only after 20 years of more or less benevolent autocracy.

A comparable period of military government by a western power in the midst of the Muslim world would be difficult to imagine. Historical analogies like the occupation of Germany are therefore of little help. We cannot solve all these problems beforehand — even less should they be used to avoid a decision — but we must begin to address them without delay, and we must understand that too many interests are involved for America to be able to chart the political evolution of a post-Saddam Iraq alone or by military measures primarily.

As the need for decision draws near, our allies cannot afford to be bystanders. And as the United States assumes the position of leadership, it should not launch itself unilaterally until it has tested the prospects of acting as the custodian of a global interest. —Los Angeles Times Syndicate

IT has been fashionable for long among critics to attack the centre for sparing too little for the provinces from the pool of numerous federally collected taxes. The centre on its part has been increasing the provinces’ share but it has been too inadequate to satisfy their needs, whether it is largely populated Punjab or the least populated but geographically largest Balochistan.

The exasperations of the centre would have been less if the federal budget deficit had not been rising — over ten per cent at its peak in reality — and while the IMF and the World Bank had been breathing down its neck to reduce it to a safe four or five per cent of the GDP if not more.

But in a period in which the cost of debt servicing has risen to over half the federal revenues and defence outlay to a quarter of the revenues, the federal government’s ability to increase the provincial share of the revenues as well as give far more to the provinces otherwise has been solely limited.

In fact the centre had been indulging in a kind of subterfuge to show a low budget deficit and had been accused of fudging which it has promised never to do again. Often in these years the federal government has promised more revenues to the provinces and delivered less, adding to their exasperation’s. But the centre could not help as the revenue collection fell short of the budget estimates which forced it to scale down the revenue targets by four times last year.

As a result of such adverse developments the provinces have not been able to do much to promote education, public health, environmental protection and development of Arts and culture. For that matter they have not been able to make a success of Social Action Programme I and II which were heavily externally funded.

Law and order now continues to be the main preoccupation of the provinces which spend a great deal of their resources on it, with the centre promising adequate subvention. In fact it promises far more than it delivers and the provinces are unhappy.

The sixth National Finance Commission award is now being formulated in an environment of pulls and counter-pulls between the centre and the provinces and among the provinces. The provinces want the award before the October elections so that it does not become a political football or is delayed through post-electoral dissentions. Following the recent meetings — the last one was held at Karachi — the final meeting is to be held on September 15 in Peshawar. Its recommendations will be presented to the President and the provinces, while the meeting will be presided over by the finance minister Shaukat Aziz.

The share of the provinces has been increasing. In 2000-2001 it was Rs 16 billion and last year it was Rs 175 billion and this year it is to be Rs 193 billion, but that depends on the revenue collection hitting the target of Rs 460 billion and not falling to Rs 414 billion instead of the targeted Rs 457 billion last year. Otherwise the provinces will protest again.

While other tax collection can fluctuate depending on the growth of the economy and external factors, the sales tax revenues have been increasing steadily. It is to be Rs 205.7 billion this year compared to Rs 153 billion in 2000-2001. So the provinces want a large share of the sales tax revenues. In fact in all federations including the US sales tax is a provincial or state tax, but it is not so in Pakistan where the provinces get a third of the sales tax revenue collected.

Now the centre has agreed to raise the provincial share of the federally collected taxes from 37.5 per cent to forty two per cent including 2.5 per cent from sales tax revenues. The rest of the increase is to come from other sources. But the provinces hold that their proper share should be fifty per cent of the federally collected taxes and not forty two per cent.

Now the centre has agreed to create a subvention pool to help the provinces according to their special needs or on a mutually agreed basis. Punjab with its largest population of 58 per cent prefers distribution of the revenues on a population basis which has largely been the pattern for long.

Balochistan has been asking for special consideration on grounds that it is the largest province which needs a great deal of money to be spent on its infrastructure development and maintenance. Balochistan and the Frontier province also want additional funds to reduce their backwardness. Sindh wants special consideration to be shown for its very large contribution to federal revenues and to take care of the Katchi Abadis created by the ceaseless inflow of people from the north. Nevertheless, the basic decision is to centre around population in an overly populated country with little education and employment and massive social problems.

Following devaluation and the birth of strong local bodies, they want a proper share of the revenues or their heads of the revenues to be identified otherwise they can come up with arbitrary taxation like the Sea tax which the Karachi city government has been wanting. Even within the city government the town committees and the Taluka committees want their fiscal areas or tax sources to be defined.

Amidst such conflicting pulls the provinces have come up with a demand that their total loans of one hundred billion rupees should be written off. While the centre is asking the external donors to write off its loans including one billion dollars from the US, the provinces want the centre to give them what it seeks for itself. The fact is the centre had charged heavy interest while re-lending the funds it had obtained from foreign donors instead of charging the same rate.

The provinces also owe various amounts obtained from the State Bank of Pakistan as advances, which though is not as large as the collective debt of one hundred billion rupees it owes to the centre. If the centre has to satisfy the provinces and the local bodies to give them enough revenues, more revenue sources need to be identified. In fact, there is no need for new practices as much as there is need for collecting the existing taxes which must be rationalized instead of being increased arbitrarily as the property tax has been multiplied in Sindh. It is wrong to confine most of the taxation in Sindh to Karachi and hence make the taxes and the stamp duties too heavy.

The CBR reforms should be speeded up and forty to fifty per cent of the money paid by the tax payers which, it is said, go into the pockets of the CBR officials must go into the coffers of the government. But of course this is easier said than done. But relentless efforts should be made.

The approach the NFC award should begin, which is the admission of the fact that if provinces do not have enough funds for education, public health beginning with drinking water and environmental protection, social sector development will be a mirage, and most of us may remain illiterate for too long with all its negative consequences. Law and order though very important should not be allowed to obscure all other facets of our life. Indisputably without fiscal autonomy, political autonomy becomes useless or non-productive.