POWER and arrogance characterize US diplomacy. “We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction”, said Colin Powell at Davos, adding, “mechanisms are in place. It would be very difficult, it would take a miracle to find a dialogue and a peaceful solution out of the crisis.” Powell went on to declare that the US was ready to attack Iraq alone if allies peeled away.

“Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction”, said the US secretary of state. The message is loud and clear. If necessary, America may act unilaterally to disarm Iraq. Washington had once given a nod of approval to President Saddam Hussein to attack Iran. Years later, an emboldened Saddam unsuccessfully tried to absorb Kuwait. The Desert Storm put that wrong right.

The UN imposed sanctions on Iraq and these are still operative. Overtime Washington became weary and decided to discard Saddam as it had previously abandoned its former allies - President Diem of South Vietnam, Shah of Iran and President Ziaul Haq of Pakistan, to name just a few. President Bush uses strong language against President Saddam Hussein and wants to remove him from power.

The US alleges that Iraq has clandestinely stockpiled weapons of mass destruction. Its faithful ally, Great Britain, joins in this chorus. The UN inspectors searched all places of their choice in Iraq for two months but failed to find any evidence to substantiate allegations. The chief UN weapons inspector, Mr Hans Blix, and the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr. Mohamed ElBaradei request for more time from the Security Council to enable them to complete their task. Commenting on their report the White House warns that Baghdad is “running out of time.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations maintains that the report does not “give us any hope that Iraq will disarm” voluntarily. Secretary Powell’s Davos speech and the US reaction to the UN inspectors’ report put the UN on the spot — act as demanded by Washington or you will be bypassed. This puts the world body on trial. Coming days and weeks will tell if it acts independently or succumbs to US pressure.

Media reports disclose that during the years 1998-2001 some sensitive nuclear-related materials and parts were received by Iraq from India through EIS Company. Some engineers of this company also worked at a plant in Iraq but this work was later abandoned. This case is currently under investigation.

An armada of the US and British forces in the Gulf awaits orders to go into action. The US has made elaborate plans to administer Iraq after it has been ‘liberated’ from President Saddam Hussein. The game of power and oil is being played out on the chessboard of Iraq on the pretext of uncorroborated allegations.

A vast majority of countries oppose an attack on Iraq because the UN inspectors have not detected any weapons of mass destruction and have requested for more time to complete their work. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is under US pressure to pledge military assistance to Washington in case of war. France and Germany are against war and their heads of state maintain that it is wrong to believe that war is unavoidable. The US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld makes a loaded comment that France and Germany represent an ‘old Europe’. This remark angers European leaders. Russia and China oppose a military offensive. Most countries are of the opinion that Iraq should fully adhere to the UN Security Council mandate, and that only the UN Security Council should finally decide any action against it, if necessary.

As war clouds hang over the Gulf region and media trial of Iraq continues, the Islamic countries are in disarray. The Arab League is mum. So is the Organization of Islamic Conference. The public reaction in these states is muted. The West is critical of Saddam’s harsh rule and ruthless policies. The Bush administration has links with Iraqi opposition and encourages it to rise in revolt. Such interference in the internal affairs of another country is unjustified and is violative of the UN Charter and international law. It is the right of the people of Iraq to make their policies and change their rulers if they so desire. Others cannot arrogate this right.

War in Iraq will disturb regional peace and create multi-faceted problems for the Gulf states and beyond. It will also have serious political and economic implications for Pakistan. Islamabad’s principled voice of reason demanding only UN-mandated action in Iraq may be too weak to be heard in the din and noise that prevails in the countries that call the shots, but it should continue to be raised at all levels. War will emotionally disturb a section of the Pakistani population, particularly the rightist groups. It will be so notwithstanding the fact that Pakistan-Iraq relations have had a chequered history in the past and Pakistan has some unpleasant memories. Emotions apart, human lives should be preserved not destroyed.

The people of Pakistan are against war. They advocate settlement of all disputes — global, regional and bilateral — peacefully and on a fair and equitable basis. Contentious issues should always be settled through negotiations and dialogue — be they in Iraq, Palestine, Kashmir or elsewhere. Removal of the underlying causes of conflicts is a wise approach to promote peace and security.

Regretfully, the commitments made by President Clinton (Kargil crisis) and President Bush that steps will be initiated for the settlement of Kashmir dispute remain unfulfilled. On the contrary, US policies now heavily tilt towards India. Of course, the US has the right to develop good relations with both India and Pakistan and these can be helpful in promoting regional peace. Recent history is one such example when India and Pakistan came dangerously close to an open conflict. However, Washington’s warm ties with India will hurt Pakistan if these are developed at the cost of Islamabad or to its disadvantage.

A recent development is a case in point. US Ambassador Nancy Powell urged Pakistan to comply with its pledges to prevent ‘infiltration’ into Indian-held Kashmir and not allow the use of its territory as a platform for terrorism. The ambassador’s statement raised a storm of protests in the national media and in political circles. The additional foreign secretary received the ambassador at the Foreign Office and informed her that no infiltration had taken place and that her remarks were inappropriate. An official of the State Department said in Washington that the ambassador was ‘misquoted’ in the media. However, he generally upheld what Ambassador Powell had said. The US ambassador to India, Mr Blackwill, had also earlier talked of ‘continuing cross-border terrorism.’

Significantly, Ambassador Powell’s written statement read out from a public platform did not include the denials issued by Pakistan. Nor did she refer to, or condemn, the massive acts of state-sponsored terrorism in Indian-held Kashmir. Her statement was considered biased and its timings noteworthy. It was meant to please India, to put pressure on Pakistan, to downplay Kashmiri freedom struggle and to divert attention from the INS registration issue raised by Pakistan’s foreign minister in the US. It provided fuel to the opposition to criticize Prime Minister Jamali for his government’s foreign policy.

Blackwill’s statement is a part of coercive diplomacy. Perhaps Washington has started seeing developments in Pakistan through the prisms of India. This aspect needs to be critically examined by the Foreign Office.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan shares the request of the UN weapons inspectors for more time. This reasonable demand reflects logic and justice. America is in a unique position to influence the global power scene from a moral high ground. A unanimous decision by the UN Security Council for granting more time will strengthen the world body and enhance Washington’s image. It will be a victory for peace and defeat for none. Events have presented President Bush a unique opportunity. He has the choice of being remembered in history as a visionary leader acting with circumspection or an ordinary mortal placing his ego before global public opinion.

Power and responsibility go together. The US undoubtedly has the power to crush Iraq, a weak country with insignificant power potential. This will not make Mr Bush great. His decision to save the lives of Americans, Iraqis and others will project him as a person of peace. His choice should be similar in Palestine and in Kashmir — find peaceful solutions to these conflicts.

The writer is a retired general of the Pakistan Army.

TODAY as the world stands poised on the edge of war, a paradoxical phenomenon is emerging on the international scene. This is the worldwide peace movement which has been spawned by the growing thrust towards war. The massive turn-out at the rallies in Washington, London and other European capitals against an American attack on Iraq should leave no one in doubt about the strong pacifist sentiments the world over.

Its significant feature is that it transcends international boundaries. For the first time in contemporary history, people struggling for a common cause are joining hands transnationally to demonstrate their commitment to peace.

The threat of war has galvanized the peace activists into action. Earlier, the risk of impoverishment and deprivation which looms large on the horizon — and has already begun to impact on people’s lives in Third World countries — had roused the conscience of thousands who came together in the anti-globalization protests in Seattle and other cities where the World Trade Organization meetings were being held in the last few years since the WTO was founded in 1995. They have now joined hands under the banner of the World Social Forum to resist the growing avarice and the monopolistic tendencies of the corporate sector.

The peace movement is following a similar pattern, though it reflects a greater sense of urgency, given the imminence of war against Iraq and its terrifying consequences. What is significant about this protest is that it has brought together on the same platform like-minded people from different countries. The extensive reach of the protests has given them strength and visibility which have created a deep impact.

This is the other side of the globalization process unintended by its protagonists. It has facilitated the movement of capital, and, to some extent, people too, and has lowered state barriers. This has allowed the people of different states to interact with one another and rally round common causes which affect them all. Communication technology has helped in this process by facilitating the exchange of information, and the trans-border education and mobilization of people.

This may not exactly be the withering away of the state as visualized by Karl Marx. But it certainly means some dilution of the concept of national sovereignty as envisaged as a feature of the modern state which had emerged in Europe — followed by the rest of the world — after the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The present process is not a redrawing of the political/geographical map of the world. It is a new political trend which is now gathering force and momentum in step with the globalization process itself.

As a result of this trend, the affinity of the social classes now runs across international boundaries. For instance, the workers, be they in Pakistan, America or Europe, have many common interests uniting them in their equations with the capitalists and they can relate to each other quite naturally. When the workers in one country feel threatened by an event in one country, their colleagues in other parts of the world also feel concerned. Thus the globalization process which is undermining Third World economies has been challenged in the West as well. The protesters in the industrialized countries also have a cause to worry. They fear the loss of jobs if their companies move to the Third World to set up their factories in regions where labour is cheaper and plentiful.

The universalization of the English language and the spread of intellectual ideas — the Internet has played a phenomenal role in this — has also led to the jelling of like-minded people into cohesive intellectual groups, international boundaries notwithstanding.

This emerging phenomenon has significant implications for world politics and international relations, as well as for the domestic politics of different countries. It has made it possible for the people from the so-called “enemy countries” to join hands to form pressure groups for peace. One just has to look around to see how people who at one time would have been on different sides of a political divide now find themselves drawn together sailing in the same boat.

Numerous friendship groups have sprung up in India and Pakistan, the West Bank and Israel, and other places where the people on the opposite sides of the borders have united on a common platform of shared views and aspirations irrespective of their governments’ official stance. Their aim is to find the middle ground.

Such moves have the potential of generating pressure in favour of peace and conciliation and against a policy disposition to hostility and belligerence. Although so far this has not created the required impact on the official policies of different governments, one hopes that it will serve as a restraining force. Thus the governments of India, Pakistan and Israel continue to adhere to their policies in spite of what the peace activists have to say. In the United States, one cannot be certain that the massive rallies against a war on Iraq will actually deter President George W. Bush from attacking that country. The second significant implication of this trend is that the polarization which takes place is not between different states/governments; it is between different classes spread across the national boundaries of sovereign states. This could have profound implications for the domestic politics of states while also affecting international relations.

The failure so far of the peace movements to palpably influence their governments is a paradox in a world which sets great store by democratic norms and participatory governance. There are three instances which stand out conspicuously. In India, the numerous voices of sanity and moderation which have been raised and the strong protests by secular forces against communal killings in Gujarat failed to swing the vote against the BJP and its leaders such as Narendra Modi in the state elections in December. However, the series of state elections due in India later this year would be the true test of the influence of the peace activists on the voting trend in the country.

In the United States, opinion polls have registered a slide in George Bush’s popularity from 80 per cent or so in early 2002 to 52 per cent a few weeks ago. And yet in the mid-term elections in November the Republicans won a landslide victory. This is a phenomenon which peace activists should study to determine the factors which prevent the peace mood from translating into votes in the electoral process.

Likewise, in Israel, where the fledgling peace movement PEACE NOW has struggled against the injustices of the occupation, Ariel Sharon’s hawkish Likud party was swept back into office in the general elections in January.

There is a horizontal polarization which appears to be taking place. The scenario that is emerging could be a destabilizing one because we could see states pitted against each other internationally while fissures within them could lead to civil strife. All this points to the urgent need to speed up the pace of efforts towards creating a peace culture and a climate of tolerance and coexistence.

The scope for doing this is quite considerable. Globalization has been accompanied with high technology communications, such as satellite and cable television and the Internet, and this has facilitated greater interaction between the institutions of the states and their people. This interaction is taking place even between citizens of supposedly ‘enemy’ countries.

In these conditions, the theory of balance of power as it developed in the post-Congress of Vienna European system now appears to be quite obsolete. The only option for statesmen is to devise a new international system untied to the myth of state sovereignty in the traditional, puritanical sense and seeks to create an equitable equation among states based on tolerance and coexistence. The protagonists of peace are potentially stronger than their opponents. While those in the peace movement can unite on a minimalist agenda of non-violence, secularism, social justice and humanitarian values from all over the world, the radicals outside the peace movement stand divided and at loggerheads with one another.

The need of the hour is for the supporters of the peace movement to prevail over the governments with militant and hardline policies. At present they are simply catching the media’s attention. This is not enough. It is equally important to persuade those in office to change their course.