THE pro- as well as anti-war camps have created a lot of confusion in the public mind about the real reasons behind the Iraq crisis. The US, through its Orwellian propaganda (the war will make the region safe for democracy and free the world from terrorism), and France, Germany and Russia, through noble concerns and pious wishes, are trying to camouflage the real motives underlying their policies.

To take the anti-war camp first, President Jacques Chirac, a loyal De Gaulist, wants to clip the US wings and lead Europe as a counterweight to American power. His German ally, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, is a strong believer in European sovereignty. No one will be happier than Russian President Putin if the Iraq crisis deals a severe blow to the Atlantic alliance, Nato and the European Union. Also, Russia has considerable economic interests in Iraq: Baghdad owes Moscow $8 billion in past debts and Russian companies have entered into lucrative oil deals with Saddam Hussein’s government. All these are now threatened by the Bush plan.

The French motives are varied and complex. Foreign minister Dominique de Villepen, who combines aristocratic bearing with Hollywood looks, by using high-toned phrases in the Security Council debate (being the guardian of “an ideal, a conscience”) attempted to divert attention from the real reasons: the substantial oil interests of Elf TotalFina in Iraq; the endangered French influence in the Middle East; the desire to pay the Americans back for the humiliation at the hands of Eisenhower over Suez in 1956; the psychic compensation for the decline of French power; and the emerging rivalry between the “Old Europe” and the New World.

President Bush was quite forthright at his news conference on March 6. He made it clear that he needed nobody’s permission to protect the security of his people. He threw down the gauntlet to the anti-war camp asking them to “show their cards”. Bush, however, carefully avoided explaining the real reasons for the impending war.

Of course, oil is one of the chief reasons. The international economic system is heavily dependent on oil and President Bush wants to ensure that cheap oil continues to reach the shores of his country which has become an oil glutton over the years. The first Gulf War was fought for oil twelve years ago. And why blame the Americans alone. Before them, why did the British and the French penetrate the region? Certainly, not to have a dip in the sea off the coast of Kuwait or Muscat or to visit the Babylonian archeological sites.

Besides oil, Washington has some other strategic interests and concerns. It knows that Saddam Hussein was very close to acquiring nuclear weapons in 1990, and once he acquires them it will tip the balance in his favour and attacking Iraq will then no longer be a viable option. The reluctance of the United States to attack North Korea is a relevant example.

Another underlying objective of military action against Iraq is to provide long-term peace and security to Israel. The fall of Saddam Hussein will convince the Palestinians of the futility of depending on the support of the “rejectionist” camp — Iraq, Iran and Syria — and bring the Palestinians around to negotiating a settlement with Israel, largely on Israeli terms. This has been the strategy of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Jewish lobby in the US.

Another consequence of Saddam Hussein’s fall will be a clear signal that no leader or country could defy the United States with impunity. No country could any longer afford to harbour terrorists or help them in any way. Even a secular regime like that of Saddam Hussein’s could become a US target. One wonders if Iran is going to be next on the list if it continues to be in the rejectionist camp.

The opposition of the anti-war camp to US Middle Eastern strategy is also a desperate attempt to play the balance of power game whose modern exponent was Otto von Bismark. Bismark thought he could contain France by creating a balance of power in the 19th century but his great power alliances crashed under their own weight.

After the failure of the League of Nations, an effort was made to the balance of power politics through the United Nations. The so-called great powers — the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China-were given the veto powers in the Security Council over matters of their own national interest. However, only the United States and the Soviet Union were actually great powers, the remaining three being there because they happened to be members of the “victory club” but without any comparable power. Since 1945, world peace was not kept by the United Nations, but by the balance of power between the US and the Soviet Union until the latter’s collapse.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union we have lived in a world marked by a great imbalance of power whose risks are not readily apparent. President Bush has affirmed the primacy of great power politics in the context of the prevailing imbalance of power. In the absence of a Soviet Union or comparable alliance of powers, the United States, as the sole superpower, is free to pursue its national interest without any credible resistance. The current French-German-Russian attempt to fill the vacuum cannot redress the imbalance of power prevailing at the moment.

However, the Iraq crisis may reshape the western alliance. Long-standing friendships are being shaken and new ones being forged. President Jacques Chirac’s furious attack on the East European governments which are supporting the American position on Iraq reveals the depth of the rift between the pro- and anti-war camps. The French president has even threatened to block the entry of the East Europeans into the European Union which could tear Europe apart. The increasingly bitter debates in the Security Council indicate that the schism within the West is becoming irreconcilable.

The Americans are likely to support and encourage their new East European allies and further strengthen their ties with Italy and Spain while distancing themselves further from France and Germany and Benelux countries. For an average American, as John MacArthur of Harper magazine has pointed out, France does not matter much since it exists more as a symbol of fashion, style and cultural snobbery than as an important European power.

Some commentators have already started referring to the Anglosphere: an alliance of English-speaking nations made up of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with former Warsaw Pact countries (East Europeans) becoming an integral part of that coalition.

As if she were a crystal-gazer, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in her 2002 book ‘Statecraft’ has urged Britain to withdraw from the European Union and join hands with East Europeans to negotiate a free trade agreement with them which would keep them virtually away from the “Old Europe”. It will be interesting to see how Tony Blair, who has spent much of his prime ministership attempting to integrate Great Britain more closely into Europe, will react after his recent mauling at the hands of France and Germany.

The Americans are taking careful note of who is with them and who is against them in this war. It is more than likely that “Old Europe” (the anti-American camp in the European Union being led by France and Germany) and the increasingly irrelevant Nato will not be factored in further US foreign policy decisions. Washington is likely to act henceforth on a case-by-case basis not caring much for what others think about its decisions.

IN a small fishing village Pugwash near the Canadian city of Nova Scotia, for the first time in 1957, about two dozen eminent scientists and intellectuals of the world, including Einstein and Bertrand Russell, met to ponder the threat posed to humankind by atom bombs.

The inspiration for the meeting came from an impassioned appeal made earlier by Bertrand Russell urging men of science to contain this new monster which they had unleashed through their research and inventions.

Since then scientists, academics and concerned individuals have been regularly meeting to seek the abolition of nuclear weapons and a peaceful settlement of international disputes. Their meetings, conferences and workshops are named after Pugwash where the first meeting was held.

These conferences have brought together, from around the world, influential scientists, scholars and public figures concerned with reducing the danger of armed conflicts and seeking cooperative solutions for global problems. The participants meet and discuss issues as private individuals and not as representatives of their institutions. As many as 280 meetings have thus far been held in different countries since Pugwash began its quest for abolition of nuclear weapons and a peaceful resolution of disputes. Over 10,000 scientists, academics and public figures participated in these meetings.

The latest in the series of Pugwash workshops is a two-day moot on “Avoiding an India-Pakistan Nuclear Confrontation” scheduled in Lahore on March 12 where scores of experts, scientists and concerned individuals will discuss issues ranging from avoidance of a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan to those of peace and security in the region and a resumption of the stalled Indo-Pak dialogue.

For its pioneering work the Pugwash conference and one of its co-founders, the physicist Sir Joseph Rotblat, were awarded Nobel Prize in 1995. It has also won several international awards, including the 1987 Olympia Prize, the Feltrinelli Prize of Italy, the Einstein Gold Medal from UNESCO in 1989 and the 1992 Albert Einstein Peace Prize.

Pugwash has four small permanent offices — in Washington, Rome, London and Geneva — in addition to over 40 National Pugwash Groups around the world, each organized independently.

Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, a renowned Indian agriculture scientist and a recipient of the World Food Prize, is currently its president. Eminent Pakistani physicist and one of the most celebrated peace activists, Prof. Pervez Hoodbhoy, is a member of the 27-man council elected every five years to lay long-term goals of Pugwash and also provide it formal governance.

Born in the tense years of cold war, Pugwash conferences have provided a valuable platform for dialogue when few, if any, unofficial channels of communication were available between the countries of the East and the West. Whether it was the Berlin crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, or the Vietnam war, the Pugwash conferences opened and sustained unofficial lines of communication between the adversaries and played an indispensable role in achieving the goals of peace and disarmament.

Pugwash conferences have brought together government and military figures, scientists and policy analysts to deliberate on issues ranging from Euro missiles to the Star Wars, from the dangers of proliferation in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union to the ramifications of the US plans for national missile defence (NMD).

Pugwash laid the groundwork for the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and ultimately the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. Its meetings have played an important role in bringing together key scientists, analysts and policy advisers for sustained, in-depth discussions of the crucial arms-control issues of the day, particularly in the area of weapons of mass destruction.

The Lahore workshop on nuclearization of South Asia and peace in the subcontinent is taking place against the backdrop of momentous developments bearing on peace and security in the region. Both India and Pakistan have enunciated, even though vaguely, their respective nuclear doctrines. Pakistan, unfortunately, even flaunted nuclear weapons during the height of the recent stand-off with India.

During the three year military rule of General Musharraf Pakistan and India nearly came to war on many occasions. Nuclear weapons in their armouries have, instead of deterring each other and keeping peace, brought the two countries closer to war. If anything, these have served to heighten tension in the region as the genuine independence struggle by the people of Kashmir is now being increasingly viewed in the world as an issue of cross-border terrorism sponsored and sustained by Pakistan.

Early this year India declared that an attack on Indians anywhere in the world would be taken as a attack on India itself. This declaration came within days of Pakistan flaunting its nuclear capability. General Pervez Musharraf publicly stated in Karachi on December 30 that at the height of the crisis with India he had warned Prime Minister Vajpayee that Pakistan could step “beyond conventional warfare” if it had to defend its territory. The general may not have used the word ‘nuclear’ but the threat unmistakable even though a government spokesman later tried to clarify that ‘unconventional warfare’ did not necessarily mean nuclear warfare.

Several experts have opined that there is a possibility that Pakistan would use tactical nuclear weapons on its own soil against invading Indian troops. It would then be seen as a nuclear attack on India. Pakistan’s waving of nuclear weapons and India upgrading its nuclear doctrine are indeed ominous developments in this volatile region.

The extremists’ attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001, provoked New Delhi to amass troops along the Pakistan border and close all doors of dialogue and negotiations. It should not be surprising if another such attack, particularly one involving killing of prominent Indian political leaders, provokes even a stronger reaction leading to war of some sort. The danger is real because jihadi organizations based in Pakistan have been quick in the past to claim credit for such terrorist attacks.

Likewise, a terrorist attack in Pakistan perceived to be of Indian origin would provoke a similar response from this side. In either case there is a strong possibility that, goaded on by public outrage and or by sheer miscalculation, such an incident may escalate into a fullfledged war. Given the nuclear doctrines and rhetoric on both sides, the odds of a nuclear exchange in the region are much higher than anywhere else.

One hopes that unencumbered by the policies of their governments and organizations, participants in the Lahore Pugwash moot will address issues of peace and security in the region and nuclear disarmament candidly and dispassionately.

Close on the heels of the Lahore conference, a three-day workshop in planned in Jordan on March 27 to discuss an Arab plan and a third-party role in the Palestinian peace process. It will be followed by a workshop on South Asian Security to be held in Geneva in May.

Workshops on non-weaponization of space, on the social responsibilities of scientists, on terrorism and on Islamic parties and the democratic experience are also planned in the coming weeks, besides a workshop in Japan on the 50th anniversary of Russell/Einstein and the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima/ Nagasaki.

The writer is a Senator belonging to the Pakistan People’s Party.