LONDON: They’re playing that old Joni Mitchell song, Big Yellow Taxi, on the radio again and it couldn’t have come at a better time. “And don’t it always seem to go,” inquires the plaintive chorus, “that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?”

The first people to hear that line back in 1970 might have taken it as a lament for the lost tranquillity of American life before the Vietnam war. Maybe the new generation lapping up the current Counting Crows’ version hear their own yearning for the days before wartime. But the people who should be chanting that chorus line loudest this week are not the peaceniks and protesters, but the men who plotted and planned this war. For it’s the Washington hawks who have greatest reason to identify with Joni’s line. In the last few days they have come to appreciate something they used to take for granted or, worse still, mock outright.

I’m thinking of international rules. Since the day the Bushies took charge, they have disdained the very idea of cooperation with other nations. Multilateralism was for wimps; go-it-alone, America First unilateralism was the future. The early demonstrations of the new Garbo doctrine — America wants to be alone — form a list that has grown wearily familiar: the US trashing of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the refusal to back the new international criminal court and the threatened break from the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia. Such pacts and rules were just ropes to tie down the American Gulliver, ran the new thinking: the Bushies would slash them all and break free. The ultimate exercise of the new freedom started a week ago: a pre-emptive war unleashed by Bush, “at a time of our choosing”, with not a shred of international authorization.

But it’s taken just a few days of desert combat to remind Washington that the old, collective system was not all French vetoes and pesky third world countries refusing to vote the right way. Multilateralism had its plus side, too — even for America.

Take Donald Rumsfeld, lambasting the Iraqis for their mistreatment of US prisoners of war, paraded on TV like so much booty. How could Baghdad ignore the Geneva convention!, he raged on Sunday. And then perhaps he remembered. Wasn’t the Geneva convention the same document he had cheerfully binned when it came to shackling Al Qaeda suspects at Camp X-Ray? It seemed little more than an irritant back then, a way for bleeding-heart busybodies to stop America locking up the bad guys. But now, perhaps, Rumsfeld is coming to see its value.

The US might even be undergoing a similar pang of regret about the United Nations itself. What a pain that body was in the lead-up to war! But it could be essential to governing a post-Saddam Iraq. At least one faction, centred on Colin Powell’s State Department, holds that view, believing that only a UN administration would attract funding from the rest of the world — and that a blue-helmeted presence would be less provocative to Iraq’s people, and less likely to stir resistance, than an occupying force governing alone under the stars and stripes. In other words, a UN seal on an American victory would make US service men and women less vulnerable.

But this sudden realization of the UN’s value may have come too late. Jacques Chirac is in no hurry to give UN legitimacy to what he calls the US and UK “belligerents.” Right now, he believes London and Washington made this mess in Iraq — they can clear it up. Tony Blair knows how much of a fix the warmaking coalition is in; hence his near-desperate plea the other day for Europe and the US to come together and his trip to see both Bush and the UN’s Kofi Annan later this week. He knows that having snubbed the UN before the war, it won’t be easy for the US to win them over now.

The US fares no better as it accuses Russian companies of selling sensitive military kit — from night-vision goggles to radio-jammers — to Iraq, in violation of UN sanctions and a raft of other arms control agreements. As Vladimir Putin might have reminded Bush in their Monday telephone call, arms accords didn’t seem to matter much to the White House 18 months ago when they were threatening to tear up the ABM treaty. Similarly, when Bush promises to prosecute Iraqi top brass for war crimes, he should pause to wonder which court might house such a trial. It surely can’t be the international criminal court which America has derided from the start.

Whether it’s PoWs or rebuilding Iraq, arms or war crimes, Washington is learning the hard way that even a hyperpower cannot easily act alone. Not that the collective tools don’t exist. They do and they were there for America to use; but the US didn’t want to know. Isn’t life always like that? Joni understood: “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

So will the US have a road to Baghdad conversion and change its ways, swapping its pre-war unilateralism for postwar multilateralism? No, says one Washington source. Collective ways of doing business are a matter of “convenience, not conviction” for the administration. They’ll use the Geneva Convention or the UN if it suits their interests, he says, but drop them the second they stand in their way.

Why? Because the hawks in this administration believe in unilateralism as a matter of ideological faith. This is not a game or debating position: they are deadly serious. Witness hawkish outriders like David Frum and Richard Perle calling for the burial of the UN once and for all, to be replaced by a new world order in which America gets a free hand.

Take one more striking, practical illustration. In the months before war a debate raged in the Pentagon between, crudely put, the uniforms and the suits. The soldiers wanted more time, so they could build up the 250,000 troops that would constitute the “overwhelming force” favoured since the Gulf war as the only way to deploy US power. They wanted another month. But the Pentagon civilians, led by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, insisted on going earlier, with many fewer men.

Why would a hawk like Rumsfeld prefer less to more? My Washington source offers an astonishing explanation: “So they can do it again.” The logic is simple. Rumsfeld and company know that amassing an army of quarter of a million is a once-a-decade affair: 1991 and 2003. But if they can prove that victory is possible with a lighter, more nimble force, assembled rapidly — then why not repeat the trick?

“This is just the beginning,” an administration official told the New York Times this week. “I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq.”

So Washington may be regretting its hasty shredding of international custom — some of those rules could have come in handy in this war — but the pangs will fade. After all, this is a band of men with big dreams — and work to do.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.

AS in the National Assembly, the opposition in the Senate too, appears to be in total command of things. It is clearly calling the shots and the ruling alliance is simply tagging along with a heavy heart and in a state of total befuddlement. This simply cannot go on for ever. The ruling alliance needs to take back from the combined opposition the centre courts in the two houses to be able to help President Musharraf usher in his version of ‘genuine democracy’.

To begin with, the inaugural session of the new upper house, which technically cannot be called as such because it has neither been preceded by the obligatory joint sitting of the two houses nor by one summoned by the president, was requisitioned by the combined opposition. The Senate Chairman Mohammad Mian Soomro had no alternative but to accede to the opposition’s request.

Secondly, the five or six opposition leaders who were given the floor one after the other soon after the leader of the house Waseem Sajjad had asked for the suspension of rules in order to immediately initiate a debate on Iraq, made it abundantly clear that they were making a one-time exception as they did in the National Assembly about their decision not to let the two houses function until the issue of the LFO is sorted out, only to allow the house to debate the on-going Iraq war.

Following the precedence set in the last requisitioned session of the National Assembly, the ruling alliance and the combined opposition cobbled up an agreement of sorts outside the house on holding a comprehensive debate on Iraq in the Senate without any disruption during the current session, which had been requisitioned specifically by the opposition for the same purpose.

The parliamentary party leader of the PPP in the Senate, Senator Reza Rabbani was the first to articulate the position of the combined opposition on the LFO. He was followed by MMA’s Prof Khurshid Ahmed and Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, and then ANP’s Asfandyar Wali Khan. Interestingly, Shah Ahmed Noorani was a member of the 1973 parliament which passed the original 1973 Constitution. Asfandyar, on the other hand, wanted the revival of the Constitution which carried his father’s signature. Another MMA senator, Prof Ghafoor Ahmed, who too was a member of the 1973 parliament which approved the much amended constitution unanimously, was present in the Senate on Thursday but did not speak on the LFO.

The shadows of the LFO which have now engulfed the 1973 Constitution completely appear to be lengthening and from all indications it appears that only a man of immense grit, a strong will and endowed with a thick dash of abrasiveness would take the risk of addressing the joint sitting from the podium underneath the giant size painting of the Quaid-i-Azam, a constitutionalist to the core.

But for President Musharraf, Kashmir rather than the rule of law or the Constitution is the core problem of this country. He has sought legitimacy to the prolongation of his unconstitutional rule by impressing upon the people of Pakistan that he is the one who would get them Kashmir so let him impose his own hand-made constitution which his own hand-picked judiciary had said that he has the powers to make. However, the LFO appears to have become an unsurmountable hurdle in the way of the president’s smooth drive to his goal of ‘genuine’ democracy.

According to the original programme the prime minister should have been in the US on March 27, standing along with President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, acknowledging applause for the imagined victories of the so-called allied forces in Iraq. But being a man of the people he was not where the undemocratic forces had wanted him to be on this Thursday. He was among his own people and in the company of his elected colleagues. It was a risk prone decision not to go to Washington. But then it would have been too servile a gesture if he had gone for a man who boasts of representing 140 million Pakistanis. More such risk prone but democratically correct decisions like endorsing the opposition’s position on the LFO would raise the political stature of Jamali in the eyes of his nation and remove the hurdles in the way of a quick transition to unfettered democracy.

Tailpiece: According to parliament grapevine a namesake of Alexander the great with a Durrani lineage to boot appeared one fine morning at the US State Department in Washington impersonating as an official representative of the Pakistan Television Corp (PTV) and applied for a five million dollar assistance to finance what was purported to be a project aimed at clearing through TV programmes the ‘misunderstandings’ that had cropped up between the two nations since 9/11. When the State Department referred the matter to the PTV in Pakistan, the whole thing was hush-hushed hurriedly as the resulting scandal would have had wide-ranging political repercussions.

PESHAWAR: The People’s Party Parliamentarians group in the NWFP assembly, which didn’t vote for the party nominee Sardar Ali Khan during the senate election, has won their political battle against their rival group led by PPP provincial chief Khwaja Khan Hoti.

PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto gave a clean chit to the rebel group for their performance during the senate election. This came like a bombshell for those who held protest rallies against the rebel MPAs in various districts.

Ms Bhutto didn’t take any action against the PPP Patriots, who still describe her as their leader. The PPP parliamentary group, led by Abdul Akbar Khan, claimed that they had taken the right stand in a political situation marred with intrigues during the senate election.

Gulzar Ahmed and his son Waqar Ahmed, who were been with the PPP in the past, won their seats as independent candidates. It is said that the PPP MPAs had voted for them and Ms Bhutto endorsed it.

Some old PPP workers claim that after the self-proclaimed exile of Ms Bhutto, the PPP is fighting back the government in various forms. They said in a de-politicized milieu it was the best option with the rebels.”We are fighting a scattered political war,” they said.

Soon after the senate election, Abdul Akbar Khan conceded that Gulzar Ahmed might join the PPP again. He also claimed that they had the party line, but he didn’t explain that line.

The crisis began in PPP ranks with the nomination of Syed Qamar Abbas for the general seat, but he was replaced with Sardar Ali as some of the MPAs refused to vote for him.

Only one MPA Syed Zahir Ali Shah voted for him (Sardar). The nine other MPAs, led by Abdul Akbar Khan, had dealt with other groups to get Ms Bhutto’s media spokesperson, Farhatullah Babar, elected to a technocrat seat.

Abdul Akbar and his supporters were opposed to the seat adjustment formula of Mr Hoti with the other political parties during the general elections. They instigated the PPP workers to launch a protest against the adjustment with the Awami National Party. Mr Hoti, despite striking a deal with the ANP, lost his seat.

Mr Hoti and Mr Ali are still pursuing Ms Bhutto to expel the rebel MPAs, otherwise they will have no option but to quit the party. But, they have been advised to shun their difference with the MPAs.

The PML-Q, which lacks towering personalities in its ranks, is trying to get Mr Hoti into its fold. The PML-Q may offer him the post of provincial president, which is still vacant after Salim Saifullah Khan became PML-Q secretary-general.

Another former PPP president is also trying to get the slot. It is said that the feudal lords want to get themselves rid of the PPP’s radical legacy.

THE teachings of the early Messengers have certainly been preserved in the scriptures, but only in a distorted form. The only exception is the Deen of Islam. Its Nabi (peace be upon him) and his companions lived in the limelight of history. His teachings and actions were extensively recorded by his followers.

Moreover, the Quran, which is the basis of Islam, has come down to us unchanged in its original form. Only a deep study of the Quran and the life of the Nabi (pbuh) can tell us the vast difference between the function of religion and Deen.

Islam as a Deen is a system of life. It is necessary for a system to have an authority acceptable to all. In this system the superiority is of Divine laws and justice; these laws are immutable and anyone who submits to these laws leads a happy and contented life. Islam also makes sure that there is no exploitation of man by man in any form whatsoever.

According to Allama Iqbal the response of Deen to reality is not a partial one. It is not merely cognitive as it is in the case of science and philosophy; nor is it merely emotional as it is in aesthetics. It is a total response involving all the elements in the personality of the individual. It is an expression of the whole man. Islam helps a man develop his personality in line with its permanent values and rise to higher and higher planes of existence.

The Quran says “Verily We will raise you to higher and higher level” (84:19). With death, man does not cease to exist but passes on to a higher plane of existence (the life hereafter). The believer puts himself in the hands of the Creator and in return asks for the fulfilment of his personality “Lo! Allah has bought from the believers their lives and their wealth (9:111) for those who do good in this world there is good reward (here) and the Hereafter will be still better (16:30).

Throughout history men have fought among themselves in the name of religion, their motives were either political or economic masquerading as religions. On the other hand Islam as Deen shows man the way to rise above the animal level and to live his life as man. He does not force his views on others. The function of Deen is to regulate human life through its divinely revealed laws and principles, which no other source of knowledge can provide.

It is meant for a free and intelligent person who has the courage to think, judge and act for himself. Its principles are not meant to be followed blindly; they are to be applied with intelligence, reason, and forethought. Its foundation ‘Eeman’ requires explicit conviction accepted freely and voluntarily (2:256). It is forward looking. It does not want man to keep gazing, awe-struck, at some golden age in the remote past.

The word religion is commonly used in a rather narrow sense, its scope being limited to a set of dogmas, some rituals for worship, and a number of social customs to celebrate. Deen, on the other hand, is a system of life in which human beings consciously surrender to the sovereignty of a higher authority, and live a life of total obedience to that higher authority.

In this sense, the term Deen can be applied to monarchy, where the king is accepted as the final authority, or to democracy, where the people as a whole act as sovereign, at least in theory. Thus, when the term Deen is used for Islam, it implies a system of life where Almighty Allah is worshipped and obeyed, not just in the narrow religious sense, but in a manner that includes all aspects of human life.

A well-integrated set of beliefs describing the nature of existence as it really is (or Eeman in Qur’anic terminology). Modes of worship including Salat, Zakat, Saum, and Hajj, as well as social customs and ceremonies - all comprise indispensable and integral parts of Islam. However, in addition to these “religious” features, Allah also provides us all the relevant instructions regarding our social, economic, and political existence (generally considered to be the “secular” elements of life), and this is what really distinguished Islam from other religions, say Christianity or Buddhism.

Unfortunately, the majority of our masses are simply, and perhaps blissfully, unaware of what it really means to be a Muslim; thus, their concept of religious duties is usually very narrow and limited. But, as Allama Mohammad Iqbal has so correctly observed, one begins to shudder with the fear of accountability once he recognizes the tremendous responsibilities that come with being a Muslim.

The degree to which Islam loses its political authority, it is relegated and dethroned to the status of a mere religion - a private affair of the individual; and if any particular generation is to revive the teachings of Islam in the social, economic, and political spheres, then this is impossible without adopting the same methodology as was adopted by Prophet Mohammad (pbuh).

After the independence of the Muslim lands from direct subjugation of Western Imperialism, it was naively believed that since political authority now belongs to the Muslims, the next step that of implementing the Islamic values won’t be all that difficult. However, it has been proved during the last half century or so that the ideal Islamic state is still very much a dream, and since no short-cuts are available, we have no alternative except to start at the very beginning. The revival of Islam will be possible only by the efforts of those who have a clear conception of their responsibilities as Muslims.

The significance of this subject is quite clear; we cannot hope to achieve salvation in the Hereafter without fulfilling all our obligations. Simultaneously, we cannot imagine the launching of an effective movement for the resurgence of the Muslim Ummah and the Renaissance of Islam without first inculcating the true concept of our obligations in the Ummah. As such obedience to Allah has to be with sincerity, devotion and conviction. “Verily, it is We Who have revealed the Book to you in truth; so serve Allah offering Him full devotion (39:2) “Say, verily I am commanded to serve Allah with sincere devotion” (39:11).

Our first obligation as a Muslim is to live a life of total obedience to Almighty God. This duty is described in the holy Qur’an as Ibadah, which is often inaccurately translated as worship or prayers. However, the true meaning of the term Ibadah can only be understood if we combine two different concepts; one is surrender, obedience, submission, the other is love, adoration, and devotion.

Complete compliance of all Divine injunctions is obviously required, at the same time; this compliance ought to be with a spirit of wholehearted devotion and love for the Creator. The holy Qur’an teaches us that the faithful are those who love the Almighty over everyone and everything else. The submission that is required by God the almighty is total and unconditional.

Allah demands that man should submit, without reservations, his whole being and his entire life to His will. The splitting up of the human life into separate compartments, some governed by the teachings of Islam and others by one’s own desires, is against the spirit of Ibadah, to say the least. “The command is from none but Allah and He has commanded you to submit to none but Him; that is the right Deen, but most men understand not” (12:40).

The only true Deen in the sight of Allah is Islam (3:19). All Messengers of Allah came with same Deen (42:13), but people deviated and followed the religion of their forefathers even though their forefathers were devoid of wisdom and guidance.(2:170). They cut off their unity and created sects, each sect rejoicing in that which is with itself (23:53). Allah has chosen Islam as our Deen and in it there are no difficulties (22:78).

According to the Qur’an, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was sent to the whole of humanity, and the purpose was to achieve the domination of Islam over the entire system of life. If follows that the real purpose of the advent of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) shall be fulfilled only when Islam is made dominant over all man-made systems of life, all over the globe. This is indeed a very ambitious ideal and can only be achieved if Islam is truly followed as Deen and not Religion.