THE UN, which was established to end the scourge of war, has been bypassed in the context of Iraq under circumstances that cannot but have serious consequences for the world in the years to come. Apart from the bloodshed and suffering resulting from the invasion of Iraq, a major worry that is being articulated throughout the world is whether the UN will survive this resort to arms by the sole superpower in pursuit of its doctrine of pre-emption.

The unilateralist approach adopted by President George W. Bush since he entered the White House has had the effect of downgrading the multilateral aspect of US diplomacy. Ever since it gained a majority in Congress during President Clinton’s presidency, the Republican Party has shown scant regard for accords reached or being negotiated under the UN auspices. Despite the importance attached to non-proliferation, it refused to ratify the CTBT, and instead, pushed the missile defence idea, which could lead to the militarization of space, in violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

World opinion since the start of the invasion of Iraq has been focused on the need to revive the role of the UN in Iraq. Even Britain, the other leading member of the war coalition, has been at pains to emphasize the UN role in post-war Iraq. When the effort to pass a resolution in the Security Council specifically authorizing military action failed, Tony Blair sought to stress the coalition’s continued commitment to UN goals. He stated, at a press conference following his talks with Bush at Camp David recently, that the US president had reaffirmed his resolve to seek a two-state solution in Palestine. This was meant to remove the impression, fostered by the invasion of Iraq, that Bush was hostile to the Arab and Muslim countries generally.

Though President Bush has not so far come out with his “road map” for Palestine, his close advisers have been trying to stay engaged with the UN. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice travelled to New York on March 25 to discuss the resumption of humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi population. It may be recalled that before the war, the UN oil for food programme provided food and medicine to 60 per cent of the Iraqi population. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told her that until security conditions in Iraq made the safe return of UN staff to Iraq possible, the US and other members of the coalition were responsible for providing humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people under international law.

In spite of the fact that Washington has taken pre-emptive action on its own, it had tried hard to win some sort of UN cover for its war plans. Media coverage of the conflict from early days has shown US military officers responding to approaches by distressed Iraqi civilians for food and water by stating that the UN would soon make arrangements to meet their humanitarian needs.

Mr. Kofi Annan, has been quite emphatic in stating that the US-led war against Iraq lacks “legality”. He has stated that the UN was already engaged in disarming Iraq, under Resolution 1441, and that the UN inspectors were looking for evidence whether Iraq had any weapons of mass destruction. He had regretted the forced recall of the inspectors before they could complete their task, and has more recently affirmed the position that the Inspectors would go back to resume their functions.

The position taken by the majority of the members of the Security Council, including three permanent members: France, Russia and China, is that the war lacks legitimacy, and should be ended, to enable the UN to resume its role. Even the US and Britain would like the UN to resume its humanitarian role in Iraq, specifically with regard to the oil for food programme, for which some funds already exist. However, the US remains adamant that it will run the interim administration after Baghdad has fallen and the goal of regime change has been achieved. Indications are that Gen. Garner, who incidentally is known to be close to Israel, has been named to head the interim set-up, while Gen Tommy Franks will have his overarching role as the supreme commander of the coalition forces in the region.

Certain realities have emerged after the first fortnight of the war that have compelled some rethinking on the part of major actors on the international stage. First and foremost, US expectations of a quick victory, and a warm welcome from the Iraqi people have been proved wrong. Despite the liability of Saddam Hussein, tyrannical role, the savage coalition attack has drawn a patriotic response from the Iraqis, most of whom view the invaders not as ‘liberators’ but as imperialist aggressors. Indeed, if the great majority of Europeans believe that the US goal is not Iraqi people’s liberation but to take control of the country’s oil resources, it is wrong to assume that the Iraqis take a different view.

Knowing America’s close links with Israel, the general belief in Arab and Muslim countries is that a key consideration for Washington is to strengthen Israel, despite its brutal policies towards the Palestinians. The TV images of death and destruction visited on the Iraqis have damaged the standing of the US much more seriously in the region than Washington had bargained for. This is bound to have long-term implications for America’s economic and political interests in the Middle East and further afield.

There is little doubt that the US will prevail in Iraq, though many analysts believe that the resolve and spirit behind the Iraqi resistance will compel some rethinking among the advocates of unilateralist assertion of power in the Bush team. The battle for Baghdad will be bloody, and the street fighting is bound to take a heavy toll of American lives, and earn the US further blame for loss of civilian lives. One would expect that the experience of the Iraq war would temper the US appetite for pre-emption.

According to latest reports, while the overall global reaction to the war remains hostile and there is sympathy for the Iraqi resistance to what is considered an “unjust and unjustified”, invasion, many people want a quick end to hostilities. Major powers, that were opposed to the attack, such as Russia and Germany, have stated that they do not want the US to lose, but would prefer that fighting ends soon, to avoid large-scale human casualties and suffering for the civilian population. These powers, as well as the great majority of the international community, would like that the UN resumes its role, both in the running of Iraq, and in the handling of the task of post-war reconstruction.

As the US-led forces intensify their assault on Baghdad, it is imperative that the world opinion is mobilized in favour of an appropriate role for the UN in post-war Iraq. The Security Council, in particular, must seek to move in and try to temper the rough-and-ready methods that a US-dominated interim administration in Baghdad is likely to adopt to enforce its writ. This is not going to be a simple undertaking.

With the kind of threats Defence Secretary Rumsfeld has been hurling at Syria and Iran, and the type of redrawing of the map of the region that the pro-Zionist lobby in Washington has been demanding, the direct involvement of the UN alone can ensure a reasonably smooth political and democratic transition in post-war Iraq.

There are certain goals that need to be safeguarded. The administration installed in Baghdad must consist of respected and popular Iraqis and the territorial integrity of the country should be safeguarded. The UN role in reconstruction should not be confined to raising funds and providing legitimacy alone, but should be of a wider kind that ensures effective utilization of resources, of which the bulk should be provided by the war-makers themselves. Above all, the UN must remain steadfast in promoting a just peace and an efficient administration.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

NOT only was the concept of a United Nations council an American brain-child, but its chief proponent was none other than President Franklin Roosevelt. In fact, while confiding in his war-time treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, Roosevelt said: “Now look, Henry, you and I will gradually ease out of our present jobs and become country gentlemen... There is going to be an organization of the United Nations, with which I will be associated, and you should go with me.”

According to presidential archives, Roosevelt often talked about resigning the residency when World War II was over and becoming the secretary-general of the new post-war United Nations. He even spoke of locating the UN near Hyde Park, his home, with a little airstrip on which visiting foreign leaders could land.

America has a great history of producing leaders honed in the art of diplomacy and statesmanship. Think of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, to name a few. Compare these men to the current US leader, George W. Bush, and the Iraq imbroglio suddenly becomes a whole lot easier to understand. Even the president’s own father, George H. Bush, understood the essence of diplomacy. Before the first Gulf War broke out in 1991, Bush Senior tactfully constructed an effective alliance with complete backing of the UN.

How things have changed! Mr Bush never took the UN seriously, treating it more like a bureaucratic obstacle. His mind about the war was made up well before the diplomatic debate began, never listening to anyone with an opposing view. He slighted those who worried about a split in the UN alliance, not concerning himself with the consequences of disintegrating an organization that has served the world reasonably well for over half a century. Mr Bush turned his back on those who argued that launching a war against Iraq will ultimately make the world more, not less, unstable, while also ignoring anti-war protesters both at home and abroad as if they did not matter.

Anti-war critics cite America’s lust for oil as the predominant reason for the current crisis in Iraq. However, there is a more troubling undertone in America’s bellicose attitude. It lies within the political philosophy of those closest to George W. Bush — the toxic triumvirate: Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney-General John Ashcroft. They constitute the Presidential brains trust. With these men at the helm, all talk of Mr Bush’s “compassionate conservativism” is no more than another neatly coined, but ultimately unfulfilled campaign slogan.

When the small group of hawks, led by Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld, pressured President Bush to send over 200,000 troops to the Gulf back in July 2002 without approval from Congress and before any serious diplomatic discourse began, Iraq’s fate was effectively sealed. As members of the National Security Council, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew this mass mobilization would create a situation where backing down was never going to be a viable option. How can diplomacy work if tanks are already pointing at the enemy?

‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man:’ This, sadly, does not apply to President Bush. In a recent article titled, “Gray Matter”, William Saletan wrote: “Everything he (Bush) knows about foreign policy, he learned in kindergarten: Love your neighbour, standby your friends, honour your word.” Bush sees everything in two shades: black and white. Conducting an effective foreign policy is more complicated; it requires worldly knowledge and skilful statesmanship. The president has neither. Before becoming president, Bush had never ventured beyond the shores of continental United States — perhaps understandable, if money is the issue, but hardly the case in this instance. Bush preferred rather to summer at his beloved Austin ranch as he does, rain or shine, to this day.

Bush’s resume is impressive: Andover, Yale, Harvard Business school, part owner of a baseball franchise, CEO of an oil company, governor of Texas and now the president of the United States. Scratch the surface and the picture is not nearly as rosy. Yale was kind enough to award him “Gentleman’s C’s”, since failing students in those days was not the thing to do. He received a Harvard MBA, but that did him little good when his baseball franchise and oil company went in the red.

His tenure as governor of Texas was controversial to say the least. He opposed legislation instituting life without parole and banning the execution of people with IQ less than 65. Texas ranked dead last in virtually every social service area, yet first in executions of which the vast majority were African-Americans. And of course, the tightly contested 2000 presidential election would never have been ‘won’ without the help of the Florida governor, younger brother, Job.

Bush’s closest advisers are no less contentious. Dick Cheney has one of the most conservative records in Congress. The ultra right-wing former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, when asked about Mr Cheney, said: “Cheney voted against the Equal Rights Amendment, which read, ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.’”

In 1986, Cheney voted against a resolution asking that President Reagan urge the apartheid government to grant immediate and unconditional release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners. In fact, Cheney opposed sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid government on 10 separate occasions. Mr Cheney opposed sanctions on South Africa’s apartheid government on 10 separate occasions. Mr Cheney was also one of only 29 house members to oppose legislation that provided for the publication of data about crimes motivated by prejudice based on race, religion and ethnicity. A white supremacist would be proud of chalking up such a track record.

One of the more infuriating sights on television is watching Donald Rumsfeld give his trademark jocular sneer when addressing journalists at Pentagon press briefings. A seasoned campaigner from the Ford administration, Rumsfeld was an automatic choice for the president’s grandiose plans to change the political road map of the Muslim world through use of force.

On a recent “home-coming” in February to his ancestral land in northern Germany, Rumsfeld was disowned by his anti-war relatives. The 20,000 protesters demonstrated against his hawkish attitude reflecting the general mood in Germany where more than 60 per cent oppose the war against Iraq. The German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, in fact, rode the anti-war sentiment by denouncing America’s Iraq policy in his successful campaign for re-election. Mr Schroeder was well behind in polls until the Iraq issue captured the headlines.

From advocating the plan for a missile defence shield to masterminding the US campaign in Afghanistan and now Iraq, Rumsfeld has clearly won his ideological battle against the only rational voice in the Bush administration, Colin Powell. Cheney and Rumsfeld together have effectively managed to diminish Powell’s influence, forcing him to act as the administration’s puppet in its futile efforts to sell the war to the world community.

John Ashcroft is the third member of the triumvirate. The most divisive attorney-general in recent memory, Ashcroft has wide-ranging powers. He is chiefly responsible for eroding one of America’s most cherished mores, civil liberties, which date back to Patrick Henry’s inspiring “Give me Liberty or Give me Death” speech of March 23, 1775. Ashcroft revels in his role as the eyes and ears of America’s fight against terrorism. The pro-death penalty,anti-abortion Ashcroft’s expanding scope has allowed the justice department to use wiretaps, log into ordinary Americans’ e-mail message and sanction mandatory INS registration for immigrants from Muslim countries, all in the name of protecting America against terrorism.

Both in the foreign and domestic spheres, America is betraying the great traditions on which it was founded. The neo-conservatives dominating the political stage in Washington have a devious imperialistic agenda, carefully disguised in the rhetoric of freedom and justice. With great power comes great responsibility, but alas, Mr Bush and his team are only interested in flaunting the former.

In Bob Woodward’s Bush at War, Colin Powell warns the president that extending the war to other countries outside Afghanistan could cause a schism in the international coalition. The president glibly responded, “That’s okay with me. We are America.”

Both as Chairman PPP and prime minister, the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto made no distinction between the Muslims and non-Muslims in the matter of rights and privileges. Christians felt secure during his years in power. But his one decision that improved the financial position of the destitute in that community, was taken by him unwillingly!

In April 1977, as a religious sop to the militant and self-styled Islamic PNA which was after his blood, Mr Bhutto banned the consumption of liquor by the Muslims. Since the Muslim addicts found it hard to give up drinking, they started depending on poor Christians for their daily supply. So, some poor Christians gradually became less poor because of the demand.

Let me tell you what I consider the most mindless, meaningless and foolish act ever committed in Pakistan’s legislative history. In early 1994 the National Assembly passed a resolution, unanimously, recommending total prohibition in the country, which meant prohibition for non-Muslims also, for Muslims were already not allowed to drink.

Apart from presenting the House as a collection of hypocrites and double-dealers, the resolution achieved nothing. It was passed just because an over-zealous member had moved it. No one had the moral courage to get up and say that it was an aimless exercise, because a National Assembly resolution was not binding upon the government. All of them, including the hundred or so (my estimate) who themselves indulged regularly raised their hands in favour of the resolution.

Do you think the present National Assembly elected in October 2002 will behave any better? Do you think it will be more intelligent, less hypocritical and act rationally if a similar resolution is tabled, just because all its members are graduates? Will all of them not believe in keeping avowed public morals and practised private morals in different, water-tight compartments?

And suppose that the Assembly does approve such a resolution, is it certain that the hypocrisy and misconceived zeal will not go any further? For instance, it may also resolve — unanimously of course — that the ban on eating and drinking in public during Ramzan was not enough and that the non-Muslims in the Islamic Republic should also be compelled to observe fasting.

In Islamabad it is always the gentry who drinks; the Muslim gentry that is. The police here has always had orders to turn a blind eye (and a clogged nose, I suppose) towards people going about inebriated. Had the police no such orders it would be minting millions by threatening to challan such people under the relevant Hudood law. Even in General Ziaul Haq’s time when the law was promulgated, no one was ever arrested for drinking.

Whenever I talk about the consumption of liquor in Pakistan I am reminded of a funny story which you must hear. A dear friend in Lahore going home late one night in a rickshaw after a well-spent evening, was accosted by the night watch police. Negotiations failed because the men wanted Rs. 200 to let him off while JS had only fifty rupees on him.

JS is a great sport. In all good faith he offered to take one of the constables home with him to satisfy the demand. As he opened the front door, his brother’s two Alsatians sprang for the constable and the rickshaw driver who thought it prudent to flee the place. JS was amused at the constable’s plight but he was sorry for the rickshaw man who was deprived of his legitimate fare.

I don’t know what happened to the two government officers who were apprehended a couple of years ago by the Islamabad police for going about in a car in a drunken state, but I do recall that the respectable citizens of the capital were shaken and began to ask one another if the administration had changed its time-honoured policy. Maybe the police relented afterwards.

The reality in Islamabad is that the Muslim gentry depends for its (imported) liquor on the embassies. Short of that it is welcome to have Pakistani beer or spirits, which at best, are described as second-rate but not bad. Both can be had from local Christians, since Hindus and Sikhs are rare in this part of the country. This is one reason, and perhaps the sole reason, why Christians are nowadays a privileged community and even their sweepers are much sought after.

Another thing happened a few years ago, and you must hear about this too. Till then all embassy personnel in the capital had exaggerated quotas of foreign liquor sanctioned for them by the Foreign Office. The surplus was sold by the lower cadres in the black market which flourished (and still flourishes) unhindered. Then through what came to be known as the “Tressler Amendment” their quotas were substantially reduced. The amendment took its name from Colonel S.K. Tressler, till October a federal minister, who was then Chief of Protocol and in charge of the subject.

Most badly hurt was the embassy of a Third World country which every Pakistani who drinks in Islamabad knows as the most dependable source of foreign liquor. (I am told the embassy still carries on despite the cut). It functions just like a take-away outlet. You go and park your car in the vicinity and someone will soon come up and ask what you want. The price varies with availability.

Suppose a future National Assembly passes a strict prohibition law, will it really work and prevent Muslims from consuming liquor? All that such law can do is to give more opportunities to our police to make more money. Sometimes I think most of our laws are made with that end in view.

AS the battle of Baghdad raged last week and news reports indicated that the United States intends, even before the war is over, to start setting up a colonial administration under former general and arms dealer Jay Garner — a man who, ominously, is known to have expressed admiration for the way Israel governs the occupied Arab territories — an intriguing related phenomenon has also come to light.

Once large swathes of Iraq have been ‘secured’ by the invading forces, a different sort of army will be unleashed on unsuspecting Iraqis, its foot soldiers equipped to minister to not merely the material but also the spiritual needs of the subjugated citizenry. They will be carrying food in one hand and a Bible in the other.

Not an ideal strategy, one would have thought, for winning over hearts and minds in a predominantly Muslim country. (The Americans may well be unaware that Christianity has existed on the plains between the Tigris and the Euphrates for at least 1,500 years longer than it has in Texas.)

The fact that there are potential proselytizers waiting in the wings — in Jordan (a land that has as much resonance for devout Christians as Babylon) to be precise — ought not, perhaps, to surprise anyone acquainted with the confessional nature of the Bush administration. What is particularly alarming is that the organization spearheading the evangelical component of the invasion is Samaritan’s Purse, which is led by the Reverend Franklin Graham.

His father, Billy Graham, served as spiritual adviser to a series of previous Republican administrations. Franklin, carrying on the family tradition, delivered the invocation at George W. Bush’s inauguration. His father was no friend of Muslims, and 9/11 proved to be a fortuitous stroke of luck for Franklin. He has been known to describe Islam as a “wicked, violent” religion. Christianity and Islam are, to him, “different as light and darkness”.

The task of Samaritan’s Purse will be supplemented by the Southern Baptists, whom Matthew Engel describes in The Guardian as “the second largest religious group in the US after the Catholics and the most powerful component of the Christian conservative movement”. They are, says Engel, “perhaps the strongest pro-Bush, pro-Iraq war and pro-Israel political force in the US”.

He quotes their Oklahoma coordinator Sam Porter as saying: “If a country opens up for evangelical missions to go there, we go. We believe strongly that Jesus Christ is the son of God and we intend to proclaim that.”

It needs to be pointed out here that most mainstream denominations of the Christian church in every country have, usually without equivocation, proclaimed their opposition to the war against Iraq. That includes the Church of England. And Pope John Paul II — who was proudly in the forefront of the battle against communism and tends to interpret Catholicism rather narrowly, regularly issuing strictures against abortion and contraception — appears to have made a sincere effort to stem the drift towards hostilities.

It is also true that populations in much of the West tend to favour secularism, and churches more or less across the board are faced with declining attendances. Except in the US, where the impulse towards literal interpretations of the scriptures remains disturbingly strong.

To put this trend into perspective, it is important to remember that certain Christian factions have in the past played a laudably progressive role in US politics, the outstanding example being that of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, who symbolized the struggle for African-American civil rights — and who, after overcoming his initial reluctance to being branded a ‘stinking pinko commie’, found the courage to decry the Vietnam war as a moral outrage.

But the Grahams, pere et fils, belong to an altogether different breed, the equivalent, arguably, of the Tablighi Jamaat. Among other presidents, Billy Graham served as a spiritual adviser and confessor to Richard Nixon. In transcripts of conversations between the two, reproduced in Nixon aide (and Watergate convict) H.R. Haldeman’s diaries about ten years ago, there is an exchange - following a “prayer breakfast”, no less — that clearly exposes their anti-semitism. The Jewish stranglehold on the media has got to be broken, intones Graham, “or the country’s going down the drain”. “You believe that?” asks Nixon, before adding: “Oh, boy, so do I. I can’t ever say that but I believe it.”

Their conversation includes the following confession from Billy Graham: “I have to lean a little bit, you know ... a lot of the Jews are great friends of mine. They swarm around me and are friendly to me. Because they know I am friendly to Israel and so forth. They don’t know how I really feel about what they’re doing to this country.”

The older Graham was reputedly responsible for persuading Bush to swap Jack Daniels for Jesus Christ, and apparently also transferred his contempt of Jewry to the future president — although its is equally possible that Dubya learned his lessons in this respect at Daddy’s knee. Bush the Elder, as you might recall, got into trouble when anti-Jewish remarks made in private were leaked to the media, and may thereby have forfeited his chance of a second term in the White House. His son’s tendency to mouth off in this regard was therefore brought under control by his handlers before it could cause too much damage.

There can be little question, though, that Bush the Younger presides over the most evangelical White House in living memory. His administration does include a number of crucial pro-Likud, neo-conservative Jews — Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Ari Fleischer. That’s only evidence, however, of ideological convergence overriding confessional antipathy. Had Israel turned evolved into a socialist state determined to live in peace with its neighbours, it is inconceivable that it would have attracted even a fraction of the material, diplomatic and emotional capital invested in it by successive US administrations.

Another curious — although, once you come to think of it, not entirely surprising — facet of the current US regime’s policies is that at certain international forums, it finds itself making common cause with illiberal Muslim governments. Fundamentalist Attorney-General John Ashcroft (whose staff are obliged to attend prayer meetings before starting the day’s work) n particular would be hard put to differentiate between his approach to issues such as women’s rights and sex education, and that of Iran, which has latterly been decreed a founding member of the ‘axis of evil’.

At a UN summit on children last May, diplomats from other countries were amused to find US and Iranian representatives hobnobbing secretively during coffee breaks. The New York-based lobby group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute’s founder-president Austin Ruse admits: “We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a UN document.”

The other side of the argument is encapsulated in a comment by Adrienne Germaine, the president of another New York-based organization, the International Women’s Health Coalition. “This alliance,” she points out, “shows the depths of perversity of the US position. On the one hand, we’re presumably blaming these countries for unspeakable acts of terrorism, and at the same time we are allying ourselves with them in the oppression of women.”

In many ways the Christian fundamentalists who hold unprecedented sway in Washington these days and their Muslim counterparts who govern (or at least profoundly influence the governance of) parts of the Middle East and Africa are natural allies. Were it not for the political differences and disputes that have arisen over the past couple of decades, they would be able to collaborate more vigorously and proactively in pushing their retrogressive agenda. Yet it is certainly interesting how easily they are able to set aside their supposedly deep-seated mutual antipathy whenever a perceived need arises to defend what are euphemistically referred to as ‘family values’. It is not for nothing that detractors refer to Ashcroft and co as America’s Taliban.

The people of Iraq did nothing to invite the rain of missiles and cluster bombs directed at them. Most Christians across the world would agree that Iraqis could well do without Samaritan’s Purse and the Southern Baptists. There are innumerable organizations that could have been trusted to help feed a people whose country has gratuitously been devastated, without seeking converts (pious denials notwithstanding) among the traumatized. But, then, if the Bush regime was capable of that much sensitivity, it would not have launched its perverse aggression in the first place.

And in case anyone has forgotten one of the chief motivating factors behind this war, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last week obtained a copy of a communique from Bush to Ariel Sharon in which he sought to reassure the Israeli prime minister that the US “is operating with strong resolution to neutralize the Iraqi threat to Israel”, and that it would subsequently “deal with other radical regimes in the region ... to moderate their activities and fight terrorism”.

But there is a risk in too much regime change: the US could find itself isolated at the next international conference on reproductive health. Unless, of course, Islamists are the main beneficiaries of this process.

E-mail: mahirali@journalist.com