AS the war in Iraq is entering its closing phase, differences between the war’s principal allies — US and Britain — are coming to the fore. A close look at the joint statement issued after the summit meeting in Northern Ireland and the joint press conference addressed by President Bush and Prime Minister Blair shows the two leaders have serious differences over three important issues: how to get the US and Europe working again together as partners and not as rivals; how to build post-Saddam Iraq; and how to approach the Middle East peace process.

There is denying that the trans-Atlantic alliance has been seriously damaged by the French and German opposition to the Iraq war and the acrimonious debate over the issue in the Security Council. Also, there is little indication that after his recent summit meeting with Blair, Bush is willing to rise above his differences with President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

This has created a difficult situation for the British prime minister who sees himself as the bridge between the United States and Europe.Though Blair has been in constant touch with Chirac and Schroeder, Bush has spoken to neither. For the present at least, the trans-Atlantic gap will continue to grow,leaving Blair with “very little to hold on to”, as the Washington Post has put it.

Besides the trans-Atlantic alliance, there are serious differences between the war allies over post-Saddam Iraq.The joint statement issued after their Northern Ireland summit meeting has endorsed “a vital role” for the United Nations in the reconstruction of Iraq. However, both Blair and Bush have interpreted the word “vital” differently. Blair wants the UN to take a lead in preparing Iraq for a new representative government in Baghdad. His vision of the UN role is not different from that of President Chirac who insists that “it is up to the United Nations — and it alone — to take over the political, economic, humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq.”

According to the French president, only the world body has the “necessary legitimacy” to undertake such a task. But President Bush sees only a secondary role for the United Nations — helping out in, but not actually running, humanitarian assistance work, and proposing but not naming representatives to an interim Iraqi government.

When Bush was asked at the joint press conference what he meant by “vital” UN role, he replied that “that means food, that means medicine.” Blair did try to paper over their differences over the issue by saying that the important thing was to hand over power to the Iraqis as quickly as possible and avoid the “wrangles” that plagued the UN in the run-up to the war.

Blair sees the Iraq war as an opportunity to build a better and more cooperative world. Interestingly, he seems to have emerged as an unusual blend of warrior and internationalist. While he believes that in certain situations coercion remains vital as a tool of international security,the credibility of the United Nations must be maintained. According to him, a world in which the United Nations has been stripped of all authority will be infinitely more dangerous than it is now. For all the UN’s many imperfections, its de facto subjugation to American power is something that perhaps even London will not countenance.

By contrast, Bush deeply distrusts international institutions and prefers to achieve his goals through the use of military power. He seems to believe that America must have the right to act when and where it chooses, unrestrained by international law or conventions or by the need for a consensus among the Security Council members. Taken to its logical conclusion, this sort of thinking implies that the Iraq war has now established a precedent in international law that “might” becomes automatically endowed with the underpinning of “right” if successfully.

The National Security Strategy that Bush has pursued by launching an attack on Iraq is a sort of Monroe Doctrine for the whole world. Its primary objective is to maintain overwhelming military supremacy around the world. It asserts in unmistakable terms the right to intervene wherever it ‘perceives’ the presence of a threat of terrorism or mass destruction. The operating principle of the new American strategy is global micromanagement coupled with dominance.

The Bush-Blair gap remains not only in relation to the trans-Atlantic alliance and post-Saddam Iraq but also in regard to the Middle East peace process. It may be recalled that it was Blair’s pressure before the Iraq war that led to Bush announcing a ‘road map’ for Israeli-Palestinian settlement based on the creation of a viable and independent Palestinian state. Now Blair wants Bush to play a more active role in making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians possible.

While expressing warm admiration for Blair’s dedication to peace in Northern Ireland, Bush told the joint press conference in Belfast a few days ago: “I am willing to spend the same amount of energy in the Middle East”. Most analysts doubt if he is going to fulfil his commitment.

To begin with, he will be much too preoccupied with the Iraqi problems, at least over the next six months, to pay any meaningful attention to the Middle East peace problems. Also, his Middle East track record does not inspire much confidence among the Palestinians. Unlike his predecessor Bill Clinton, Bush has so far steered clear of Middle East peace-making and has given Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon almost a free hand in crushing the Palestinian uprising for independence. Sharon appears to have convinced Bush that the Palestinian problem is basically one of “terrorism” to be tackled with an iron hand like the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

Another reason for not being very hopeful about the Middle East peace plan is that after some months a good deal of Bush’s attention will be diverted to the 2004 presidential election campaign. Anyone even slightly acquainted with the US electoral process knows that no US president seeking re-election can afford to alienate the powerful and influential Jewish lobby in the United States, particularly during an election year.

Prime Minister Blair, on the other hand,thinks that there is a pressing need to restore the image of the United Stats and Britain in the Arab world in view of the widespread unpopularity of the military action to overthrow Saddam Hussein. His foreign secretary Jack Straw, recently acknowledged that the West had been guilty of double standards in enforcing UN resolutions on Iraq while appearing “rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine.”

It is true that the United States cannot wave a magic wand in the Middle East and bring about an acceptable and fair solution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem overnight. But it is equally true that it can at least wave the money wand — three billion dollars a year in aid to Israel — to facilitate the prospect. Also, Israel’s military machine is massively dependent on the US and without Washington’s military hardware, Tel Aviv will be crippled.But to expect that the present Bush administration can go to the extent of twisting Ariel Sharon’s arm is but wishful thinking.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

DURING a debate in the Senate on the so-called war on weapons of mass destruction, a question was raised whether Pakistan’s nuclear command and control system was safe and responsible. The foreign minister, however, chose to ignore the question in his winding up remarks.

The question is most relevant. Pakistan tested its nuclear weapons in May 1998. Does it not warrant taking a deeper look at the safety and responsibility of our nuclear command and control system if the war on Iraq is really a war against a country suspected to possess weapons of mass destruction?

There are other reasons why the question must be addressed. Not long ago Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain made an unusual comment saying that ‘we would request Pakistan to downgrade its nuclear programme.’ German Foreign Minister Fischer has expressed fears that after taking on Iraq, the United States will launch a unilateral war on some other country believed to be in possession of weapons of mass destruction. He did not name the country.

There has also been talk of the so-called ‘axis of evil’ including Iran, Iraq and North Korea as well as unsubstantiated reports about clandestine nuclear transfers to North Korea by Pakistan. And only the other day, the United States slammed a ban on Pakistan’s Kahuta nuclear research laboratories. The ban may not affect Kahuta’s capabilities but the timing, the underlying message, and the symbolism of the decision can be ignored only at our peril.

I marvelled at the attitude of the foreign minister when he chose to ignore the question raised on the floor of the Senate but when the macho information minister dismissed the Kahuta ban as ‘my foot’, I felt staggered. Thoughtful people have been wondering whether it could be Pakistan’s turn after Iraq — to disposses it of its nuclear weapons.

The foreign minister was recently asked this question in an interview by this newspaper. His reply: “the fears of Pakistan [being] next are misplaced as the country’s nuclear programme is in safe and responsible hands”. The redoubtable Sheikh Rashid, however, said that those talking of Pakistan being the next target were agents of India and Israel.

My contention in the Senate was that our nuclear assets might be safe but my question was whether the nuclear command and control structure was also responsible? Unfortunately, I cannot say that it is responsible. Why? A crucial element of a responsible nuclear command and control system is the dispersal of authority with regard to various elements of weapons of mass destruction capability. These include production, safe custody, intelligence gathering, delivery systems, and decision-making process in regard to the actual use of the weapons and, finally, the finger on the trigger.

In none of the five recognized nuclear weapons powers (US, Russia, China, France and UK) and the unrecognized one, namely, India, the ultimate command of nuclear weapons lies in the hands of the generals, or the GHQ or the joint chiefs. It lies with the civilian authority.

Placing nuclear weapons under civilian control is based on the time-tested principle that determining the nature and level of an armed conflict is a political rather than a military decision. A retreating and losing field commander driven to desperation in actual war cannot have the same high threshold of restraint as the relatively detached civil authority. War, as is said, is too serious a business to be left to generals alone. Nuclear weapons are far too lethal to be left in the hands of joint chiefs alone without an element of responsible civil authority.

In Pakistan the civilian leadership and representatives of the people have been kept out of the recently announced Nuclear Command Authority. When the last meeting of the NCA was held, the defence minister who was present in Islamabad was not even invited.

It is unthinkable that the defence committee of parliament, which cannot even discuss the military budget, will ever have a say in matters of nuclear command and control system.

The example of the US is instructive in many ways, at least for the sake of studying the underlying principles of a responsible nuclear command and control structure. Soon after the development of nuclear weapons and their use in the mid-forties, the United States passed the National Security Act in 1947 to cut to size the growing position of the military as a permanent power base by bringing the joint chiefs completely under the control of the political leadership.

A National Security Council was set up which in fact is a political and not a military institution. Except the joint chiefs of staff chairman, all other members are civilians. Its aim was not the participation of the military in governance, but to cut to size the joint chiefs committee, which had overgrown during the Second World War and after the actual use of atomic weapons against Japan.

The first step taken under it was to reorganize the defence ministry. The joint chief who used to directly advise the president on military and security matters was linked with the civilian secretary of defence, who was given the right to attend meetings of the joint chiefs. Later, the defence secretary was made the presiding officer of the joint chiefs’ meetings. When the US military expressed some reservations on this score, the defence secretary was made deputy commander-in-chief and the Pentagon was brought under a civilian set-up.

In Pakistan, the less said about the hapless defence minister the better. In the United States, the secretary, defence — and not the chairman of joint chiefs — acts as the chief adviser to the president on security and military matters. Thus, analysis and strategy formulation are left to the secretary, defence and the joint chiefs are confined only to the military’s professional matters.

According to an official announcement, our recently set up strategic defence organization is part of the joint chiefs of staff set-up. The joint chief in turn is chief adviser on defence to the president who in turn happens to be the army chief. Thus, from analysis to strategy formulation, to the finger on the button, the decision is with the army chief alone.

In the US, under the 1947 security act, defence-related intelligence and research was placed under the secretary, defence, and not under the joint chiefs.

For intelligence gathering relating to overall security, a new set-up — CIA — was established. It was linked with the National Security Council instead of the joint chiefs because intelligence is central to any decision-making process relating to nuclear weapons and it was thought imprudent to leave it in the hands of the military alone. Our chief intelligence-gathering agency on security issues, namely the ISI, is headed by a serving general who looks up to the GHQ for everything this agency does.

Even the development and control of atomic weapons, which was initially under the joint chiefs in the United States, was taken away from it after a great deal of discussion and debate and handed over to a civilian atomic energy commission indirectly reporting to the president. Military production, which during World War II was under the joint chiefs and which included not only armaments but also economic production, was transferred from the joint chiefs and placed under the charge of the president.

In Pakistan, we do have a defence production division under so-called civilian control, but how? The Pakistan Ordinance Factories, to give one example, is said to be under the defence production division but the civilian secretary of the division is barred from writing the annual report of its head who is an army general.

True to pattern, in Pakistan the production, custody, intelligence and the final trigger all rest in the hands of the military. With the serving army chief now also the president and the chief of the National Security Council, the centralization of nuclear command authority needs to be rationally appraised, especially where the possibilities of an armed conflict with India are concerned.

One can only pray that may our generals realize that patriotism and wisdom reside not in the GHQ alone but are to be found almost everywhere around us. And let us all pray most fervently that ‘Pakistan first’ does not turn out to be ‘Pakistan next’ after Iraq because of lack of maturity on the part of some and insistence on the part of others that they and they alone are the true defenders and custodians of our security.

The writer is a Senator.