NATION-BUILDING attempts by outside powers have usually met with bitter disappointments. Even a combination of overwhelming military strength and plentiful economic power have not guaranteed success in the past. The current reconstruction attempt in Iraq may, therefore, prove among the most difficult foreign policy ventures of the United States.

Military intervention for reconstructing a country is quite different from ordinary military invasions. The practical effect, if not the declared aim in the former case, is a regime change. The second distinguishing feature is the deployment of large numbers of ground forces in the target country. These ground troops are needed to fight hostile forces in the occupied country and to perform essential administrative functions such as establishing law and order. The third essential feature of military intervention for reconstruction is the use of occupying forces and their civilian personnel in the political administration of the target country.

All the above three factors are to be found in the US invasion of Iraq and its current attempts at restructuring that country. Of more than 200 American military interventions since 1900, only 16 can be characterized as attempts at nation-building through the promotion or imposition of democratic institutions desired by US policy-makers. According to a recent study, “Lessons From the Past: The American Record on Nation-Building”, prepared at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, of the 16 such efforts, democracy was sustained only in four cases ten years after the departure of US forces. Two of these were Germany and Japan after World War II and the other two were tiny Grenada and Panama.

It may be noted that, in most cases, the primary goal of the US nation-building efforts was strategic — to replace or support a regime to defend its core security and economic interests. Only later did “America’s political ideals and its need to sustain democratic support for nation-building impel it to try to establish democratic rule in target nations.”

The low rate of success in democratic nation-building is a sobering reminder that reconstructing an under-developed society like that of Iraq will be a titanic task for the Americans. They have made their task all the more complicated by opting for unilateral nation-building and refusing any major role for the United Nations.

The challenge of post-war Iraq represents the most ambitious American nation-building project since Vietnam. It may be noted that not one American-supported surrogate regime has made the transition to democracy, and only one case of direct American governance (Japan) has succeeded in doing so. Also, one must keep in mind that many of the factors that are most crucial to success are absent in the case of Iraq.

To begin with, the internal characteristics of Iraqi society have already created major impediments in the way of Washington and they will certainly test its resolve, skill and patience in the coming days in pursuing its declared goal of political transformation. With its population of 24 million, Iraq is much larger than any of the Latin American countries where the Americans have attempted nation-building.

But Iraq’s large population is not the only problem. Its deep and ethnic divisions, as compared with other countries where the US has attempted large-scale restructuring presents the most serious challenge to Washington. The long-running ethnic and religious antagonism between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds has already complicated the reconstruction work in Iraq because each one is trying to exploit the American presence to advance its own interests to the exclusion of other factors and considerations. Outside efforts to bridge the religious and ethnic gulf have seldom succeeded as demonstrated in the case of Yugoslavia. An early test for the Americans will be whether to allow the Kurds to return to Iraq’s major oil production centre, Kirkuk, from which they had been expelled by Saddam Hussein.

Even more daunting is the task of purging the Iraqi administration of elements loyal to Saddam’s Baathist regime. Iraq under Saddam resembled a one-party state in which the state and the party were one and the same. In such a political structure, the ruling party’s organization was built into the institutions of the state such as the police, bureaucracy and judiciary. The dilemma before the Americans now that if they go for a through de-Baathification of the state institutions, that will require the US-led occupation forces to perform nearly all critical government functions which is almost next to impossible.

In a recent BBC interview, British General Tim Cross acknowledged that coalition forces had underestimated the challenge of rebuilding civic institutions in post-war Iraq. Ground realities have forced the Americans to restore Baath party members to positions they had held earlier. Senior Baath party members whom the Americans consciously or inadvertently are now reinstating in office may not have run concentration camps. But they did wilfully aid, abet and participate in a despotic regime which was accused by Washington before the war of having committed such crimes as killings, beatings , tortures, starvation, abuses and indignities. The Americans are faced with the same problems in Iraq as they encountered in Germany and Japan after the end of the Second World War. They had freed from prison about 2,000 Nazi party officers, administrators and guards to help them run the country. These were the men who had been convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trial. In Japan also, the United States had to compromise on regime change and curtailed the purge of militaristic old regime’s loyalists and left most civil servants and business elites untouched.

The US task in Germany and Japan was far easier than the one they face in Iraq. Those societies had a relatively strong national identity, a high degree of ethnic homogeneity and relative socio-economic equality — helpful factors for nation-building, all missing in Iraq. In contrast, Iraq poses extraordinary challenges to nation-building because its various ethnic groups, particularly those long oppressed, are trying to gain more power or even seek complete independence. The current internal tussle can trigger national disintegration or a backlash from other ethnic groups, with outside powers (such as Saudi Arabia and Iran) caught in the middle.

By retaining low- and mid-level elements of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party for using them in post-war Iraq dispensation will no doubt relieve the occupying US forces of routine administrative chores, but such a policy of expediency is bound to create its own problems. This will have an adverse impact on the Shiites and the Kurds because nearly all Baathist members of the regime are Sunni Arabs.

Before the war started, the Americans had promised a better life for the Iraqi people. But the “regime change” in that country has so far meant anarchy, chaos and rioting. Armed gangs rule Baghdad after sunset. Towns in the south, apart from the British-run Basra, present even a gloomier picture. In the city of Hilla, near Babylon, the poor neighbourhood of Nada is out of bounds to strangers and US troops alike. At present the Iraqis have freedom, but no security, no work and no income.

According to Senator Robert C. Byrd, what may be the most damaging development, the United States appears to be putting off Iraq’s clamour for self-government. Jay Garner has been summarily replaced and it is becoming all too clear that “the smiling face of the United States as liberator is quickly assuming the scowl of an occupier. The image of the boot on the throat has replaced the beckoning hand of freedom.”

The writer is a former ambassador.

THAT the NWFP government has finally tabled a Shariat bill in the provincial assembly is hardly surprising. But that doesn’t make the development any less menacing. If nothing else, this and other recent actions of the ruling MMA have reignited the age-old controversy about the relationship between state and religion.

As much as unleashing vice squads on our cities may be the clergy’s idea of delivering social justice, it is bringing a bad name to both Pakistan and Islam. More than just images are at stake here though. The impunity with which the Shababe Milli ransacked Peshawar has made a mockery of the rule of law.

It has also shaken the already diminishing public faith in state institutions since the law enforcement agencies were unable or unwilling to confront the unruly mobs. That the pillage was orchestrated and later hailed by a sitting JI MNA points to something even more ominous. Beneath the mindless attempts to impose Taliban-like standards of public morality lurks the MMA’s deep-rooted desire to rehash state and society in its own image. With a helping hand from the establishment, chances are it might even achieve that goal.

Why should it worry anyone? After all, the MMA has a democratic mandate to rule and legislate in the frontier province. And the political process might still offer the best hope to moderate its extremist tendencies. Integration into the political mainstream, accommodation of their legitimate interests and the gradual habituation to civil norms inherent in a democracy can perhaps have a moderating influence on religious hardliners.

This is not to imply that all Islamic parties are inherently inimical to pluralistic politics. But the danger remains that they may have merely appropriated democratic practices and institutions to radically alter public policy and eventually impose their totalitarian goals on the rest of civil society. The MMA government’s track record points in that direction.

Since coming to power, it has done precious little save a single-minded obsession with “Islamizing” state and society. This has meant cracking down on cable TV operators, cinema owners and musicians. Also on the cards is the Hisba Act for the “promotion of virtue and prevention of vice”. Not only is such moral zealotry misplaced, entrusting a corrupt and abusive police force with the task of sin patrolling can only make life more miserable for the man on the street. Worrying still, the MMA espouses terminating co-education, veiling women and Islamizing educational curricula.

At least technically, federal legislation can override provincial laws. But once in place, repressive laws can often assume a life of their own. Almost two decades after it was enacted, General Zia’s Hudood Ordinance is still firmly entrenched in the legal system. True, the MMA is far from a tightly knit political entity.

There are deep-rooted doctrinal and sectarian divisions within the alliance making it susceptible to disintegration. Also true, its electoral appeal is still largely restricted to the NWFP and Balochistan. Be that as it may, religious parties and their agendas are ascendant. At the heart of this disturbing trend is the state’s indiscriminate use of religion for political legitimation.

The country’s military rulers, as well as their civilian counterparts, have traditionally appealed both to Islamic ideology and to the long-standing enmity with India to conceal ethnic, sectarian and linguistic fissures in society. This overtly ideological posturing has put a premium on extremist politics while restricting the already limited public space in which democratic norms and institutions can flourish. For instance, Bhutto, Zia, and later Sharif readily sought refuge in Islamization, co-opting Islamists to boost their positions. Yielding to their demands has only emboldened Islamic parties to demand, and often violently, more space from the state.

The right wing, however, is not a power unto itself. Not yet. Since they share the garrison’s anti-India hostility as well as its aversion to open democratic politics, religious parties remain its closest allies in sustaining the anti-democratic status quo. The violence generated by extremist elements also comes in handy to pressure and destabilize non-compliant elected governments. The military needs religious parties and their jihadi militias not only for the low-intensity conflict it sponsors in Indian Kashmir but also for sustaining the larger consensus on the religiously charged Kashmir conflict.

In addition, the threat of radical resurgence helps it claim the diplomatic and economic backing of an international community increasingly alarmed by the prospect of a Pakistan falling into the hands of “nuke-wielding mullahs.” It is no surprise that by targeting the PPP and PML-N, the military helped create the political opening across the country which the MMA was able to exploit in the last general elections, especially in the traditionally conservative strongholds of the NWFP and Balochistan where resentment at the conduct of American military campaign in Afghanistan was already running high.

Curiously enough, the MMA was constituted at a time when all other parties were being splintered by the military-led regime. Even now, the federal government’s indifference to the MMA’s relentless attempts to Talibanize governance is an indication that it is willing to turn a blind eye in return for support in Balochistan as well as a possible rapprochement on the LFO.

While it is quite tempting to pass the buck on to the establishment, our civil society hardly deserves any accolades. Some vocal groups like the legal fraternity have consistently opposed military rule. But by and large, influential segments of civil society had unabashedly welcomed the October 1999 coup citing popular frustration with inept political rule. Others sought in General Musharraf’s liberal demeanour protection against the clergy.

This was a fatal miscalculation. In the search for political legitimacy, Musharraf has adroitly used their services to delegitimize democratic politics, shore up his own legitimacy and strengthen his bargaining position vis-a-vis the domestic political opposition and the international community.

Even though he has declared an open war on the moderate parties while cajoling the Islamists, many bleeding heart liberals continue to recycle the mantra of the “good hearted general”. If the general’s recent admission that he will only deal with the MMA (in his opinion the only legitimate political force in the country) is not enough evidence to jolt them out of their functional coma, it is hard to imagine what will.

Together with the threat of the military’s abiding interventionism, the political rise of the religious lobby poses the most serious threat to the consolidation of civil and democratic norms in the country. The onus to counter these political deviations is on what remains of the progressive and liberal forces in society. Deriving comfort from the time-honoured assumption that the common Pakistani keeps religion separate from politics, as many moderate politicians often do, is not enough. Whether political parties can defy the odds in mobilizing this latent strength will be the real test.

Civil society’s perennial abhorrence of politics too is counter-productive and can only benefit Islamic hardliners who continue to manipulate the public’s religious sentiments as we seek shelter in the cosy confines of our nine-to-five lives. Merely blaming it all on ‘corrupt’ politicians has not worked in the past, and will certainly not do so now. We must think and act politically before it is too late.