IN MY article two weeks ago (June 1), I discussed the legal status of the LFO and made a few observations about the supremacy of parliament and General Musharraf’s occupation of two houses — the President’s House in Islamabad and the Army House in Rawalpindi — at the same time. I suggested that he might be persuaded to give up his post in the army more readily if the opposition stopped questioning his appointment to the post of president.

Even General Musharraf will have to concede that, regardless of his own wishes or intentions, his simultaneous service in these two posts causes the impression that ultimately the army rules the country, and that the democratic apparatus he has put in place is largely window dressing. This arrangement cannot be tolerated except as a temporary expedient.

The office of president is at least partially political; it entails risks that are endemic to politics. If Musharraf is apprehensive that, without the army chief’s uniform, his presidency will be vulnerable to the new chief’s intrusions, he should not have taken on this office. As President Harry Truman used to say: “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

Let us now turn to some of the presidential powers under the LFO to which the opposition politicians have been objecting. As I said before in my comment on Article 58-2(B), a well-ordered political system should provide a way for dismissing an intolerably bad government. If the majority party or coalition in the National Assembly will do nothing to reform or replace such a government, the president should be able to move against it.

He may, for instance, require it to obtain a fresh vote of confidence from the assembly and publish his reasons for doing so. If the assembly renews its support to this government, endorsing in effect its corruption and incompetence, he may dismiss both of them and order new elections. Alternatively, the system may provide for an organ, such as a “Council of State,” to which the president can take his allegations and which, in turn, has the authority to order the needful to be done.

The opposition objects to the president’s authority to appoint-in his discretion and without obtaining the consent of the prime minister-chiefs of the three military services. The implicit reasoning here may be that in a democratic order the military should be subordinated to civilian authority, whose principal spokesman in a parliamentary system is the prime minister more than the president. chiefs of services should therefore be appointed on the advice, and with the consent, of the prime minister. That is indeed good theory.

The operational questions in this regard are different. Assuming that the chiefs of services are to be appointed on the basis of merit, who is to say that the prime minister will always be a surer discoverer of it than the president? A safer procedure may be for one of these two officials to appoint the chiefs with the concurrence of the other. Until the president and the prime minister agree on the identity of the next chief, the officer who is the most senior in the relevant hierarchy may fill the post in question on an acting basis.

On the other hand, if the chief is to be appointed on the basis of nepotistic considerations, it is of no consequence to us, the citizens, whether he is the president’s or the prime minister’s cousin or brother-in-law. In that case, plague on both their houses.

One of the considerations in choosing the next army chief has been the appointing authority’s perception of a given candidate’s disinterestedness in politics. Choices made by our prime ministers are by no means reassuring in this regard; they include all of our coup-makers: Ayub Khan, appointed initially at the behest of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, Ziaul Haq and Pervez Musharraf chosen (much to their subsequent grief) by Prime Ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, respectively.

The National Security Council (NSC), authorized by one of the LFO provisions, was the object of vociferous criticism on the ground that it would institutionalize the military’s participation, indeed its dominance, in the working of elected governments. Critics continued to denounce the NSC even when it became known that the great majority of its membership would consist of politicians rather than officers.

The Constitution was revived several months ago. Yet the NSC has not lately been heard from. Nothing is being said in the press about its meetings, deliberations, and decisions. It may then be fair to conclude that this organization is doing nothing newsworthy. Before we drown in a sea of anguish over the military’s possible use of the NSC as an agent for usurping civilian authority, it is well to recall also that we are speaking here of a body whose role is purely advisory and whose determinations bind no one.

The NSC’s exit from the government’s organization chart will not necessarily exclude the military’s intervention in politics or the making of high policy. Its officers and agencies have manipulated our public officials and our politics even when the NSC did not exist. It is one of the iron laws of politics that power abhors a vacuum. If power in one domain languishes, power residing elsewhere will move in to take its place. The army will remain in the barracks, and mind its own business, only if the politicians form and operate a coherent and vigorous regime. Rules posted in the books alone will not protect them from predators.

Groups of lawyers have registered much resentment at the extension of the retirement age for judges. But once again this is not exactly a momentous issue. If I may be allowed a colloquial expression, it is no “big deal” if the judges serve a bit longer. Critics allege that the change was made to keep certain pro-government judges on the bench in the expectation that they would find for the government in cases in which it had a high stake. The implication being that the move was intended to emasculate the judiciary’s independence through temptation.

This is not the first time that the retirement age for judges has been changed. If my remembrance is correct, the same thing was done, for the same reasons, during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s term of office and, again, during Ziaul Haq’s rule. It is widely believed that, during Nawaz Sharif’s regime, money, intimidation, and intrigue were used to influence judicial thinking and behaviour. The esteem, or even awe, in which outsiders, high and low, may hold judges will not alone preserve their independence. First and foremost, they themselves must want independence and place on it a higher value than they do on the continuation of their perquisites, privileges, and symbols of prestige.

Far be it from me to say that the opposition’s objections to the LFO and the powers it confers on the president are invalid. But allow me to submit that the grounds from which these objections arise are not substantial enough to justify the horrendous disruption of the process of governance the opposition politicians have been creating. Granted that the democracy General Musharraf has allowed falls short of the ideal, but the proper response to that situation is to make the best of what we have and keep asking for more. It is not worthy of mature and responsible politicians to bring parliament to a standstill and throw our politics into chaos.

One may wonder if the opposition politicians realize that their current conduct is sending out the message, both to our own people and the outside world, that we are incapable of operating a democratic system, confirming the allegation that democracy does not suit our genius. Let it be understood that even if the LFO were discarded, and “unfettered” democracy written into law and the Constitution, our politicians would sully it soon enough. Those who insist that they will take all or nothing will most likely end up with nothing.

If the opposition forces continue to push the government to the wall and prevent parliament from functioning, Prime Minister Jamali, with or without external prompting, may conclude that he has no choice other than that of advising the president to dissolve the National Assembly and order new elections. Mr Jamali and some of his colleagues may then be asked to serve as “caretakers” until the elections have been completed and a successor regime assembled. Apart from diverting us from pressing work at hand, this exercise would claim a huge amount of public and private resources, and place the country in the throes of heightened uncertainty, tension, and conflict. And all of this needlessly.

It does not follow from the above that it is acceptable for Musharraf to remain obstinate. It is his obligation, as much as that of the opposition, to make concessions towards a settlement. At this point one must, however, caution against a reported twist in the MMA’s negotiating strategy. It is now said to be willing to withdraw some of its objections to the LFO in return for the general’s commitment to quit the American campaign against terrorism and, more importantly, to further Islamize our economy, education, media, and the judiciary.

Dissociation with the international coalition against terrorists, and indulgence towards militant groups like the Al Qaeda and Taliban will further disrupt our domestic order, and it will botch up our relations with much of the outside world. Any pledge to further Islamize our polity and society will take us back to the dark days of Ziaul Haq’s hypocritical use of Islam for maintaining his own tyranny. It would ruin both Islam and our country-as if they were not already wounded enough.

The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA. E-mail: syed.anwar@attbi.com

GENERAL Musharraf says, almost swears, that the changes he has made in the Constitution, or the laws, were not for his personal gain. Made in the company of lawyers (otherwise known as officers of the court) the statement has an oath-ring. He thus wants us all to believe that when he amended the Constitution to proclaim himself president for five years, it was only for the good of the country and its people.

Some might agree, others may not, but no one would agree that he had received, as the LFO says, a democratic mandate for it. The turnout in the referendum that everybody saw and believed, except for the Election Commission, was very low. In the uproar and jeer that followed even Musharraf was compelled to concede that either through misplaced enthusiasm or sheer treachery, the ballot and the count both were indeed tempered. The mandate thus is doubtful if not a sham.

The Supreme Court, while validating the army takeover, had empowered the Chief Executive to amend the Constitution if it “fails to provide a solution for (the) attainment of his declared objectives”. Now it can be argued that Chief Executive Musharraf’s continuation as president was not a declared objective of the Proclamation of Emergency nor of the Provisional Constitution Order both issued on October 14, 1999, two days after the army takeover. For Musharraf’s presidency the LFO (issued in August 2002) also relies not on the validation order of the Supreme Court but on his receiving a “democratic mandate to serve the nation as president of Pakistan for a period of five years”. In fact, the Supreme Court has not adjudicated on the LFO at all.

Leaving the legal hairsplitting aside, for no one is going back to the Supreme Court from interpretation of its order of May 29, 2002, or to define the scope of declared objectives, Musharraf is morally wrong in basing his claim to presidency on a referendum of universally questioned authenticity. For a legitimate mandate there is no alternative for him but to go back to the people. Any manoeuvre to the contrary would be only digging the hole deeper. (The first lesson when you fall in a hole, they say, is to stop digging).

A direct mandate from the people is all the more necessary now that the president has decided, hopefully irreversibly this time round, to make Pakistan a progressive and enlightened state. Islamic it already is.

He should have no fears in seeking its endorsement from the people when, according to his own statement, he is convinced that the people of Pakistan do not want a theoretic state nor the Talibanization of society.

A vast majority of the people, even the critics of Musharraf’s policies, indeed had a legitimate anxiety that such would have been the result if the bargaining over LFO were to succeed. In fact, in the closing stages of the failed negotiations, the MMA had issued an Islamization charter, more strident than the Frontier’s Shariat act, to form part of the settlement.

Now that Musharraf feels perturbed over the prospect of Pakistan becoming a theocracy, the hope is that he also realizes that he and his two military predecessors, Ayub and Zia (the three put together have ruled Pakistan for close to quarter of a century), are to be held responsible for bringing the country to this pass, more than the political leaders they sent packing.

In the early years of Ayub’s otherwise moderate and constructive martial law, the Frontier Red Shirts were hunted down as saboteurs because they had opposed the creation of Pakistan and therefore they were also opposing his coup. The Red Shirts were indeed against the partition of India and had signified it by boycotting the referendum in the NWFP, but their creed was democratic and liberal.

The space they and their leaders (Ghaffar Khan, Wali Khan, Ajmal Khattak etc.) vacated by going to jail or underground or by migrating to Afghanistan was filled by the religious groups who too had opposed the creation of Pakistan but were passive and reactionary in their outlook. In course of time the sleepy seminaries became centres of politics of the right. Even a reclusive scholar like Maulana Abdul Haq, the founder of by now famous Akora Khattak Darul Ulom, too, was drawn into politics. His son Maulana Samiul Haq is more of a political leader than a religious teacher.

The arming and financing of the youth by Ziaul Haq to fight America’s proxy war in Afghanistan and the enormous electoral strength it brought to the religious parties is a phenomenon to recent and an experience too galling to be recounted. The retreat of sane and secular politics, which had started with the ouster of Bhutto and his hanging, was complete before political activity returned on Zia’s death. It has however remained under his shadow since. Even the middle-of-the-road parties like the Muslim League and PPP have sought compromises with the religious parties to retain power or to regain it.

Musharraf’s hasty deviation from his initial liberal stance, exclusion of Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and Altaf Husain from the electoral field and their being kept out of the country, and finally the rout of the Taliban, ironically, at the hands of America, their original patron — all put together have made the economy, the laws and very governance of the country a hostage to the politics of a religious alliance formed by putting aside deep-rooted schism and suspicions in their ranks.

In breaking this shackle, Musharraf will have the covert support of all the mainstream, moderate, nationalist and progressive parties and groups even when they remain fiercely opposed to his policies and political ambition. Theocracy and arbitrary rule of an individual are two things apart. The hold of the former will be more vicious and longer-lasting. The liberal elements therefore dread theocracy more than dictatorship.

The experience in the NWFP over the next few months will help make the choice of the people and the parties easier. Akram Durrani, the chief minister, says he has enforced the rule of Shariat in the province. To him it means no more than hectoring people to prayers, shutting women in their homes, outlawing cinema and circus.

The real rule of Islam will demand that Durrani holds himself accountable for a dog dying on the banks of river Gomal, and that he carries a bag of grains on his back to a starving family. The Shariat will be truly enforced only when he can sleep under the shade of a tree resting his head on a rock and, most important, when he ensure cradle-to-the-grave education for every citizen, including women, in his province.

It is a long haul and hard work leaving no time or room for politics or propaganda in a land where crime is rampant, black barely is the survival diet of many and more than half the children never get to see a school, yet the head of the government must sleep behind a bullet-proof shielding device. In seven months all that his legislators have done is to adopt the Shariat bill in the Frontier, condemn Musharraf and vote themselves larger allowances.

Kudos to Altaf Hussain for saying what most people feel but fear to say: religion and politics should be kept apart. Their intermingling has harmed both. It has dismembered the country and the rest is riven by hatred and strife. Sectarianism and not Islam has come to rule. Its victims are in thousands and, sadly, many from the ranks of its ardent advocates. When eleven young men are shot dead only because they are Shias, even the maulanas and the military should pay heed to what Altaf Hussain has to say.

Musharraf should stake his political career not on local government but on fresh and free elections and on saving Islam from the turmoil of politics, and save Pakistan from sectarianism.

OF late, following the line set, our politicians have echoed the slogan, ‘Pakistan first’. However, in their case, we can but take this to mean ‘Me first.’

Closer to the ground, and within the space of three days last week, at Lahore and then at Peshawar, President General Pervez Musharraf fulminated, with absolute justification, against the actions and attitudes of the gentlemen graduates of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

By enforcing their own extremist retrogressive brand of Islam on what to the western world is a crucially sensitive province of Pakistan — the NWFP with its porous border with Afghanistan — they have done this nation, particularly at this point in time, a gross disservice. To answer the questions posed by Musharraf : no, we do not need a Talibanized Pakistan; no, we cannot afford a Talibanized Pakistan; no, we must not send the wrong signals abroad, signals that dub Pakistan as intolerant, extremist and terrorist-ridden.

Rather than enforcing law and order, which is the first and foremost duty of any government, the MMA government in Peshawar has incited citizens to totally disregard the law and go on a rampage as they did with the billboards and posters - setting a fine example to the rest of the country as their destruction spree was picked up and copied by the extremist elements of Multan and Lahore.

Within the realms of governance, burqas and beards are indeed non-issues, as said the General. Forcing people to adhere to a particular dress code, to abstain from listening to music, to veil themselves, or to grow beards, has nothing to do with welfare or progress. Why do not the learned graduates of the MMA (whose educational qualifications are now being challenged in the Supreme Court) concentrate on improving the lot of their people, rather than making their lives more miserable, by giving them law and order, education for their children, health facilities for all, basic utilities such as potable water, sanitation, electricity? Is it that they are incapable of thinking in terms other than male facial hair and female coverings?

The timing of the introduction of Shariat in the Frontier may be a stroke of luck for us. Musharraf is about to leave for a trip to Europe and to the US, where he can at least present himself as the tolerant, forward-looking, progressive face of Pakistan and try to explain to the western statesmen the mindset of a minority of one per cent of Pakistanis which have brought about these aberrations in one province of the country. His statements on the question of his uniform should finally put to rest the ‘demands’ of the parliamentary opposition that he either shed his uniform or surrender the office of president. Now, we all know he cannot stay for ever, that the day will come when he will go. For the present, he is keeping his uniform on, come what may, and vows he will take it off when he feels the time is appropriate — when willed by providence in the shape of Bush & Co, or in the event he is forsaken by his own constituency.

It now seems that his thought process is the same as that of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in so far as the path Pakistan should follow. Forward, always forward, never looking back, progressive in tune with the times and with the world at large, building rather than destroying, respecting human rights and freedoms rather than stamping on them, winning the respect of the rest of the world for its policies of tolerance, sanity and care of its people, rather than being classed as a pariah at odds with the times and a world on the move.

If he believes what he tells us he believes, it is for him to somehow, battling against the odds, ensure that before he does depart from the political scene, he steers us on the right path. This he can start to do by enforcing in the country a system of law and order which so far, in three years, the military has dismally failed to do — though it has managed a slight improvement from the chaos and mayhem of the twin governments of the 1990s. Then, looking firmly towards the future, he must see that not only are the nation’s children educated, but rightly educated so that they may not merely survive but be enabled to participate in the 21st century.

Just over 90 years ago, in 1912, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, during an address to the Imperial Legislative Council, reproached the British for their neglect of elementary education. For the 150 years they had ruled, he said, they had dealt with education at a ‘jog trot pace’. If it so continued, it would take a further 175 years to get all school-going age children to school and 600 years to get all the girls to school. There could be no salvation for the masses unless the principle of compulsory education was introduced. This had already been proven time and time again, for in no country had elementary education become universal without compulsion.

Opposing members reminded Jinnah that there were not sufficient school buildings, nor sufficient teachers, and that without money schools could not be built, nor teachers trained and paid. The money was not there, they told him. Jinnah’s answer: “All I can say is this, find money! Find money! Find money! I appeal to the president, not as president but as the finance minister. I say, find money. If you say you have not got enough money, discover and tap new sources.....” The government of Pakistan will have not only to find money to build an education system, but it will also have to seriously revamp the entire education curricula now operative in the country. The national curriculum objectives as set forth by the federal ministry of education in 1995 remain unchanged, eight years on. By completion of Class V, according to this curriculum in force, children are required, inter alia, to understand Hindu-Muslim differences, identify the forces working against Pakistan and India’s evil designs, and make speeches on jihad and shahadat.

They are also expected to promote an awareness of the Kashmir issue, to observe their fellow pupils and note their reaction to the wars with India, judge their spirit while they make speeches on jihad, and note their keenness and willingness to recite tarana at school functions. As commented Sami Mustafa in this newspaper on May 18 in his article on the subject:

“So much for teaching tolerance, objectivity and scholarship to the future generations of this country ... Sadly, it appears that the national curriculum is anything but about education. It is primarily a hopeless attempt to control young minds and compensate for the incompetence and inability of our policymakers to come to terms with the demands of a new world, which is the individual development of each child, not the mass development of children so that they fit into a political system that is inefficient, retrogressive and unenlightened.”

This being so, may one ask the general: what then is the difference between the ministry of education and the MMA government in Peshawar? Both are abhorring, but at least the general should find it easy to deal with the gentlemen of the education ministry and stop them from doing just as much - if not more - damage to the national ethos, to the progress of the country, to the foreign perception of Pakistan, and, most importantly, to the minds of generations to come.

The present generation is doomed, as is amply illustrated by the sick happenings at the University of Punjab, overseen by an army general and an army colonel, where a professor of the Department of English is proving himself to be as intolerant, as Talibanized, and as dangerous as is the government of the NWFP. General Musharraf needs to act swiftly and decisively on this front.

Under the circumstances, the best we can do is to hope we can sustain our rating as a Third World country.

PULVERIZATION of Iraq and its military occupation by the US and British armed forces raise important questions that remain unanswered. Prior to the attack Washington and London had consistently alleged that Saddam’s Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and that it had the ability to deploy them within one hour. This carefully orchestrated doomsday scenario became the primary cause for invading the oil-rich Muslim country.

The western media blitzkrieg had accused Saddam Hussein of violating UN Security Council resolutions for twelve years and the US claimed that it possessed irrefutable evidence that Iraq had the weapons that posed a serious threat to the security of the region and parts of Europe. The US secretary of state vehemently argued in the UN Security Council that evidence about Iraq possessing the WMD was comprehensive, reliable and creditworthy and he sought UN support for disarming Iraq of such deadly weapons by military means.

Some other reasons, claimed weighty by Washington for removing President Saddam Hussein from power, included Saddam’s undemocratic and tyrannical rule; the purported sense of deprivation felt by the Iraqi Shiite community; the supposed Kurdish desire for independence or self-rule; and the expansionist designs of Saddam Hussein against his neighbours. It was also claimed that the long-deprived people of Iraq would welcome the invading forces as ‘liberators’.

President Saddam Hussein was a ruthless ruler who denied freedom, throttled voices of dissent with a heavy hand and prolonged his rule by fair and foul means. Notwithstanding the fact that many democratically elected leaders in the world are also quite proficient in such traits, the intention here is not to dilate on Saddam’s moral and legal credentials as a ruler or the reasons for his ouster from power. Suffice it to say that the invasion of Iraq and its capture has failed to justify the reasons given by Washington and London for going to war.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction were not found in the occupied country. The Shiite community in Iraq has shown total solidarity with other sects living in the country. Kurds have displayed no penchant for weakening Iraqi unity and solidarity. The people in Iraq did not welcome the invaders. And Saddam’s excesses in power were not a valid cause for toppling his government by foreign powers. It is also debatable which country in the Middle East posed a greater threat to regional security — a weak Iraq or a powerful Israel.

The real motive for the occupation of Iraq remains unexplained although it can be easily surmised. “The cause of war”, said former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Newsweek in 1990, “is when some ambitious country gets very strong and the others rely on realism. There is no euphoria that will stop an aggressor.” It is a pity that the world, UN included, failed to stop aggression because two strong and ambitious countries were determined to prove that might was right and their own national interests required them to control the oil wealth of Iraq. The motives of Washington and London were suspect ab initio and the stated reason of disarming Iraq of the WMD was a cover plan.

Iraq’s defeat projects Saddam as an innocent victim who was brutalized for crimes not committed by him. His major fault was that he declined to accept the dictates of the two leading powers of his age. Resultantly, blood was shed to satisfy the ego of a few warlords. Who will bring back to life hapless Iraqi citizens who died in this mad and unjustified war? And who will account for the death of attacking US and British soldiers, sailors and airmen who died in the mistaken belief that they were disarming Iraq of WMD?

The credibility of the US and Britain has dipped low. Both powers are accused of duping their own people and deceiving the international public opinion. They misused the media for covering up their real war aims. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was a moral setback for President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. The war hawks may think that the moral setback is temporary in nature and time will heal it. Yes, time is a healer. But it does not convert vice into virtue. And if morality is a dispensable trait, then what makes democracy superior to autocracy? Devoid of moral content, the world may regress back into the cave age.

Moral values and politics should act in unison to promote and strengthen democratic norms, traditions and values. The Iraqi war witnessed this phenomenon in the reverse order. Clare Short, who resigned from a cabinet post, told a British Sunday newspaper, “we were misled. I think we were deceived in the way it was done. It was a political decision that came from the prime minister.” The allegation is direct and pungent.

A poll conducted by The Mail showed that 63 per cent of British voters felt that Tony Blair misled them. Clare Short maintains that the risk of the use of chemical and biological weapons “didn’t come from security services, it was a spin.” However, Tony Blair feels sure that “over the coming weeks and months we will assemble this evidence. I have no doubt that the evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will be there.”

The political credibility of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair might become an election issue in both countries. Iraq was invaded without the prior approval of the UN Security Council and against stiff opposition from many countries, including Russia, France, China, Germany and some others. Both leaders are in a quandary. Their case of war will utterly collapse if no weapons of mass destruction are recovered from Iraq. And, their credibility may be no better if such weapons are belatedly ‘discovered’.

The possibility of planting such weapons by those searching for them cannot be ruled out. This doubt is strengthened and the prospects of a mischief increase as more delay occurs in their discovery. If Iraq could be invaded on the basis of trumped-up charges, then the occupation powers could also plant WMD to justify the invasion.

A survey, headed by the former US Secretary of state, Madeline Albright, finds that the US-led war has deepened Europe-US rifts and inflamed the Muslims world, softened support for the (US) war on terrorism and significantly weakened global public support for the pillars of the post-World War II era. In France 76 per cent people desire a less dependent relationship with the US on security and diplomatic matters. Within the US the CIA faces criticism for its faulty intelligence assessments, forecasts and its hawkish handling of the crisis in Iraq.

Many countries were not convinced about the US intelligence estimates about WMD allegedly possessed by Iraq. Mohammad El Baradei and Hans Blix had clearly stated that the UN nuclear inspectors working under them did not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They maintain that the US assessment was based on faulty, outdated and unconvincing evidence. This is a serious blow to US-Britain credibility.

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz discloses to Vanity Fair magazine that the US decision to focus on Iraqi disarmament as the motive for invasion was made for “bureaucratic reasons because it was one reason everyone could agree on.” He claims that the “weapons of mass destruction issue was never the United States’ prime reason for invading Iraq.” The rabbit pops out of the hat. Two months after the invasion ended, neither the weapons of mass destruction have been found nor any evidence collected linking the Saddam government with Al Qaeda. Significantly, the US-British spin doctors now underplay the rhetoric of WMD and Al Qaeda in Iraq.

With the UN bypassed, world public opinion ignored and thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties, Iraq was conquered without a major military battle. The Iraqi army and its ‘elite’ Republican Guards melted away without a single combat engagement. Scores of generals suddenly disappeared and the military rank and file serving under them evaporated into thin air. So did President Saddam Hussein himself, the person on whose orders Iraq allegedly made stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. After much havoc and destruction, the world is now told that Iraq was targeted for “bureaucratic reasons.” It will be nearer the truth to admit that the real reasons were strategic in nature in which oil was a dominant factor. Some day history will pronounce its judgment on Bush and Blair when the dust settles down and the whole truth emerges from the haze carefully spread by the main players of this game of power.

With Saddam’s Iraq dead, the UN has come back to life. The game of power starts afresh once again. Next time the target will be another country. So shall also be the strategy and tactics. The experience gained in Afghanistan and Iraq shall be put to good use. Such a cycle may be repeated as long as the current economic and technological gap between the countries of the North and the South persists and keeps the Third World countries divided from within. Time marches on. Those who miss the train of technology will find themselves stranded at the railway station bemoaning their fate.

Mature nations learn from history but do not waste their time and energy in weeping over their past. They evolve a strategy for improving their present status and work hard for a better future for their present and future generations. If our political parties have a vision for the future, it is not clearly visible. Negative tactics and trivial issues dominate our political landscape. This is not a healthy reflection of a society that claims to be progressive and broad-minded.

The writer is a retired general of the Pakistan Army.