Cost of Iraq adventure

IF the war on Iraq was all about terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and Saddam’s evil rule, it would not have detonated such a fierce debate. Obviously something more is at play arousing universal anxiety and concern. There are issues that transcend or escape the stated arguments for the war. And what remains unstated may be the most visible.

The popular view sees it as part of a new wave of American imperialism. But is a widely held view necessarily a correct one, beyond scrutiny?

One has to truly comprehend three things — the enormous fear and anger felt in the US in the wake of 9/11 tragedy, the unprecedented wave of anti-Americanism that has been sweeping across the Muslim world even pre-dating the terrorist attacks and then the stealthy manner with which the most powerful nation was attacked and humiliated and hailed by many among the Muslim world as a heroic act in the way of God. All this has sent an indelible message to the Americans that they are unsafe and vulnerable as there is a new enemy out there, faceless and willing to die, and armed with deadly new weapons that are easy to find and hard to fight.

It so happened that the 9/11 tragedy coincided with the emergence of a very aggressive president in the United States whose political philosophy rested on a very small plinth of some of the most conservative American values. There were other constraints too limiting the president’s priorities. Arguably no other president in recent US history has been so smitten by the failure to win a second term as the elder Bush, and his son is hell bent to see it did not happen to him.

That had an impact on his politics and strategy for leadership. Apparently his father told him that the major reason for his defeat was the loss of the Jewish vote and also advised him not to neglect his power base which was the wealthy Americans, the ultra-right wing of the Republican Party and the increasingly influential and rich Christian church. He took the advice and rolled his foreign policy and domestic politics into one.

The resulting agenda: shun and vilify Arafat to please the Jewish vote, repudiate treaties that hurt the American corporate sector and the military industrial complex, shower tax cuts on the rich, scorn the UN as it limits unilateralism and is unpopular with Congress and the American people, and finally convey the word abroad that anyone out of the line would be severely dealt with. If any country misbehaved, it would be subjected to a “regime change”. It looked as if there was a new “Terminator” on the block.

It turned out that the doctrine of pre-emption was essentially designed to deal with the intractable issues of an increasingly complex post-cold war world and thus has nothing that could have a political cost in America. It became a foreign policy of denial and evasion.

September 11 tragedy played right into the hands of neo-conservatives to advance their agenda — a work already in progress and the threat of imperialism began looking real. The administration finally got its act together. It found an issue fitting its combative instinct. While the reality remains obscure, clearly a myth of imperialism with a higher purpose was being fostered.

The belligerent rhetoric apart, what has this “imperialism” done so far? Basically three things — tough homeland security measures, enjoying broad-based domestic support, and the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. As for Afghanistan, the fact is a Taliban-weary Afghanistan, long caught up in a bloody civil war and hosting the biggest nest of global terrorism — a threat not just to the US but also to Pakistan and indeed the world — had been inviting international concern for some time.

It was an intervention waiting to happen. It came ineffectually during the Clinton years and was thus already in train when the breaking point was reached with the attack on the World Trade Centre. It was a provocation the world could have ignored only at its peril. So there was a massive intervention, fully endorsed by the UN, applauded by the international community and facilitated by Pakistan. Call it American imperialism or whatever.

Of course Iraq is a different matter.The administration lied to the American people. The neo-conservatives built the case on a number of falsehoods and misrepresentations. An emotionally charged public living in daily fear of terrorism to which Osama bin Laden contributed as much as John Ashcroft with the draconian measures of homeland security, was receptive to this propaganda blitz. Iraq was invaded without UN endorsement and in the face of universal reservations. Now “the morning after”, America is awakening to new realities.

Has the imperialism in Iraq gone sour or was there no imperialist war to begin with and just, as Senator Kennedy said, a big fraud? You only have to listen to the debates of Democratic candidates for the next year’s presidential race. The race includes some outstanding minds representing some of the best values that America is known for.

It is too early to say whether Democrats will come to power but one thing is clear, there is still some hope for return of American idealism that has been facing testing times in the post-cold war world. New challenges have meanwhile arisen that cannot be tackled by traditional diplomacy and taking the sole superpower towards unilateralism. Intervention became acceptable in certain situations, sometimes for the good. Look at the Balkans.

Of course, intervention also had the potential to be abused, when tempted by the opportunity of the post-cold war monopoly of power to guarantee unchallenged assertion of its will on what it sees as a menacing and disorderly new world. But there are limits to power otherwise it can turn on itself. The United States might learn the hard way that military interventions are a high-risk instrument of foreign policy specially in the Islamic world where there is a rising tide of anti-Americanism. As in the case of Iraq, these interventions can prove to be much costly and provocative, lacking sustained public support at home and arousing anxiety abroad. Even the latest UN resolution is no more than a flimsy and cosmetic endorsement of US intervention barely enough for the administration to use it for political purposes domestically.

Unlike most US presidents who generally get elected on the strength of their power base and gradually broaden their appeal and become leaders of the whole nation, Bush has made no attempt to do so except on a single issue that is terrorism. Elsewhere he has divided the nation like never before in its post-civil war history. There has always been diversity of political opinion in America but not as much polarization as it is today. And America has never before aroused so much international hostility.

Now saner voices are beginning to speak up in America. For every book that the conservatives have come out with, the liberals and mainstream intellectual elite and leaders of public opinion are beginning to counter their hubris with their own critiques. People are beginning to worry about the direction the country is headed for. And this augurs well for the country. It may set limits to what Bush can or cannot do.

Contrary to the prevailing opinion, specially abroad, that Bush and his neo-conservatives may be some revolutionaries out to put their imprimatur on the world and fashion it in their own image, I do not credit them with any conceptual policy framework representing either lofty ideals or even hard-headed realpolitic. It is essentially a clumsy political opportunism and misguided conservatism of a wealthy leadership, all with business backgrounds, representing special interests and very narrowly defining the national purpose in military terms. All this talk of modernizing Muslim countries and bringing democracy is simply an eyewash designed to give a sublime purpose to the Iraq war. Look at who is benefiting most from Iraq reconstruction — the American corporations.

It is beyond America’s capability and resources to go and reform every Muslim society. Iraq was different where people’s disaffection with Saddam may have surpassed their anti-Americanism, but elsewhere in the Islamic world America is seen as part of the problem not solution. And as Iraq war has shown, nation-building does not come cheap. Bush has probably been the first leader in American history to go into a major war amid a huge tax cut and a massive deficit.

All things considered, Bush is unlikely to embark on another military intervention during the rest of his present term. It would be a dangerous politics to do so as America enters the last year before the elections. Yes, Iran’s nuclear programme is causing concern but I do not foresee any action against Iran, or even Syria, certainly not in the next one year. The US threats will however continue aimed at ensuring that they keep their hands off Iraq. Iran’s nuclear programme will probably be taken care of by Israel, at an opportune moment.

Next elections are going to be one of the most crucial in recent American history. They will be fought as much on the basis of contrasting values as on issues and pure politics. Issues are clearly Iraq war and the economy. Victory in war does not help in winning an election but failure does help in losing it. The way Iraq war is going it will be neither a victory nor failure.

So in the final analysis the decisive issue will be the economy. And with this on again off again jobless recovery it is open to question if the economy will have improved sufficiently to hand another term to the president. At the next elections, therefore, this so-called imperialism may disappear with George W Bush as suddenly as it came. If he survives, imperialism may not, having been stymied by Iraq and a strong back lash against it both at home and abroad.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

Another exercise at OIC

THE Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is not an Islamic bloc. But all Muslim countries — 57 of them — are its members. Many years ago, an attempt was made to convert it into a bloc. But Egypt, then headed by Gamal Abdul Nasser, thwarted the move. He was the co-founder of the non-aligned movement and was dead against the very concept of blocs.

Since then the OIC has been primarily a talking shop. It meets generally once a year and passes several resolutions, one of them religiously against Israel. The matter ends there. The thread is picked up again from where it was left off. The same exercise is gone over ritualistically.

The OIC may talk big but it lacks cohesion and purpose. Internal contradictions have also weakened it. Members tend to divide themselves into two parts: one, the Arab world and the other, Asian Muslims. The Arab world is the defining people. It has money. Makkah and Medina, the two holy cities of the Muslims, are located in Saudi Arabia. The Islam as practised there reflects conservatism but with benign disposition. Unlike Pakistan and Bangladesh, it treats the minorities well.

Still the increasing fundamentalism in the countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh is beginning to tilt the balance in favour of the Asian Muslims. Their approach is aggressive. It appeals to the restive youth which feels increasingly frustrated. The impression is that the Arab ways, although well-oiled, have not been able to get the Muslims even a recognition, much less their “due place” in the world.

Malaysia represents a milder version of fundamentalism. But it leads the Asian Muslims. That explains why Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad made a furious statement that “a few Jews ruled the world by controlling the world’s major powers.” Although he withdrew the remark, he showed the grit.

Pakistan, which enjoys a lot of importance for being the only Muslim country to have the bomb, seems to influence the OIC thinking from behind the scenes. The resolution on Kashmir shows Islamabad’s clout. There is nothing new in the demand for the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris, a plebiscite or an inquiry into violations of human rights. Even the phrasing of the resolution is no different from the press notes that the Pakistan foreign office issues from time to time. But Islamabad’s success is that it had the OIC endorse its stand word for word.

So far the discussion on Kashmir at the OIC has been a formality. The question has been revived whenever Pakistan or some other member on its behalf has pressed for it. For example, Iran did so in 1990. The Egyptian ambassador in London, Mohammad Shekar, told me — I was then India’s envoy to Great Britain — that Iran had exerted the maximum pressure on the OIC. In fact, Tehran had then cancelled the visit of the then foreign minister Inder Kumar Gujral to Iran to show its solidarity with Pakistan on Kashmir. Iraq was the only Muslim country which sided with India at that time.

The OIC resolution on Kashmir is not so disconcerting as is the fact that it is one-sided. What seems to have worked is the propaganda that India has jettisoned the Palestine cause and gone over to the Israeli side. Only time will tell how effective is the OIC resolution. But it does indicate the failure of New Delhi’s foreign office and its diplomats posted in Muslim countries. They could not muster even one vote in their favour.

Nonetheless, it is comical that the OIC should demand the right of self-determination. There is hardly any member-country that follows the democratic system. Pakistan, which reportedly sponsored the resolution, is headed by a president who insists on wearing an ‘achkan’ over the khaki. Strange, there are no second thoughts on his part or his supporters in the army despite the mounting unrest against the rule of the armed forces.

The response was a meeting of corps commanders at Islamabad the other day to reaffirm that Gen Pervez Musharraf’s election as president through the referendum was final and that there was no need to seek endorsement from the current parliament which had been boycotting it. The meeting also decided that Musharraf was under no obligation to announce the date of his retirement as chief of the army staff. The khaki brand of democracy is the real democracy for the military junta.

As regards a plebiscite, it is an old hat. True, at the time of integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru promised to ascertain the wishes of the people in the state once things returned to normality. Pakistan was to carry out its part of obligations: one, to allow the Kashmir on the Pakistan side to join Jammu and Kashmir; two, to let India administer the entire state with a limited armed forces till conditions were favourable for a plebiscite.

Islamabad has not even bothered to fulfil those obligations. Nor has it allowed normality to return to the state. The new wave of killings in Kashmir, no doubt a desperate attempt to defeat people’s desire for peace, is a direct result of the militants pushed by Pakistan into the valley recently.

Indeed, the wishes of the people were determined at last year’s election when foreign observers considered it free and fair. Many elections have been bogus but the one in 1977 came in for praise from all. After sweeping the polls at that time, the then chief minister Sheikh Abdullah said that the vote reaffirmed the state’s integration with India.

Even otherwise, a plebiscite is not the way out in Kashmir. Over the years, the state has been contaminated by communal elements, both Muslims and Hindus. It has also got divided regionally. The Hindu-majority Jammu, Buddhist-majority Ladakh and the Muslim-majority valley have gone apart. Pakistan’s demand is to hold a plebiscite in the valley. Assuming such an election is held, it will turn the whole place into a communal cauldron. The experience in the past is not a happy one.

A plebiscite in the pro-Congress north-western province soon after the creation of Pakistan was reduced to a battle between the Quran and the Gita. One section of the Hurriyat, led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the only Kashmiri leader invited to the OIC meeting — thanks to Pakistan — has been communalizing the atmosphere in the valley, diluting the secular ethos of the Kashmiriyat. Any plebiscite held in the valley will only stoke the fires of parochialism and give the handle to extremists.

With a population of 120 to 130 million Muslims, India cannot risk a plebiscite in the valley. Shaky secular polity can be destroyed in the process. In fact, it was the sectarian thinking on the part of the OIC which made New Delhi quit. India was once its member because of its large Muslim population. But it withdrew when the OIC meeting at Rabat in 1969 asked Indian delegation leader Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to abstain from the meeting after the then military ruler of Pakistan Yahya Khan threatened to walk out if India attended it. A military ruler had his say over a democratic India’s representative.

That was the time when a large scale Hindu-Muslim riots took place in Gujarat. New Delhi condemned the incident vehemently but realized that the OIC was not the place for an objective stand. It has stayed out since.

The writer is a freelance columnist based in New Delhi.

The responsibility gap

IT’S always hard to vote for foreign aid, particularly when, as now, funds are short for worthy projects back home. And so President Bush is facing some resistance from members of his own party with regard to his proposed $20 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats, and the presidential candidates in particular, face even heavier pressures, because the war is highly unpopular with the most activist voters.

But political pressure doesn’t excuse irresponsibility, and what’s emerging in the Democratic Party is a gaping responsibility gap. On one side are Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, who are understandably exasperated with many aspects of Iraq policy but nonetheless support reconstruction funding. “It is the only responsible course of action,” Mr Gephardt said recently. “We must not send an ambiguous message to our troops, and we must not send an uncertain message to our friends and enemies in Iraq.”

On the wrong side is the rest of the Democratic field. Sens. John F. Kerry, and John Edwards, say they won’t vote for the funding because Mr Bush hasn’t come up with enough of a long-term plan or done enough to get allies on board. This righteous position may make them, or their voters, feel better, but the security of U.S. troops and the long-term interests of both Iraq and the United States still depend on improving Iraqi daily life.

Meanwhile, candidates who don’t have to vote are in full duck-and-cover mode. Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who not long ago told us how important it was to stay the course in Iraq, says he’d support reconstruction funding, but only if it’s paid for by rolling back part of Mr Bush’s tax cuts — which he knows is not going to happen.

Most astonishing is the response from retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, whose position is that he’s taking no position on the grounds that he’s running for president, not Congress. Mr Clark writes persuasively in his new book that “we must transform a successful military attack into victory by helping the Iraqi people use this opportunity to establish representative government and ... political and economic freedoms.” Now Mr Clark’s press secretary, Kym Spell, says, “Just as he would not ask John Kerry how he would have commanded troops in Kosovo, we don’t think it’s in John Kerry’s interest or anyone else’s to be demanding of us how he would vote in the Senate.” This is leadership?

The Washington Post

Time to repeal Hudood ordinances : The rights of woman-II

PAKISTAN is a plural society, consisting of a federation of four provinces, many more languages, several schools of thought within the Muslim majority who do not always see eye to eye, a significant minority of non-Muslims, liberals, socialists, extremists and conservatives. It comes as no surprise that at least four different attitudes to the Hudood Ordinances are discernible in the body politic of Pakistan where many a flower and concomitant thorns bloom and flourish.

The first, and most serious argument for the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances is patent from the expression “Ordinance”. The Hudood Ordinances were not enacted by parliament after being deliberated upon by a parliamentary committee, followed by a full-fledged debate, and three readings in accord with parliamentary practice.

This objection carries weight in view of the importance of the Hudood Ordinances which are promulgated by an individual. Since the ordinances purport to implement the maximum punishments permitted under Islamic law the proper foundation in Islamic jurisprudence would be the Ijma, or consensus, as reflected by the Majlis-i-Shoora, which is the appellation of the parliament of Pakistan as defined in the Constitution itself. There is no answer to this fundamental objection as to why the Majlis-i- Shoora or the parliament was bypassed.

The vociferous objection to the Legal Framework Order is that no individual can arrogate to himself the power of the parliament. It is a well known principle of jurisprudence, as enunciated by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in the seminal judgment in the case of State vs Ziaur Rahman, that there is a trichotomy of powers under the Constitution: the legislature enacts the laws of Pakistan, the executive implements the laws and the judiciary interprets the law. There is a difference between a constitutional amendment, which only the Legislature can enact, and the power conferred upon the executive by the Constitution itself to promulgate an ordinance and for this reason the objection to the LFO in the parliament and by legal practitioners alike is on a higher footing.

Yet in the spirit of the laws, to borrow a phrase from Montesquieu, the pioneer of the theory of separation of powers, there was no emergency or clear or present danger which prevented the authors of the Hudood Ordinances from presenting the ordinances in the form of a bill to be enacted by the parliament. Such important legislative measures call for a debate and Ijma in the appropriate forum, the Majlis-i-Shoora or the parliament as defined in the Constitution.

The second objection to the Hudood Ordinances is that the enforcement has led to grave injustices and a host of cruel practices. The case for the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances is best made out in a recent publication of the Aurat Foundation which bears the title “Why the Hudood Ordinances must be repealed.” The main points made by the Aurat Foundation are that:

* The Hudood Ordinances are not in accordance with Islamic injunctions.

* The Hudood Ordinances violate the constitutional provisions that there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex and that all citizens are equal under the law and are entitled to equal protection of the law.

* The Hudood Ordinances are clearly discriminatory causing grave injustice to women and minorities.

* The Hudood Ordinances are violative of the basic principles of justice, equality and human rights.

* The Hudood Ordinances are hastily and poorly constructed and full of lacunas and anomalies.

* The Hudood Ordinances have demonstrably failed to serve their purpose.

This is a powerful indictment and is supported by the Commission of Inquiry for Women which made a recommendation for the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances in 1997. This commission was headed by no less a jurist than Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid, the former Chief Justice of Sindh and Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

In August 2003, the Special Committee of the National Commission on the Status of Women, a statutory body headed by Justice Majida Razvi also recommended the repeal of the Hudood Ordinances.

The study published by the Aurat Foundation in September last states: “The Zina Ordinance has particularly hit women.” To legal practitioners the oppression and victimization of women under the guise of the zina ordinance are legendary.

There is, however, a third point of view, a significant and vocal opinion in support of the Hudood Ordinance. According to this point of view, the Hudood Ordinances are sacrosanct and non- negotiable. There are also threats of breaking ranks on the LFO if opposition to the Hudood Ordinances is not withdrawn. It is indeed surprising that those who uphold parliamentary democracy would stifle debate, which is of the essence in the parliament.

Fourthly there are those, and this cuts across party lines, who maintain that the Hudood Ordinances be amended, and not repealed. This point of view would enjoy some credence if those who are in favour of amending the Hudood Ordinances actually come forward with concrete amendments. Until the time of this article no bill for the amendment of the Hudood Ordinances has been presented to the parliament.

Thus, the choice before the parliament is to repeal or not to repeal.

One possible solution, and this is the one that the author of this article would invite the parliament to consider, while considering the bill to repeal the Hudood Ordinances, adding a proviso that the Council of Islamic Ideology draft a bill to bring the penal laws in consonance with the spirit of Islam and for the removal of any penal provision which is repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam.

The Constitution of Pakistan contains a self-executing machinery for the Islamization of the laws. The Council of Islamic Ideology is an organ of the Constitution first constituted under the unanimously adopted Constitution of Pakistan 1973. Most unfortunately the Council has been a sleepy hollow and a sinecure for retired judges who have made negligible contribution towards the epochal task of reconciling Islam with modern times.

(Concluded)

You are not all right

It may have slipped by your attention, but a U.S. court of appeals ruled six to five that a murderer on death row who was psychotic had to be forcibly given anti-psychotic drugs so he would be sane enough to be executed.

As usual, I did not make this up. What the judges didn’t realize is that without therapy from a doctor, anti-psychotic drugs don’t make the patient better.

I take you now to death row in an Arkansas maximum-security prison. Dr. Abramowitz is sitting on a chair in Charles Singleton’s cell. Charles is lying on his bunk. The doctor says, “Charles, did you take your drugs today?”

“No, I didn’t.”

The doctor says, “Why not?”

Charles says, “I may be crazy, but I’m not THAT crazy. Besides, the pills have side effects. I don’t like the dizziness and bladder dysfunction.”

“What are you thinking right now?”

“The governor of Arkansas wants to kill me.”

“You’re making that up. Why would he want to kill you?”

“He says he wants to kill me so justice is served. I read it in the Arkansas Gazette.”

“Who else wants to kill you?”

“Six justices on the court of appeals.”

The doctor says, “Don’t you think you’re being paranoid?”

“I hope so. Then they can’t execute me.”

“Now let’s talk about your dreams. What do you dream about?”

“I dream they are dragging me off to the electric chair and I keep screaming ‘Cruel and unusual punishment!”’

“Who else is in your dream?”

“The nine members of the Supreme Court, who are just sitting there not saying anything.”

“That is not unusual. Many people on death row dream of the Supreme Court in hopes of its overturning their convictions.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“You’re going to have to or the anti-psychotic pills won’t kick in.”

“Why do you care?” “I’m a doctor. I have to heal you, even at the cost of your life.”

“Suppose I don’t talk to you?”

The doctor said, “It would go on your record that you are being uncooperative and you would lose all your health benefits.”

“I wouldn’t want that to happen. Tell me, Doc, how much do you charge for these visits?”

“One hundred dollars an hour, but the state pays for it. Most psychiatrists say the patient has to pay or he won’t get anything out of it. In your case, I’m making an exception.”

“Am I the first person you’ve ever treated on death row?”

“You’re not the first person to flip out, but you’re the first one who’s being force-fed anti-psychotic drugs. If you get executed, you’ll wind up in the Guinness Book of Records.”

“What do you think, Doc?”

“What do you think, Charles?”

“I asked you first.”

“As your doctor, I am not supposed to tell you what to do. Now I’m going to show you some ink blots.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services