THE Bush administration’s decision to embark on a pre-emptive war to oust the Saddam Hussein regime was based on defective information that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Late summer 2002 Vice-President Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice drummed up support in favour of a forcible regime change.

In a variation to their exigent approach, secretary of state Colin Powell suggested a return of UN inspectors as a first step to establishing the evidence before taking military action (Breakfast with Frost, BBC interview September 1, 2002).

In retrospect, making WMD the centrepiece of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” has turned out to be a costly blunder that has blighted the lustre of America’s swift military campaign. The Bush administration’s failure to substantiate Iraq’s alleged links with Al Qaeda is a second embarrassing setback. Growing Iraqi resistance is the third. The question arises, might it have been possible to justify pre-emption on any morally or politically acceptable grounds other than possession of WMD or suspected Al Qaeda links?

The Afghan campaign had posed no problem of international acceptance because “Operation Enduring Freedom” was in direct response to the devastating attack of 9/11, followed by the refusal of the Taliban to expel the Al Qaeda from Afghanistan. For Iraq, one needs to consider whether Mr Saddam Hussein’s violent political style, his track record of military aggression against Iran and Kuwait, his resort to chemical weapons against the Kurds and the Iranians, and his defiance of UN resolutions were reasons enough to consider terminating his regime in the aftermath of September 11.

To understand Iraqi leader’s practical politics, one needs the help of Urdu, which sprang from the Mughal army camps (orda in Mongol and Turkish, horde in English). Urdu has two powerful nouns that are appropriate in describing Saddam Hussein’s political style. Changeziat, (literally, Genghisism), means unbridled autocracy combined with aggression. If imperial hauteur and inaccessibility is the dominant trait, the Urdu word is Phironiat, or Pharaohism. The former Iraqi president combined both traits in his person.

Saddam Hussein practised Changeziat in Iraq and his neighbourhood. He massacred thousands of Kurds and subjected the Iraqi people to all kinds of brutality, repression and hardship. Playing for very high stakes, he lost badly in his misadventure against Iran, which cost more than a million Iranian and Iraqi lives. This was followed by his catastrophic invasion of Kuwait.

In happier times the United States, a wide open society, could afford to disregard potential threats to its security. Terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre (2001), the Khobar barracks (1996), the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998), and the USS Cole (2000) were indicators of growing vulnerability. The unthinkability barrier, amnesia and lack of contextualization of these deadly attacks were to have dire consequences for the entire world when a small band of terrorists used civilian passenger aircraft as weapons of mass destruction.

After September 11, the Bush administration tightened security on a grand scale, in the process committing excesses against Muslim immigrants, legal and otherwise, as well as students, who posed no threat to US security. During Operation Enduring Freedom, the US Air Force erred on the side of overkill during its bombing campaign, by targeting an unknown number of Pashtun non-combatants. In its wake, Pakistan’s religious parties reaped a bonanza of sympathy votes and won the elections in the two western border provinces.

Saddam Hussein was an obvious U.S. target as a certified diehard foe of the United States, who practised Changeziat, and who had used chemical weapons against Iraqi citizens and against Iran. Over the past 11 years the Iraqi leader’s dogged resistance to sanctions had enabled him to gain a halo of defiance. By forcing the UN inspectors to exit from Iraq through his lack of cooperation, he was able to erode the effectiveness of the UNSC resolutions. Policy bungler and inept warrior he may have been, but none can deny that Saddam Hussein had shown remarkable stamina for survival.

Unfortunately for the Iraqi leader, September 11 brought new, unforgiving rules of the game. The Fabian doctrine was out, decisive action in. International legality or acceptability took a back seat.

Irrespective of lack of proof of Iraqi complicity in the 9/11 attacks, President Bush determined that waiting for Mr. Saddam Hussein to make the first move was too risky. Iraq’s inability to build nuclear weapons could be temporary, while its suspected stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons might be unleashed against the United States via proxy terrorist groups. President Bush made the new approach clear in his State of the Union address of January 2002, when he somewhat carelessly identified the so-called “axis of evil” comprising Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Pre-emptive action, however, required the support of the American people and the Congress. The international community on its part remained adamantly opposed to unilateral action on grounds that it would violate international law and the UN Charter. Observers like Henry Kissinger, while giving qualified approval to pre-emption against Iraq, recognized the danger of establishing a precedent that could be detrimental to the interests of smaller states. Dr Kissinger specifically cited the possibility that India might be tempted to resort to pre-emption against Pakistan.

The question to consider is: would the American people have supported launching “Operation Iraqi Freedom” if the Bush administration had not made the claim, so far unsubstantiated, that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? According to public opinion polls, the American people believed that Saddam Hussein was capable of instigating and supporting terrorist attacks against them.

They were pre-disposed to intervention and amenable to persuasion, if only the case were presented properly. Perhaps, the Bush government could have fared better in the end by focusing more on the essential traits of the Iraqi leadership and its doings against Iran, Kuwait and the Iraqi people, instead of projecting WMD as an imminent threat, about which solid proof was lacking.

In the event of denial of Congressional approval for a pre-emptive war, President Bush could have banked on the UN weapons inspectors at their intrusive best to keep Iraq in check. By launching a war on the basis of a flawed case of culpability and subsequently failing to find WMD in Iraq, Bush and Tony Blair have undermined their credibility — not beyond repair perhaps — but sufficiently to make the Anglo-Saxon powers think many more times before contemplating pre-emptive action against defiant regimes in the future.

Lastly, the two leaders have quite unexpectedly created an opening for their opponents, giving them renewed hope of unseating them in the next elections. This applies particularly to the Democratic opponents of President Bush. If armed resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan does not abate, and the US economy does not pick up, who knows what the consequences might be for President Bush in November 2004?

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

‘HATEFUL and outrageous,’ says US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, ‘offensive,’ intones Australian Prime Minister John Howard, ‘not only offensive, they are downright dangerous,’ corrects Australian opposition spokesman for foreign affairs Kevin Rudd.

Italian foreign minister finds them ‘offensive expressions’ and his Belgian counterpart describes these as ‘crazed and totally anti-Semitic’. The US state department considers them ‘offensive and inflammatory’. The Italians felt the issue was urgent enough business for the EU summit. Britain and German foreign offices summoned relevant diplomats to respectively ‘raise our concern directly’ and ‘to protest against the absolutely unacceptable remarks’.

Congressmen of both hues joined the chorus. Most of this happened within 24 hours, on October 17 to be precise. Significantly the uproar was witnessed in North America, western Europe and Australia. Rest of the world was only flabbergasted by the intensity of the reaction.

The above is a small sample of reaction to the speech delivered by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir, while inaugurating the 10th summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Notably, all comments have been focused on just one paragraph out of fifty-nine have emanated from a geographical area that professedly champions the cause of free speech, are remarkable in similarity and came within hours of each other.

In its entirety the speech in a scholarly manner analyzes present condition of 1.3 billion Muslims in the world, reasons for their dismal plight and recommends possible remedies. It describes the acts of violence committed by small-uncoordinated groups as counter-productive and instead advises negotiations even when the terms being offered are unfavourable, urges use of brains not just brawns. To drive home the point Mahathir refers to the Hudaibiyah peace treaty signed by the holy Prophet (PBUH) when the Muslims were weak. This should have been music to the ears of the leaders in the West who, publicly at least, profess a strong commitment to peace. There is no reference to this in any of the virulent comments.

Citing teachings of the Holy Quran, Mahathir calls for patience while Islamic countries can set their own houses in order, learn to marshal their not inconsiderable resources and attain a respectable position in the comity of nations. He calls for building strength, military, economic, administrative, industrial and technological patiently. He denigrates apathy and hopelessness.

It was in this context that he cited the Jewish people’s example. Their suffering in Europe, patient labour for nearly 2000 years and success today ‘when they rule the world by proxy and get others to fight and die for them’. He was stating this as an example worthy of emulation by other suppressed people and particularly by the ummah up to a point. He has different views on their behaviour today. By stating this so bluntly, it appears, he stepped on some sensitive toes.

Sufferings undergone by the Jews in their years in Diaspora are a fact of history. Words like pogrom and holocaust became part of lexicon. Their success in the financial field and control of influential media is also well documented. These are the tools they can use to influence elections to a degree far out of proportion to their numbers as voters.

A majority of candidates for political office generally outbid each other in projecting themselves as supporters of the policies of Israel. Exceptions that try to swim against this tide return home and write books like ‘They Dare To Speak’. As regard the assertion that they make other people fight and die for them, one only has to look at the target countries selected by neocons (what a deferential way of referring to a group that brought misery to millions including Americans) now in power in the US.

Iraq, Iran and Syria have been publicly named by the likes of Richard Perle. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are also being kept on short leash. The only common denominator of this list, besides oil, is potential to obstruct Zionist plans for greater Israel. North Korea is causing worries but there a policy of ‘engagement’ is considered adequate.

Israel’s own reaction to the whole episode is very revealing. A foreign ministry statement while expressing ‘disgust with these anti-Semitic remarks’ called on “all right thinking people and countries, both in the Muslim world and outside to condemn the invocation of the anti-Semitic ideas which led to the worst case of mass murder in human history”.

They may have been disappointed by the response from the Muslim and other countries in the Second and Third World but can take comfort from the fact that the champions of democracy in the First World stood up to be counted, one and all. In the process, however, they also, paradoxically, proved Mahathir’s assertions as correct!!

Contrast this with the ease with Islam and Muslims can be slandered. The perpetrators in this regard include people like Italian prime minister and the likes of Mr Pipes and Gen Boykin who have been rewarded with lucrative jobs by the US administration. The latter averred that the Muslims worship an idol and not a real God. His boss in the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld found nothing worthy of his notice in this vile and vicious assertion.

His comment was, “There are a lot of things said by the people... that are their views and that’s the way we live. We are a free people.” Why not extend these freedoms of speech to lesser mortals? In Mahathir’s case Efrain Zuroff, head of Israel’s watchdog for human rights and charged with tracking Nazis had this to say, “The enlightened (mark the word) world should silence prime minister of Malaysia for his deliberately anti- Semitic remarks”.

Dr Mahathir, at 77, is voluntarily quitting an elected office after ably steering his country on road to progress for two decades. Before leaving he has done a great service to the ummah by diagnosing the disease accurately and recommending the right medicine. That the detractors of Muslims have tried to befuddle the issue should be reason enough for Muslims to heed his prescription.

THE October 22 issue of this newspaper quoted a stern statement by Dr Fareeda Ahmed of the Muttahida Majlis-I-Amal, who claimed that the Hudood Ordinance cannot be repealed even on the recommendation of the national commission on the status of women, as it is strictly based on the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah.

She also had a go at the NGOs which were trying “ to unsettle a settled issue,” by accusing them of getting “huge foreign funds without any check.” This was a strange statement, especially as it was made by a woman and that too, a former member of the NCSW, an organization which was set up to improve the lot of women who have been outrageously discriminated against ever since General Ziaul Haq presented his great gift to the nation. She also fired a couple of missiles at the government, accusing it of trying to foment trouble between two factions of the opposition, to divert attention from the controversial LFO.

The other wing of the opposition, to which Dr Ahmed is referring, is, of course, the PPP, whose active member, Sherry Rahman, is the co-sponsor of a bill introduced in the lower house to enact the Protection and Empowerment of Women Act 2003.

This is the first serious attempt by an MNA to reform the existing laws which have militated against the rights of women in this country and made them subject to the capricious will of men. Can anybody ever forget what happened in Meerwalla? Or the fact that there are still panchayats composed of men who call themselves Muslims, who can order the rape of a veiled woman who is a Hafiz-i-Quran?

Women’s organizations in Sindh and Punjab are waiting with bated breath to see what eventually happens, especially when they know that the parliament still includes people who think like Ajmal Khattak, and harbour quaint, medieval ideas of what constitutes honour, and MNAs from the same two provinces who believe a man is justified in axing his wife or daughter, if she happens to sit next to a strange man in a public place.

There are reports that the MMA, worried that it might lose the first round, has asked Maulana Fazlur Rahman to resolve the issue with the PPP, and to agree on some sort of compromise. This might take the shape of allowing the Hudood Ordinance to continue, with a drastic modification of application and procedure.

Whatever the outcome of the discussions, I can’t help feeling that Dr Ahmed is swimming against the current. She represents a point of view which, with each passing day, is being regarded as increasingly repressive and archaic. Her views on Article 5 of the bill, which deals with imprisonment of women on suspicion of indulging in immoral behaviour, followed by honour killing, are not known. Nor are her views on the hundreds of women who have unjustly been persecuted and are languishing, with their children, in prison.

Much has been written about the problems faced by women prisoners in Pakistan. A large number of the female inmates don’t have the slightest clue as to why they have been imprisoned and are often worried about the children who are left unattended at home or old parents who suffer because of neglect.

It is estimated that there are around 300 women in the special women’s prison in Karachi. Only 40 of them have been convicted and were serving their sentence. At least 250 are under-trial prisoners. Since the conviction rate is only about 10 per cent, they will probably spend the next five years in jail.

Now here’s the rub. Most of these women will probably be released when their cases come to court, because the evidence against them is pretty flimsy. But until that happens, they will be condemned to stay in prison. The point, however, is, surely somebody must be made responsible and accountable for this travesty of justice — either the police for wrongful imprisonment, or the husbands, uncles, brothers and in-laws of the victims, who wanted to get them out of the way for whatever reason. Such scoundrels should be awarded the same punishment that they have indirectly inflicted on these women.

These are the women who have lost all hope, who feel they have been abandoned by society. Many of them claim that they are innocent and have been arrested after being falsely accused. But there is nobody to listen to them. People like Zia Awan and Ahmed Bayat do their bit. But they need volunteers who can put in the odd hour or two every week, and fork up a little something to provide bail for the 40 foreign inmates held on drug charges.

There are only two jails for women in Sindh — one in Larkana, and the other adjacent to the Central Prison in Karachi. The Karachi jail was created just six years ago when a high court ruling separated the women and children from the main jail. At that time, there was only a single ward for women within the main jail.

The law is very clear on the subject of how to deal with a felon. If a woman is arrested in any part of Sindh, after being suspected of having committed a crime, she is sent straight to jail. It’s a little different for the man. The normal procedure is to detain a suspect in a police lock-up, and to produce him before a magistrate within 24 hours. But under the law, women cannot be detained in a police lock-up, and so they have to be sent to jail, only to get stuck there for months or even years before their cases come up.

Many of the women belong to distant areas like Thatta, Mirpurkhas, or Tando Allahyar, where the alleged crime was supposed to have been committed, and they are transported all the way to Karachi, furthering their sense of alienation. When it is time for them to make an appearance in a local court, a special transport has to be provided, along with an armed escort. On many occasions, the jail authorities just couldn’t be bothered to go through the motions.

Most women do not have access to legal counsel. According to the law, the authorities provide an advocate only to those prisoners who have committed a crime which is punishable by death. Others have to fend for themselves. As most of the women are wretched and poor, their chances of leaving prison are extremely remote. Even those who can scrape up enough money to be represented, are frustrated because they have no knowledge of how their cases are progressing.

Under-trial prisoners, who form the bulk of the jail population, are, in a sense, the worst off. According to the law, remissions can be granted to convicts four times a year on major public holidays.

On these occasions, each prisoner, except those jailed for murder, or culpable homicide not amounting to murder, are granted a remission, or a reduction in their sentence. Remissions, however, can only be granted to those who have already been sentenced, and the time already spent in prison will normally be adjusted against the sentence. Since under-trial prisoners have not yet been tried, this concession does not apply to them.

Almost all the prisoners at the women’s jail belong to the poorest sections of society, whether they are accused of zina; drug trafficking; or murder Since the government is not trying to come to grips with the problem, and people like Dr Fareeda Ahmed don’t appear to be interested, the least she should do is leave those NGOs alone. I’d hate to think what would happen if they disappeared.

Email: a-mooraj@cyber.net.pk

FOR well over a year the world has been so preoccupied by the argument over the micro picture, whether or not Iraq, North Korea and Iran were building nuclear weapons, that the big picture — that this is the right time to take a big step forward on world wide nuclear disarmament- has been all but overlooked.

Indeed, one can argue that the small picture worries are not that important, but the big picture worry — that Russia, the U.S., Britain, France and China still have missiles ready to point at each other — is the one to lay awake at night about.

Certainly with Iraq there can now be little debate about its supposed nuclear weapons’ programme. The UN disarmament process following the first Gulf war in 1991 did its job better than Washington ever imagined.

Whether Iran is or is not building nuclear weapons is an on-going discussion among experts. It has every reason to, if one accepts the argument than an underdog who wants to challenge American interests or defend itself against its aggressive neighbor Iraq can easily persuade itself that nuclear weapons are the only thing that could dissuade outsiders from trying an attack. Yet now that Iraq is disarmed the fair question is who on earth would Iran need to use them against?

Probably we have to worry about North Korea even less. For all its isolationism North Korea has no real active enemies it would use its supposed nuclear arsenal against. It has Washington on its back, but it is not actually militarily threatened. Indeed it is the other way round, if anything. The U.S. soldiers embedded close to its border are in fact hostages to be quickly killed in any military blow up.

As for India and Pakistan, from time to time they teeter irresponsibly on the brink of nuclear war, but horrific though it would be for those two countries if there were war, it would cause little danger to the outside world.

And even Israel, with its “eye for eye” culture, the only scenario the military planners have ever foreseen is to retaliate against a chemical Scud attack. Yet if Israel unleashed its nuclear arsenal it would lose all legitimacy as a nation. It would become a pariah that no one, not even America, would extend a helping hand to. Does this mean we should relax about proliferation? Not at all. For the history of the cold war teaches us how close we came to accidental war on a number of occasions and how, in a crisis, politicians can be tempted at least to threaten to use them, which convinces others that they are the currency of power.

The more fingers there are on the nuclear button around the world, the more likely, by intent, malevolence, accident or insubordination, they could be used with all the devastation they involve. Most of the arguments given above depend on rational decision making. But the Cuban Missile Crisis told us that human beings can get close to becoming irrational and irresponsible.

This is why we have the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In May 1995 the treaty, signed by 185 nations, was renewed indefinitely. But what should have been a landmark in arms control was more a mark of failure, of promises made and broken by the big nuclear powers, who solemnly undertook to move rapidly towards nuclear disarmament if the treaty were renewed.

The recent disarmament treaty negotiated by presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin is riddled with holes. It lacks a schedule of phased reductions, allowing both sides to defer the promised cuts until 2012, when the treaty expires.

The treaty does not require the elimination of a single missile site, submarine, warhead, bomber or bomb.

Nuclear disarmament seems an idealistic, even utopian goal. Richard Perle talks of the generals who advocate rapid nuclear disarmament- like George Lee Butler, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command- as men “whose stars are not on their uniforms but on their eyes”. But then to see an end to the Cold War was regarded as utopian by an overwhelming majority of experts and politicians until the moment it happened.

In the 1960s the late Herman Kahn, arguably the greatest nuclear strategist of all time, pondered pessimistically on the conditions necessary for returning to a nuclear-free world. He thought it would take a U.S.-Soviet nuclear war followed by an immediate pact never to use them again. But Kahn said they must not have time to bury the dead, otherwise the old mistrust and enmity will quickly return.

But I think Kahn would be amazed to see how little enmity there is today between the old nuclear superpower rivals and indeed between both of them and the rising superpower, China. Not since 1871-1914 has there been so little active hostility between the big powers. This must be the time to get our grip on the issue of big power nuclear disarmament, for without that there is simply no credibility when dealing with would-be nuclear proliferators in the Third World.— Copyright Jonathan Power

WHEN things go wrong in a society, in a way and to a degree that can no longer be denied, people ask questions and demand answers. Who did this to us? What went wrong? What did we do wrong? For a long time people in the Islamic world have been asking these questions with growing anguish, mounting urgency and seething anger.

There is indeed good reason for such questioning and concern. For many centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human civilization and achievement.

However, in the course of the 20th century, it became abundantly clear in the Middle East and indeed all over the lands of Islam that things were going badly wrong. Today the western world is light years ahead. While the Islamic world was busy debating — a debate that lasted for 300 years — the pros and cons of permitting the entry of printing press, the western world moved on and advanced to the centre of the world stage.

Today the Islamic world is in thrall, its independence a myth, rudderless, disoriented, its spirit broken, mired in public poverty, private luxury and rampant corruption. Today it will take the average Arab citizen 140 years to double his or her meagre income while some other regions are set to achieve that level in a matter of less than 10 years!

Today about 65 million adult Arabs are illiterate, two-thirds of them women. Out of seven world regions, the Arab countries have the lowest freedom score. The Arab region also has the lowest value of all regions of the world for voice and accountability.

The irony is that overwhelming majority of the Muslims now live in independent states. Independence was seen as the great talisman that would automatically bring all other benefits. That has not happened. The long quest for freedom has left a string of shabby tyrannies, ranging from traditional autocracies, to new-style dictatorships, modern only in their apparatus of repression.

What prevented these rulers from modernizing their countries and developing democratic institutions, marked not only by free and fair elections, but also rule of law, Habeas Corpus, a strong and independent judiciary, a strong, professional civil service and fundamental rights? Recently, these architects of our misfortunes, met at Putrajaya to harness the Islamic world’s collective brainpower to turn the tide against Islam and seek solutions to the problems of the Ummah!

The summit was attended by two kings, two sheikhs, a sultan, a prince, twenty presidents and seven prime ministers. It featured a surprise address by President Putin. Predictably, it made no reference to acts of terrorism perpetrated by the Russian security forces in Chechnya against innocent Muslim men, women and children and completely ignored the ongoing slaughter of the Chechens.

In the final communique adopted at the end of the summit, they shied away from openly supporting the three-year Palestinian uprising. Neither the communique nor a separate declaration on East Jerusalem and Palestine mentioned the Intifada. It refrained from adopting a draft paragraph that had “paid tribute to the just resistance of the Palestinian people and its heroic Intifada to recover its national rights”.

They pledged to fight terrorism while toning down resolution on Iraq and the Middle East. On Iraq they dropped plans for a resolution calling for a specific timetable for the withdrawal of US forces in the face of opposition from the members of Iraq’s interim governing council. Instead, they welcomed the US-sponsored UN Security Council resolution which authorizes a multi-national force in Iraq and simply called for moves towards the resolution of Iraq’s sovereignty to be accelerated. The OIC also condemned recent violence in Iraq as “criminal terrorist bombing” but made no reference to the American invasion of Iraq or its illegal occupation, and refrained from condemning it.

What is Islamic about this motley crowd who gathered at Putrajaya? What is their locus standi and what are their credentials? What is Islamic about this incongruous mixture? Islam is against hereditary monarchy and rejects the concept of privilege by descent, by birth, by status, by wealth, or even by race and insists that rank and honour are determined by piety and merit and nothing else. How many of these heads of state and government are elected? How many represent the will of their people? How many are usurpers who have imposed themselves on their docile subjects?

How many are US appointees? How many are on the American payroll? How many would survive without American support? The United States dominated the proceedings, despite its absence, and breathed down the neck of every member.

The OIC always reminds me of the League of Nations. When it was formed, Lenin described it as “a thieves kitchen”. “I like the League”, Clemenceau famously remarked, “But I do not believe in it”. Nobody believes in the OIC either and very few like it.

Today the Islamic world is a prime target for America, the latest imperial power, virtuoso in the art of smashing Islamic countries and establishing its control over the remains. It has all the requirements to make it the perfect American target. It has enormous natural resources; it has a rotten socio-political system in an advanced stage of decay and decomposition; its rulers are corrupt, despotic, authoritarian, unresponsive to the prime needs of the people, accountable to none; it lacks the will to defend itself because what its rulers represent is not worth defending; it is highly vulnerable to attack; a coup de grace, or a coup de main, a powerful kick and the entire rotten structure will come crashing down.

At relatively little risk and cost, America can gain strategic advantages in the Islamic world and place itself increasingly in a position to control the world’s resources and life-lines. The aim is to gain control of the energy treasure house of the Gulf. “More than ever”, Nixon once said, “the question of who controls what in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East is the key to who controls what in the world”.

When Americans go to take a bite out of the Islamic world, they are not fussy eaters. It matters little to them whether the prey is secular or theocratic, hereditary monarchy or military dictatorship, socialist or capitalist. What matters is that it conduct its foreign and military policies in a way that serves American national interest.

Meanwhile, the people in power in the Islamic world seem more concerned with protecting themselves and their thrones than protecting their countries. The search for scapegoats is on. The blame game — the Mongols, the French and British imperialists, the Jews and now the Americans — continues.

For the governments, at once oppressive, corrupt and ineffectual that rule the Islamic world, this game serves a useful, indeed an essential purpose — to explain the poverty that they have failed to alleviate and to justify the tyranny that they have intensified. In this way they seek to deflect the mounting anger of their unhappy peoples against others, outer targets.

Why blame the Mongols or western imperialists? We deserve the fate that has now descended upon us. We lie in the grip of even worse perils and humiliations than those we have faced so far. An evil spirit hangs over the Islamic world. Is it our destiny that there must always be darkness at high noon there must always be a shadow against the sun? Far too many peoples in too many Islamic countries speak the same language: “Silence”. Far too long, the Islamic history has been a history of silence. It is time to speak.

If history is a guide, any dramatic change that does come in Islamic society will be caused by the people who resist foreign invaders — not by the people who collaborate with them. Islam is the religion of those who value freedom and independence and know how to protect them. It is the school of those who struggle against imperialism. It is not the religion of collaborators who betray their country.

Today Islamic world faces its greatest threat. This is the darkest era in the history of Islam since the 13th century. The independence and sovereignty of the Islamic world is a myth. Afghanistan and Iraq are under foreign occupation and have ceased to exist as sovereign, independent countries. Afghans and Iraqis paid a horrible price for not meeting US demands and defying the world’s sole superpower.

Iran, Syria and Pakistan are next on the hit list. We do not know what will happen to the Islamic countries in the future, but our experience of the past does at least throw a flickering gleam of light on the darkness ahead.

Nations ordinarily break down and collapse either through impotence or through tyranny. In the first case, power slips from their grasp, whereas in the second it is taken away from them.

I have to repeat the dictum of Harvard’s President, Larry Summers: “In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car”. Most people in the Islamic world feel that way about their countries. They have to be given ownership. The Islamic world, as it is now constituted and governed, has little chance of survival.