SHOULD the 18-year old Saarc be made more effective by enrolling new members or be made more potent by enabling it solve the political disputes which bedevil the relations between its members?

Or should it focus more on far larger economic cooperation among member states and make it a truly vibrant body that helps reduce the excessive poverty and human misery in the region of 1.3 billion people?

Between what the people want or really need, and what the squabbling leaders are able to achieve there has been a large gap. Numerous meetings and endless seminars and 11 summits have not helped solve the problems or reduce the human pain in the region. So a number of suggestions are being made by Saarc countries to make the twelfth summit in Islamabad in January more purposeful or less frustrating than its vacuous predecessors.

Such large questions about the future of Saarc cropped up in the course of the meeting of the SAARC Information ministers at New Delhi last week, inaugurated by the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and attended by Pakistan’s vocal information minister Shaikh Rashid Ahmed. He was effusive in his praise of Mr Vajpayee whom he described as a man of vision and the only hope for peace in the region now.

Pakistan had two major proposals to make the Saarc effective: enrol new members like China and Iran, and enable it to solve the political disputes between its members. India’s major proposal was a large economic role for Saarc to reduce poverty in the region. If the Saarc did not deliver the goods economically its member states would join other economic groupings and Saarc will miss the boat only talking of the past. Mr Vajpayee quoted the examples of the European Union and the Asean in Asia, of the Free Trade Area moves in Latin America and Africa and the Apec - Asia Pacific Economic Community which disregarded political disputes and joined hands for the common good of their peoples.

The fact is that if China and Iran join Saarc, other countries in the region would want to join in. If Iran is in, Afghanistan cannot be kept out. India, too, would insist on that. Some Central Asian states, too, may want to join the grouping. Maynmar, and Thailand too may want to enter Saarc for whatever it is worth.

And when China joins the Saarc its considerations may be far larger than that of the current Saarc members. When it comes to enabling Saarc to solve the political disputes of its members, which have defied solution for long,many members may not agree to that. Many international bodies are organized on the basis of keeping mutual political disputes outside such organizations. The Commonwealth is one such example. Many economic groupings, too, keep their political disputes outside their organization.

But Sheikh Rashid said in New Delhi that “close cooperation and development can only develop in a regional grouping when there is complete political harmony among its members.”

The European Union, he said, is developing a common defence policy and foreign policy. The Asean, too, has a political forum. “However we, the Saarc members, did not set our house in order. other regional groupings would take their place. They would also miss the boat of economic opportunity beckoning them.

In the 1990s Inder Kumar Gujral as foreign minister and then prime minister of India came out what later came to be known as the Gujral Doctrine. It said that if Pakistan did not want the South Asia Preferential trade area and then the South Asian Free Trade Area within the Saarc area and then the South Asian Free Trade Area within the Saarc orbit, India should sign such agreements with other Saarc states. India signed such an agreement promptly with Nepal and then Sri Lanka and has been negotiating such a deal with Bangladesh.

Pakistan, too, has been doing the same and has been negotiating a Free Trade Area Agreement with Sri Lanka and another with Bangladesh. Pakistan has asked for tax relief on 600 items to be exported to Bangladesh and has been waiting for the list from Dhaka.

Mr vajpayee spoke of the close cooperation India is seeking with other countries. The Asean summit meeting at Bali was one such example. And the sub-regional initiatives for Bimstec involving Bangladesh, India, Mynamar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand were another. Later this month India will host the India-European Union summit at Delhi, where similarly many new proposals for economic cooperation are on the anvil.

He said during his visit to Moscow he would be discussing the multi-model north-south transport corridor, linking India, Iran and Central Asia with Russia.

He said he was mentioning these developments as an example what was happening in the world, and the Saarc members could afford to ignore that and be preoccupied with old disputes at their own peril.

India is not only trying to make new alliances or arrangements for cooperation but also trying to keep Pakistan out of such arrangements to the best possible extent. It tried hard to prevent the Asean having anything to do with Pakistan organizationally and Pakistan is now at the lower end of the table. It has kept Pakistan out of the Indian Ocean Rim countries Association.

India often quotes the example of its relations with China and how it has been able to shelve the border dispute between them and work with China. It had even held a joint naval exercise with China last week which made the world look at it in disbelief. But China is making it easy for India to talk to it. China has reduced the strength of its army and cut down its military expenditure. It has a total economic approach to defence too.

India instead is not only making advanced new weapons and developing its missile technology further but also buying the most sophisticated weapons from all over the world, including Israel whose weapons are cheap for special customers like India. The latest is the Falcon Radar system from Israel mounted on Russian planes. India today is the third largest importer of arms in the world , and that is in addition to its tremendous arms manufacturing capacity.

Mr Vajpayee tells the small Saarc states not to be terrified of India’s large size or its economic strength. Instead they should take advantage of its large market for those who can sell their products competitively.

If Belgium and the Netherlands, not to talk of the Nordic countries, can thrive along with the far larger France and Germany by focusing on the comparative advantage of their products and services, the small countries in Asia could do the same by focusing on the comparative advantage of their products. Anyway with a population of 146 millions Pakistan is not a small country to be scared of the size of the Indian economy.

In spite of the large size of India and its growing middle class with western orientation foreign investment in India is not more than four million dollars a year. If the small countries of South Asia do better than they are doing now, they can attract far more foreign investment. The British high commissioner Mark Lyall Grant says the India - Pakistan dispute is hurting Pakistan’s economy. And he is right.

The distortions in the economic pattern of the region should come to an end now as it caused needless losses to all the regional states. India needs gas from Tajikistan but it does not want the gas pipeline from Tajikistan to pass through Pakistan. Instead, it is asking China to let the pipeline pass through its territory at a higher cost. When the issue is the pipe line from Iran passing through Pakistan, India prefers the pipelines pass under the water which is costly, and carries its own risks. Economic cooperation between Saarc states cannot flourish unless the deep distrust which vexes them vanishes.

There is a rivalry for regional influence in Central Asia between India and Pakistan now. India’s increasing influence in Afghanistan, and the Indian, Afghan and Iranian cooperation is upsetting Pakistan. India is giving tremendous economic concessions to Iran and Afghanistan to promote the trilateral economic cooperation. And India is reported to have built a military base in Tajikistan. India has also undertaken to construct a road link connecting Northern Afghanistan with Chahbahar in Iran in order to have direct access to goods to Central Asia.

Clearly the suspension of the overflights of Indian planes across Pakistan territory has not deterred India from building up strong economic contacts with Central Asian states.

Mr Vajpayee says Europe has forgotten the bitterness and hostility of the cold war and come together. He wants the Saarc countries do the same and build a far better economy. But since they became free in 1947 India and Pakistan have fought three wars and a fourth was narrowly averted last year when the forces of both were massed against each other. Large communal riots as those in the Indian Gujarat last year remind the people of the deep divide between the two countries despite their brief history.

And now that both sates are nuclear armed powers, and they have a range of constantly improved missiles, whose power is frequently demonstrated, there ought to be more restraint between them. But India is arming itself to teeth, and forcing Pakistan to do likewise, as the US did in relation to the USSR and ultimately brought it down despite the enormous range of its nuclear armaments.

India is forcing Pakistan to over-spend on arms even for its minimum deterrence, and strain itself under the heavy burden. All that makes Pakistan stress that a political settlement between the two countries is important, or at least a serious dialogue before other areas of cooperation could be earnestly explored.

As far as the people on both sides are concerned they want peace and economic and cultural cooperation between the two countries and, they are demonstrating that amply. Two large trade delegations have visited each other and now 37 Pakistani exhibitors are participating in India’s international Fair at New Delhi.

India has a high savings rate while Pakistan’s savings rate is very poor. And now we have a consumer spending spree with borrowed money. And yet 40 per cent of the people on both sides live below the poverty line of a dollar a day and they have the highest number of illiterate people in the world.

The money which is now going into defence, into nuclear weapons and long range missiles should be going into education and public health. And more money is spent on both sides not only on the army and the arms but also a larger border police force and intelligence agencies to be constantly watchful of each other.

The European Union which has a common visa for foreigners to visit them will soon have 10 more members making their strength 25. But we in this region will be preoccupied with our old disputes and the new schisms they give birth to.

Kashmir should not be allowed to hold up solutions to all other issues and block other areas of cooperation. After 56 years of independence the people want relief and a better living. And the leaders should provide that instead of forming new political parties or dividing old parties on personal grounds. This is the time for leadership and vision, and not perpetuating old disputes in a manner neither the Kashmiris gain nor anyone else in the region.

CALL Relate: this is a couple that could use some marriage guidance. No, not the British prime minister and his newly arrived visitor: they seem to get along just fine. They’re like the sweethearts in the old Tracey Ullman song. No matter how many people insist their romance is wrong, their bond only gets stronger. “Why should it matter to us if they don’t approve... ‘cause they don’t know ‘bout us/And they’ve never heard of love.”

No, George Bush and Tony Blair do not need counselling just yet. Nor do Britain and the United States. Most Brits seem to have kept a cool head about that relationship. As the Guardian poll showed nearly two-thirds still regard the US as a force for good in the world even if one-third would have preferred the president to have stayed at home.

Still, there is one relationship that is in dire need of help. It’s the one in which Britain is so often caught in the middle, trying to play peacemaker. The rift to be healed is between Europe and America.

For the second half of the 20th century, they were solid allies; in just the first few years of the 21st, they have fallen out badly. The poll numbers are instructive. In this month’s now notorious EU survey, asking Europeans which nations posed a grave threat to world peace, the US scored 53 per cent — level with Iran and North Korea, the two remaining arms of Bush’s “axis of evil”. A September survey found just 45 per cent of Europeans keen on a strong US global presence — a drop of nearly 20 per cent on the previous year. In France, 70 per cent believed global US leadership was “undesirable”. The relationship has got so bad, the starting point of a recent polemic on the topic — Robert Kagan’s Paradise and Power — was that Europe and the US no longer even “occupy the same world”.

To simplify crudely, Europeans regard the US as swaggering, go-it-alone bullies, who want international rules to apply to others but never themselves and who regard force as a first rather than last resort. They are new imperialists, clumsily clodding around the world, enraging people by the billion.

Meanwhile, Americans see Europeans as limp-wristed parasites, too weak to defend themselves but only too happy to shelter under Uncle Sam’s coat when things get tough. They are weak in the face of dictators, high on self-righteousness and, for some, tainted by the unburied habit of anti-semitism.

How did these two old partners grow so far apart? An answer must begin with the end of the cold war. The Soviet threat used to bind Europe and the US together. With that glue gone, in the 1990s, they began to come apart. But the trend only got out of control once Bush was installed as president. The now familiar roll-call of US decisions — Kyoto, the international criminal court — signalled that Washington was not interested in what Europe or anybody else thought. Instead its logic became one rule for us, another for the rest of you. Free trade for us; steel tariffs for you. Geneva convention for US troops taken prisoner in Iraq; no protection for inmates at Guantanamo Bay. As Robin Cook says, sometimes the only bridge the US seems to want to build to the rest of the world is a drawbridge.

Europe irritates the US just as much. French and German failure to fall into line on Iraq are only the most overt provocations. But Bush’s Washington has deeper grievances with the continent. It sees it as militarily puny, with the EU’s combined spending on defence barely 40 per cent of the US outlay, and economically lacklustre. While the US boasts growth and low unemployment, the Bush crowd reckon Europe still staggers under the dead weight of state control.

It sounds like irreconcilable differences. But the European-US marriage guidance counsellor should not give up just yet. Instead, she might take both parties by the hand and, in a gentle voice, suggest a radical new path back to marital harmony: why not become more like each other?

If, as Kagan wrote, Americans are from Mars and Europeans from Venus, then each planet might have to spin closer to the other. For the US, that would mean lowering the drawbridge and seeing “hard power” military force as only one tool among many. The US could maintain its robust belief that there are some menaces that require a military response — Al Qaeda or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — but it would also recognise that such a response is a thousand times more effective if it is seen as legitimate.

That only comes with international endorsement, won by the grinding, distinctly unmacho work of diplomacy, compromise and coalition-building. Washington needs to see that, yes, it can win wars through solo, hard power — but only at the expense of the “soft power” of influence and moral authority. It can topple Saddam, but still find itself friendless. Charles Grant, the shrewd director of the Centre for European Reform thinktank, wishes the US could see that legitimacy is not some European nicety. It would be in America’s own interest. Witness, says Grant, the reluctance of Europeans to dip in their pockets for the US-led reconstruction of Iraq: “If you wage war on your own, the rest of the world won’t be there to help you clear up.”

So the Americans need to be more multilateral, more amenable to international agreements, readier to use persuasion rather than coercion — more Venusian. But, as any couples counsellor knows, to succeed both sides have to change. Europeans may have to become more Martian.

No one is suggesting the EU matches the US in gung-ho firepower. But Europeans must acknowledge that it is contemptible to condemn America for its military reach one moment, only to demand it take action the next. When a genocide is under way in Rwanda, or threatened in the Balkans, we expect Washington to answer the instant we dial 999. We look to it as our protector even when we brand it a bully.

The only solution is for Europe to take defence more seriously. If there is peacekeeping, or more aggressive, work to be done, we have to be able to do it ourselves. It should be a source of shame that Europe took no action in its Balkan backyard until the Americans decided to send the planes in. We ought also to realize that not every US warning of WMD is false — even if the Iraq danger was so over-hyped. The risk of “loose nukes” in the former Soviet Union is real, but so far only the US has taken it seriously. We cannot forever stay under the US umbrella, complaining about the shade. We need to do our bit. (The French and British are beginning to move in this direction, talking about shared European defence and even developing a super-advanced cruise missile: the Storm Shadow.)

But the change will be about more than hardware. Europeans will have to drop our preachiness and walk a little more humbly. When next we want to brand the US as “evil”, we should remember Europe’s own gifts to the world: colonialism and the Holocaust, both in living memory. The truth is, both Europeans and Americans will have to change — Venus and Mars spinning towards each other, shrinking the gap between us.— Dawn/The Guardian Service

IT is a good omen that a debate on the question of recognizing Israel has been under way in Pakistan without ‘fatwas’ being issued by the self-declared custodians of Pakistanis’ morality and religious beliefs.

Pakistani society, it seems, has become relatively open-minded and courageous. It indicates that the Pakistanis have finally started to cultivate a quality that did not exist before in the Muslim world in general and the Pakistani Muslims in particular i.e.: the ability to ponder and discuss issues and matters without being overwhelmed by religious emotions.

Not long ago, any hint of flexibility, modernity or plain realism, expressed by the Pakistani society, was quickly overshadowed by attempts to declare the related topic, a taboo.

Some zealots called Sir Syed Ahmad, a Kafir (infidel), because he wanted the Muslims of India to seek education. They gave the same obnoxious treatment to the great philosopher, Mohammad Iqbal (he died before the creation of Pakistan), because they couldn’t grasp his deep philosophical thoughts. Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was given the same label because he wore elegant suits, spoke immaculate English, had a great analytical mind and wanted a separate homeland for the economically down-trodden Muslims of India.

Now, let us think what is wrong with Pakistan’s recognizing Israel except that it will offend a few hateful bigots? Israel is a reality and ignoring a reality cannot be considered prudent. During the 1971 war in Pakistan’s eastern wing, then called, East Pakistan, the world (except India) held back its diplomatic forces and did not recognize Bangladesh while a fight was in progress between Pakistani forces and the separatists who wanted the province to be declared as an independent country. As soon as Bagladesh emerged on the world map international recognition came quickly. Even Pakistan recognized Bangladesh within two years.

It was a wise move, and showed the acceptance of a reality.

If Pakistan could recognize a territory which was once its province, as a sovereign country, what is the logic behind withholding this acknowledgement of the reality in the case of Israel?

During Israeli prime minster’s recent visit to India, a senior member of his entourage extended an olive branch to Pakistan by making a conciliatory statement. Pakistan must not turn a blind eye to this diplomatic opening.

The impression that Israel has a lot to gain from its being recognized by Pakistan, as this will make it easier for other countries with Muslim population, to offer Israel a hand of friendship is just a myth. Egypt, Turkey and Jordan have diplomatic relations with Israel. How has this made other Muslim countries more amenable to Israel? Frankly, in the context of budding India-Israel friendship, Pakistan needs Israel more than Israel needs Pakistan.

The recognition of Israel will enhance Pakistan’s ability to play a constructive role in finding a solution to the riddle of the Middle East. Countries can keep diplomatic ties and still passionately oppose each other on various issues. France, Germany, the UK, Spain and the US are not only close friends but also members of the strategic alliance, called NATO. Yet, during the current war in Iraq, all these countries did not hold the same view.

It will be pragmatic on the part of Pakistan government to realize that religion is not a factor in the issue of recognizing Israel. If an Israeli action in the occupied territories resulted in the death of a Christian Palestinian and a Muslim Palestinian, will Pakistan condemn Israel, only for the death of the latter?

TODAY (Thursday) is Day Three of George Bush’s state visit to Britain. As the first state visit (i.e. on the invitation of Buckingham Palace) by a US president since Woodrow Wilson’s way back in 1918, it promises all manner of excellent photo ops for Bush.

A banquet given by the Queen in his honour, talks with Tony Blair (very popular back home in the US), meetings with the families of British soldiers killed in Iraq and with Blair’s Sedgefield constituents. These pictures will be used to impress the American voters in next year’s presidential election, and thereby (he hopes) secure Bush’s return to the Oval Office. For Prime Minister Tony Blair, however, the visit could hardly be less welcome.

The invitation for George Bush to visit Britain was issued seventeen months ago. At that time war planning was suffused with confident expectations of a favourable outcome, and a state visit seemed an excellent way to celebrate Anglo-American success. Today, seven months after the official end of the war, the confidence and optimism has all but disappeared. The Anglo-American adventure is going horribly wrong. As the prognosis from Iraq grows daily more grim, so the war’s unpopularity becomes more entrenched in the British public psyche. George Bush’s state visit, with its inevitable focus on Iraq, stirs up public feeling on the issue just as Blair would wish it forgotten.

The ludicrous security measures surrounding the Bush visit are not helping Blair’s cause. London has seen an unprecedented security operation, with all police leave cancelled and some 14,000 police officers on duty. Despite this, several hundred American Secret Service agents have come over especially to guard ‘Potus’ [code name for the president of the United States]. Armed, they expected the home secretary to give them diplomatic immunity in case they shot one of the many anti-Bush/war protestors (he refused).

Washington had even asked for all demonstrations to be banned (a further sign of post-9/11 prioritization of ‘security’ over democracy), and for parts of the London Underground to be closed down. Thanks to London’s ‘red’ Mayor Ken Livingstone those calls were rejected, but huge exclusion zones in central London restrict the route protestors can take. The overall intent remains to keep them as far from the American president as possible.

Bush will capitalize on his London trip when he goes for re-election in November 2004. But Blair’s advisers will be wondering how many potential votes are being lost by public annoyance at the Bush security measures. The British people are not keen to host Mr Bush anyway, and even less so when it means massive inconvenience to themselves. As the Mail on Sunday put it: ‘(H)ow do you create (the) nigh-perfect text-book example of how to get up the nose of as many people as possible without really trying?.... You invite Mr Bush over for a state visit.’

Given this not unpredictable negative reaction, there were numerous calls for the visit to be called off. But not from Tony Blair, who made a defiant (many would say unbelievable) statement to the Commons last Monday: ‘I believe this is exactly the right time for him to come.’ Blair’s staunch defence of George Bush was typical: both of his steadfast support for Bush, and of the price he personally has paid for that support. For criticism over the state visit is just the latest in a long series of Bush-derived costs and setbacks for the British prime minister.

The international cost came as soon as Britain allied itself securely with pro-war Washington. Its European partners, France and Germany, as firmly put themselves in the anti-war camp. The subsequent rift between Britain and Continental Europe will not easily be healed. On the wider international arena, London effectively alienated the Muslim world and many other countries which opposed action in Iraq. Its support of Washington’s decision to bypass the United Nations further eroded its standing in the comity of nations.

British participation in ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ has been both expensive and bloody. Tens of millions of pounds that could have been spent improving health and education provisions in the UK, have instead been used to wage what many see as an illegal and unwarranted war in Iraq. As for body bags, the British toll from Iraq is already over fifty mark. Dead soldiers’ families have been among the most vocal critics of Bush and his visit.

The political cost came early: prominent resignations, including that of Robin Cook, Leader of the Commons and former Foreign Secretary, and Clare Short, International Development Secretary. Labour backbenchers and party activists, fuming at the government’s policies, are openly critical of the war. Both the prime minister’s and Labour’s poll ratings have slumped, confirmed by the party’s recent shock by-election defeat. It is only because of the manifest unelectability of the opposition Tory party that Labour is not in danger of losing the next election, but it will return to power with a much reduced majority.

Having said that, the worst political trouble could be yet to come. The Hutton Inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly will deliver its findings in January. Should Lord Hutton conclude that the government’s treatment of Kelly pushed him to kill himself or, more damaging, that the government lied about the WMD justification for war, it will be in serious trouble. The failure to unearth a single WMD in Iraq has already raised huge questions about the intelligence that led to war, and about the credibility and reliability of the prime minister. Many are asking if he can be trusted? — a question which, if answered mostly in the negative, could prove politically fatal for Blair.

Even those who still trust Tony Blair and believe he acted with sincerity, question the extent to which he has put Britain in the US camp. ‘Bush’s poodle’ is the term commonly used to describe Blair’s relationship with the American president — hardly a flattering comparison. The Sunday Telegraph’s take-on on the Bush visit was typically scathing: ‘Mr Bush swaggers into town to check on his favourite poodle — aka Tony Blair.’

Critics point too to the negligible scraps the poodle is thrown by his American masters. Despite loyal service, Blair has secured very few concessions from Washington. British prisoners in Guantanamo Bay still face military tribunals and possibly death sentence; US steel tariffs remain in place; the Middle East peace plan remains stuck on first base — no, George Bush is not generous with his rewards.

All of which makes for considerable stress and pressure on the Prime Minister. Few people were surprised when he was rushed into emergency recently with an abnormal heart rhythm.

Reading through this record of setbacks, the overwhelming question that springs to mind is ‘Why?’ Why put up with so much grief, both at home and abroad, from the opposition and his own party? Why jeopardize his political future over support for a war and a policy that are increasingly being exposed as wrong? Why do so much for a country that gives him only verbal praise in return? Why does Tony Blair stand so doggedly by George W. Bush?

Blair would — indeed does — argue that it is not George Bush he is supporting, but the cause that Bush espouses: fighting against terrorism and extremism, promoting freedom and democracy. This argument might have sounded credible in the run-up to war. But now that the war is (officially at least) long over, and it is clear there were no WMD in Iraq; terrorism is flourishing; and America seems poised to cut and run, leaving chaos rather than democratic government in its wake — it is a hollow plea. Wherever one looks, the old pro-war arguments are disproved by reality.

The other argument the prime minister keeps alluding to is realpolitik. America is the world’s sole superpower: British interests lie in joining with that superpower, not in defying it. Again, this argument could hold water in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but not in the build-up to war (when many other countries defied the US), and certainly not today. British interests can never lie in following the US on a course that leads to disaster.

Other commentators also provide political explanations for Blair sticking with Bush — not global realpolitik, but the simple politics of staying in power. They argue that Blair has become so closely associated with the war on terrorism, with US assertions that Saddam had WMD, and with the war in Iraq, that to turn his back now would be an admission of fault and failure. ‘Fault’ in his judgment and decisions; ‘failure’ in his policies. It is a very rare politician who can make those kinds of admissions and survive in power.

These are the only rational explanations for Mr Blair’s behaviour. Beyond them, there is ‘conviction politics’. Tony Blair genuinely believes — despite all evidence to the contrary — that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was so great that he had to be removed by force. While this explanation reflects well on the prime minister’s sense of honour, it says little about his judgment.

Which brings us back to the poodle theory: the British prime minister does indeed jump, sit and bark when George Bush tells him to. So enthralled/in awe is he of the American president that his response to all US requests is a subservient ‘yes’. This devotion to Washington takes precedence over all other considerations: political, international, financial, personal.

One day Tony Blair will wake up and realize precisely what his friendship with George Bush has cost him. The danger (for him) is that this happens after he has been replaced as party leader by Gordon Brown, or the Labour has been voted out of office. By then it will be too late.