Condoleezza RICE, the second black American and the second female secretary of state of the United States of America came to South Asia — or at least to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan — as part of a larger Asian tour. It was billed as, and turned out to be, a visit to acquaint her with the region and to enable her to lay out with greater clarity and precision than her predecessor the policies that the Bush administration intended to pursue during the next four years.

The visit was also designed to address the concern expressed by many foreign policy analysts in the United States that her predecessor did not travel often enough and did not, therefore, get a first hand impression of developments in important regions of the world. It was not, at least in the South Asian segment, an occasion for new initiatives or even substantive steps to consolidate old relationships.

In his inaugural address starting his second term, Bush had issued a clarion call for the advancement of freedom. “There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world”...

“So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world

“We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies,” he said.

Some had entertained the hope — notably the opposition in Pakistan and the Kashmiri opponents of Indian rule in Kashmir — that this would signal a change of policy on the issue of the president’s retention of his uniform in Pakistan and the continued repression in Kashmir. These expectations were belied, even before Rice embarked on her tour. Taxed by a persistent questioner, the state department spokesman at the press briefing on March 11, refused to confirm even that the subject of the uniform would come up in Ms Rice’s discussions in Pakistan and went on to reiterate the view that in the United States’ perception of the political situation in Pakistan, “the general direction is towards democratic change and shaping Pakistani institutions to reflect that tendency.”

Secretary Rice herself when pressed in an interview on the same day said, “The democratic process has to continue in Pakistan. Now, we’ve said that there are going to be a lot of different paths and a lot of different ways on that democratic road, but the need for democracy, the need for free elections, the need for parliamentary elections, those are all discussions that we’ve had with President Musharraf in the past and we’ll have with him again.”

In her opening statement at the joint press conference with Foreign Minister Kasuri, she finally dashed any hopes that the United States would press for early elections in Pakistan, stating that “we look forward to the evolution of a democratic path toward elections in 2007 for Pakistan.”

Time and again in her interviews before the visit and then in South Asia Ms Rice offered a rationale for the American support for President Musharraf’s continuance in office and, implicitly, in uniform. It was perhaps best articulated in the interview referred to, and in which she said, “It’s awfully important, though, to look at what has happened in Pakistan in three-plus years. This was a state that was well on its way to extremism having a very deep foothold in Pakistan, and not just not an ally in the war on terror but, in fact, when you look at the links to Al Qaeda and you look at the links to the Taliban, a state that was really on the verge of being a strong supporter of extremism, a state where the question of whether Pakistan could be both modern and extreme seemed to be saying, yes, it could be.”

“Now you have a president in President Musharraf who said it cannot be both modern and extreme. And if you look at what is being done in the educational system to try to deal with the madressahs, if you look at what is being done in terms of the way that Musharraf has been dealing even with his parliament, if you look at the way in that they have been fighting not just the war on terror vis-a-vis Al Qaeda, but improving relations with India, which is changing the environment considerably in South Asia, you have to say that they’ve achieved a lot over the last three years.”

As regards Kashmir there was nary a public mention of the issue of human rights violations in Kashmir while Ms Rice was in India, but in Pakistan she did address a question on human rights violations in the course of her joint press conference with Mr Kasuri and said that, “it is obviously the view of the United States that there should be no long-suffering people anywhere in the world who are denied the liberty that we all enjoy here, that we as Americans enjoy. The fact is that we do a human rights report; it speaks for itself. We’ve also talked about the need to end violence and terrorism in this area. And so there are a number of issues that need to be dealt with by all the parties and I think we’ve been very clear to Pakistan, to India, as to what we consider their responsibilities to be”.

In other words, America attaches as mush importance to ending terrorism as it does to violence by the organs of state in occupied Kashmir.

On Pakistan-India relations the positive developments — including the prospects for cricket diplomacy — were welcomed but it was also made clear as in the past that America would only encourage the process and not be a mediator. Significantly, she called not only for the continuation of the talks but for the removal of barriers to interaction between the peoples of the two countries and opined that “it is important that all issues be on the table for eventual resolution and all of the parties, both India and Pakistan as well as the Kashmiris, believe that they have (not only) a future that can be secure and peaceful and free of terrorism and violence, but also a democratic future.”

The call for greater interaction between the people and the reference to “eventual” resolution were both reiterations of long held American view — justified as pragmatic — on how the dialogue between Pakistan and India should proceed.

In announcing the visit, the state department had succinctly outlined the objectives of the South Asian part of the visit as being to “highlight positive momentum in the region, including our transformed relationship with India, our continuing commitment to Afghanistan’s reconstruction and our long-term engagement with Pakistan.” What form would this long term engagement take? Foreign Minister Kasuri talked of many things that could be part of an expanded and sustainable long term partnership with Pakistan to which Secretary Rice had told him the United States was committed. Ms Rice, however, was less expansive.

Beyond the common interest in the war on terrorism she identified the elements of the relationship as being American interest in promoting education and economic reform in Pakistan, supporting the US-Pakistan trade relationship and the economic and security assistance package of $3 billion. The positive note she struck outside Pakistan’s borders was with regard to Afghanistan where she said the increasingly productive relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan could anchor the entire region in trade and economic development.

Briefly put, Secretary Rice made it clear that the American interest in Pakistan is linked in its both external and internal dimensions to the war against terrorism and extremism. Currently, policymakers in the Bush administration clearly believe that President Musharraf’s commitment, following the fateful events of September 11, 2001, to eliminating extremism from Pakistan’s body politic as much as his cooperation in fighting terrorist elements on the Pakistan-Afghan border makes him an important ally. This has persuaded them to allow him to determine the pace of democratization and to endorse the timetable for elections that he has outlined. The confirmation of this during Ms Rice’s visit was undoubtedly a welcome news for the president.

There is no doubt in my mind, however, that Ms Rice would also have pressed in private conversations for giving the mainstream moderate political parties more freedom of action. In the American perception, as the Bush speech pointed out in theory and as the virtual ultimatum to Egypt’s President Mubarak has shown in practice, it is only a genuinely multi-party system that can help to create and sustain the institutions that allow democracy to flourish and help curb extremism.

In the American view it is only an alliance between the army and the moderate political parties commanding a popular following that can put an end to the continuing sectarian strife and the sort of crises that has now arisen in Balochistan and which threatens the economic progress that Pakistan has made in recent years.

Much attention has focused on the remarks Ms Rice made with regard to the American view of the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. This, to my mind, is a storm in a teacup, a point I shall seek to establish in my next article in which I will also try and analyze how the current crisis with regard to Iran’s nuclear programme is likely to be resolved.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

In his keynote address to the closing plenary of the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security in Madrid on March 10, the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, called upon the member states to adopt a common approach to fighting terrorism.

He said that terrorism is a threat to all states and to all peoples which can strike anytime and anywhere. It is a direct attack on the core values the United Nations stands for and, therefore, it must be at the forefront in our fight against forces of terror and instability.

The secretary-general also said that the inability of the member states to evolve a definition of terrorism had for too long undermined the normative and moral stance of the United Nations and stained its image, and stressed the need for evolving a clear definition of terrorism. He strongly urged world leaders to accept the definition of terrorism proposed by the high-level panel he had set up last year to study global threats and suggest changes in the international system to meet these.

The panel calls for a definition which would make it clear that “any action constitutes terrorism if it is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act”.

It may, however, be pointed out that an almost identical description of terrorism is contained in the International Convention for the Suppression of fighting Terrorism as well as in the Security Council resolution 1566 ( 2004) and, as such, the definition proposed by the panel is not likely to break the impasse on this issue that has lasted for decades.

There has always been broad consensus among nations that violence should not be directed against innocent people for the advancement of an individual or collective agenda as it seeks to create an environment of fear which is not permissible in a civilized society. Yet, there has been no agreement among them on a definition of international terrorism and the matter therefore remained unresolved.

It seems that the attempts made from time to time to define terrorism did not yield tangible results as they focused their attention on describing the act itself and defined terrorism as an abstract concept that all acts of violence, regardless of their motives, constitute terrorism.

By the same token, the violence perpetrated by some states in the name of fighting terrorism should also be regarded as terrorism. By way of illustration, it may be mentioned that the premeditated US attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, ostensibly to suppress terrorism in these countries which caused deaths of thousands of innocent civilians as a result of indiscriminate bombings by its forces also fall within the description of terrorism.

UN secretary-general’s advice to the Madrid summit that “we do not need to argue whether states can be guilty of terror, because deliberate use of armed force by states against civilians is already clearly prohibited under international law” is inconsistent with the spirit of the UN resolutions and conventions which outlaw terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. In any case, it is not a question of legal interpretation of the term of terrorism. States as well as individuals or groups may be guilty of terrorism if they use naked force and violence against innocent people to attain their political or other objectives.

It may also be pertinent to mention that even in times of war, violence deliberately directed against innocent civilians and non-combatants is considered a crime. There may, therefore, be no objection if the use of force against civilians and non-combatants by an invading army which is perceived as a war crime is to be regulated by the Geneva Conventions and an offending state is proceeded against for war crimes. It is imperative that, intoxicated by the arrogance of power, states which use naked force in violation of the universally accepted rule of law do not go unpunished.

In his address to the Madrid summit, the secretary-general also contested the right of resistance by peoples under foreign occupation. The right of self-defence has always been recognized under the international law and has been included in the UN charter and, therefore, is not open to question. The territory of a state is inviolable; it may not be the object, even temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken by another state, directly or indirectly, on any ground whatsoever.

No nation is allowed to attack a country under the pretext of prevention or pre-emption as was done by the United States when it invaded Iraq, with a coveted eye on its oil and to expand its sphere of influence in the Middle East.

Terrorism has become a major problem as it poses a serious threat to international peace and security. It is, therefore, important to eradicate this evil, root and branch. The Madrid summit has also acknowledged the widespread fear and uncertainty generated by terrorism and has enjoined the United Nations, which is primarily responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, to play a key role in rooting out this menace. However, to enable the United Nations to evolve an effective strategy for this purpose it is imperative to define terrorism that may be acceptable globally.

The problem of terrorism no longer concerns any particular country and therefore, there is need to evolve a universally acceptable definition that would also make a distinction between terrorism and legitimate struggle for freedom and right of self-determination the denial of which can breed terrorism. Two outstanding examples are Kashmir and Palestine. In both cases state terrorism is being used to suppress the struggle for the right of self-determination.

One hopes that despite many noticeable misconceptions in his address to the Madrid summit about the definition of international terrorism, the UN secretary-general would make an earnest effort to reconcile the positions taken by various groups of members in the United Nations on this issue so that he may be able to draw a comprehensive strategy to fight the threat of terrorism in all its aspects.

As part of its overall strategy to fight terrorism, the United Nations should also identify and remove the causes for terrorism, otherwise its fight against this menace will remain inconclusive. No system which tolerates injustice or allows its continuation can hope to be free of violence.

The writer is a former ambassador.

John Bolton owes his recent nomination as ambassador to the United Nations to an analogy. It goes something like this: In 1975, when anti-Americanism was on the march, Gerald Ford chose a distinctly undiplomatic diplomat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to represent the United States at the United Nations.

Unlike his predecessors, who had listened politely while America was defamed, Moynihan denounced the tin-pot dictatorships running wild at the United Nations. And a new movement called neoconservatism — of which Moynihan was a leading voice — made its entrance onto the international stage. Six years later, Ronald Reagan gave the UN job to another prominent neocon, Jeane Kirkpatrick, and she proved equally blunt.

Bolton — a fierce UN critic — is the supposed heir to that tradition. When Condoleezza Rice announced his nomination, she specifically invoked Moynihan and Kirkpatrick. Numerous right-leaning commentators have done the same. To some members of Congress, sending a man who has repeatedly trashed the United Nations to be America’s representative there seems perverse. But for neocons with a sense of history, that’s precisely the point.

Problem is, the history’s misleading. Moynihan and Kirkpatrick were effective because their oppositional styles suited the time — a time when there was little the United States could do at the United Nations other than oppose. Today the United States has an opportunity to lead. And by choosing Bolton, the Bush administration may be squandering it.

Moynihan became America’s UN ambassador at one of the lowest moments in the history of US foreign policy. In April 1975, the month he was nominated, North Vietnam overran Saigon, handing the United States its greatest military defeat of the 20th century. The United Nations was dominated by leftist Third World dictatorships with a fondness for the Soviet Union and a hostility to the United States. The previous year they had proposed a resolution essentially endorsing government expropriation of foreign property. The United States had opposed the resolution, and been outvoted 120 to 6.

In fact, Moynihan was given the UN job largely on the strength of an essay he published in Commentary called “The United States in Opposition,” in which he noted that, “We are a minority. We are outvoted. ... The question is what do we make of it.”

Moynihan said America should go down fighting. And so, less than five months into his tenure, when the United Nations passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism, Moynihan declared, “This is a lie.” When Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin went before the General Assembly to demand the “extinction of Israel as a state,” Moynihan called him a “racist murderer.” Time put him on its cover. National Review named him “man of the year.”

When Kirkpatrick took the job in 1981, America’s international standing was not much higher. The Soviets had recently invaded Afghanistan, and the Iranian hostage crisis had been an extended national humiliation. Often citing Moynihan, Kirkpatrick denounced America’s critics, responding to their lectures on imperialism with lectures on democracy. The United States was still a beleaguered minority. But as one of Kirkpatrick’s aides put it, it was no longer “a willing victim.”

Like Moynihan and Kirkpatrick, Bolton loves a good fight. He has denounced international treaties on small arms, biological weapons and the International Criminal Court. He has said that if the United Nations lost 10 of its 38 floors, no one would notice. And as if to underscore his incendiary reputation, he reportedly keeps a fake hand grenade in his office.

But in today’s United Nations, bomb-throwing is no longer what America needs. The Third World-Soviet alliance that dominated the organization in the 1970s and 1980s has collapsed. Eastern Europe is now filled with pro-US democracies, and across the Third World governments have moved toward the capitalist economic systems they once decried.

According to Freedom House, the number of countries deemed “free” has more than doubled since 1974, from 41 to 89. And while the United States is still resented at the UN, its influence there is enormous. In 1996 the United States almost single-handedly deposed UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Today his successor, Kofi Annan, is scrambling to avoid a similar fate.

America’s challenge at the United Nations is to forge a new ideological majority and harness it for cooperative efforts against terrorism, nuclear proliferation, poverty and Aids. Bolton — who specializes in alienating America’s democratic allies — is uniquely ill-suited to that task. By choosing him, the Bushies are signalling one of two things: Either they think America is still isolated in the world or, worse, they want it to be. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

The writer is editor of the New Republic and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution.