Not a clash of civilizations

WHETHER we like it or not, the clash of civilizations has begun. The clash is between what can best be described as predominantly Christian but secular West (excluding Latin America) and the Muslim world stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. Although the primary issues creating this clash are political, the powerful western media as well as the governments have successfully — but wrongly — managed to give it a strong Islamic religious tint.

The political premise is simple: it would be fair to say that for more than five decades, Muslims struggling for self-rule and independence in different parts of the world have met with stiff resistance from western powers and their lackeys who include many Muslim leaders. Having seen through the western powers, duplicity and with no hope of resolving their conflicts, Muslims have reached a level of anger unseen for centuries. Some of this anger has spilt out in a variety of ways, including those which led to the events of 9/11 and 7/7.

Today, the western hemisphere is obsessed with and consumed by the war on terrorism. Already barriers have started going up in the West denying access, particularly to Muslims, to the fruits of their prosperity. Educational institutions, job opportunities, immigration rules and investment opportunities are becoming more and more distant to the Muslims.

The West’s hypocrisy continues to exhibit itself in a number of ways. As Radovan Karadzic, the killer of more than two hundred thousand Muslims in Bosnia, roams freely in Europe, the US and its allies are spending billions to get hold of Osama bin Laden who is allegedly responsible for the death of three thousand people in New York.

As the world order continues to be based on the inequitable principles of yesteryear, the divide between these two civilizations has become bigger and bigger. The West controls the United Nations, World Bank, and most major financial institutions of the world. In the UN four out of five Security Council seats are held by the West and through those they can block any move on the world stage.

In the World Bank, only America has the right to appoint the president and the IMF can only be headed by a European. There is only one formal military alliance left in the world today — Nato which has lost its raison d’etre after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and fall of communist regimes in Europe. Yet America and its allies continue to run it, strengthen it and prepare it for a war which may never take place.

The European Community continues to enlarge itself by carefully adding other European countries while, at the same time creating obstacles for those with heavy Muslim populations. While Bosnia has been denied the right to be a sovereign country, Turkey’s attempts to join the EEC are being hindered.

The Greek Cypriots have been allowed to join the European Union, but Turkish Cypriots have been excluded and remain unrecognized as a political entity after the Greek Cypriots’ refusal to accept them. In Chechnya, the western powers have supported the brutal suppression of a brave people by Russia. This support would almost certainly not have been there if the Chechens were not Muslims.

As the only superpower in the world today, America’s main aim is to secure its position by using all and any means necessary to achieve that objective. In this pursuit America has waged unnecessary and brutal war, invaded defenceless countries and occupied them, ignored world opinion, violated international law, tortured prisoners of war, thwarted United Nations and killed thousands of innocent civilians. Europe has watched this, condoned it and become an almost silent spectator as America continues to maintain military bases on the continent with thousands of troops and huge stock of weapons.

For almost forty years now America has supported the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the suppression of the Palestinian people, while Europe turned its attention away. The West’s hollow support of an independent Palestinian state remains conditional and is “subject” to institutional reforms by the Palestinian Authority and the “establishment” of undefined secure borders for Israel. The road map for the Middle East remains a piece of paper as Sharon, with support from the West, continues to impose impossible conditions on the Palestinians for starting negotiations. East Jerusalem’s future status remains beyond discussion.

As the world becomes more independent, America’s highhandedness has reached new heights. It has embarked on a collision course with Iran and North Korea in its attempts to restrict their nuclear plans.

While Israel has been allowed a free hand to develop nuclear weapons without any restrictions or checks, a worldwide campaign has been launched to punish Iran and North Korea. Fully aware of China’s potential to surpass the United States as the world’s most powerful nation within a decade, America has started encircling China in a variety of ways.

It has established bases in two Central Asian countries by bribing their corrupt rulers and continues to maintain substantial — and unnecessary — military presence in South Korea and Japan. The doctrine of non-proliferation so espoused by the Americans in respect of Iran and North Korea was blown to smithereens by President Bush when he signed with India last month the agreement pertaining to the exchange of nuclear technology.

He has also refused to provide more financial help to Africa in its struggle against poverty and disease. The sum involved is “less than one week’s expenditure” of the American forces in Iraq.

Under Bush, America has also refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol ensuring a better environment for the world. The new WTO regime, largely designed to save the economic interests of the western powers has in effect done more to protect the rich countries of the world than ensuring economic security for the poor ones.

The unquestionable supremacy of the western powers is now threatened by forces within and without. The West has started to pay a price, in different ways, for failing to address equitably the most critical issues confronting the Third world which includes Muslim countries. The Muslim opposition to the West’s domination remains political in nature so far.

They do not object to the western way of life or western values. They do not seek western territory or its strategic assets. Yet the West has thought fit to cultivate, support and strengthen pro-West monarchs, autocrats and dictators throughout the Muslim world putting aside its cherished values of freedom and human rights. It has allowed these autocrats and dictators to suppress their own people in their efforts to remain pro-West

The clash of the West and the Muslim world is not a clash of religions. If anything, it is a clash of right and wrong, of haves and have-nots, of a desire to be free and a desire to suppress. However, it is not too late to stop this clash from getting worse. There is a way out and that is for the West to be just and fair in dealing with Muslim peoples and their countries.

A bad deal with India

MANY of the people who are made uncomfortable by President Bush’s ideologically driven foreign policy have been pleasantly surprised by his recent decision to supply India with nuclear energy technology.

This diplomatic agreement, its admirers eagerly point out, is not rooted in “freedom” or “values” but in a strategic calculation: that providing India with such technology will help balance China’s power in the region.

This does appear to be the case. But what they fail to note is that the administration’s inexperience with such strategic, non-ideological calculations has caused it to mishandle the negotiations themselves and, in so doing, to damage one of our country’s most strategic, effective and “realistic” agreements: the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

First, the Bush administration made two amateurish mistakes in the way it brought this agreement to the world’s attention. One was announcing the agreement just days before the resumption of six-party talks over the fate of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. For the past few years, the United States has struggled to convince China that North Korea, its ally, should be punished for violating the NPT. Yet just before the six-party talks began, the Bush administration declared that our ally, India, would not be punished for its refusal to join the NPT. This clearly undermines our ability to secure China’s much-needed cooperation in denuclearizing North Korea.

The Bush administration’s second error was announcing its agreement before having secured the necessary congressional approval. The initial reaction from Capitol Hill has not been encouraging: Members of the energy conference committee in the House have already approved a measure that would make it illegal for the United States to export nuclear technology to India, and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., has cautiously remarked, “We’re going to have a lot of conversations.”

Such conversations ought to have taken place before the agreement was made public. The instant we announced our willingness to disregard the NPT, we forever undermined its coercive power. But we will not receive any of the strategic benefits of a strengthened India without congressional approval. Thus, we could end up paying the cost for the agreement without reaping any of its rewards.

Most significant, however, is this: The Bush administration is wrong to believe that the agreement with India will serve America’s strategic interests better than the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it threatens to render all but obsolete.

The Bush administration has demonstrated over the past five years that it does not believe the treaty to be worth preserving. In May it expressed its disdain by dispatching a low-level State Department official to the important NPT Review Conference. And last year the administration torpedoed a crucial verification provision of a treaty, one that would have reinforced the NPT by banning production of uranium and plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty — which is founded on a simple but powerful agreement that nuclear states will provide access to peaceful nuclear technology to countries that forgo such weapons — has served the U.S. national interest since it was signed in 1970. When it came into effect, there were five nuclear weapons states, and it was estimated that the number would grow to 25 by the end of the century. Thanks in large part to the NPT, the actual number of nuclear powers in the year 2005 is just nine.

According to Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, more than 40 countries have peaceful nuclear programmes that could be retooled to produce weapons. That so many of them have not done so is testimony to the effectiveness of the carrots and sticks in the NPT.

If Congress accepts the logic of the Bush administration and allows our government to help build nuclear energy plants in India on the grounds that it is an ally, what is to stop China from offering the same support to its allies? It is only a matter of days before Pakistan — another country with nuclear weapons that has refused to sign the NPT and thus has been denied certain types of nuclear technology — demands to receive the same special treatment that India has.

The final weakness in these negotiations is that the Bush administration secured so little in return. While we were willing to void the most potent nuclear weapons control treaty of the past three decades, India was not even compelled to stop producing fissile material for further weapons. Apparently, in its concern to balance the power of China, the administration forgot to consider whether putting no limits on India’s fissile material production might not prompt Pakistan to continue such production itself. Such a development would certainly increase the risk of nuclear materials falling into the hands of terrorists.

Ultimately, the Bush administration should be commended for its foray into the realm of geopolitical strategy and diplomatic negotiations. But let us hope that next time it manages to strike an agreement more beneficial to the United States. —Dawn/Washington Post Service

Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defence during the Reagan administration, and Peter Ogden are currently with the Centre for American Progress.

Independence Day thoughts

IN six days the nation will once again celebrate independence. And an impoverished people, trapped by routine and ritual, will gamely go through the motions of celebration, as it has done for the last 58 years. Television will come up with those faded black and white flicks hastily stitched together on the air waves, which are resurrected for special occasions; and Nur Jehan, a national treasure, will be exhumed to regale a captive audience with patriotic songs.

Most important of all, the nation will once again thank providence for delivering them from the clutches of an imperial power. That, surely, is the leitmotif of the celebration, to have achieved sovereignty in the face of tremendous odds..

As it happened, this imperial power, as a consequence of its rule, constructed barrages and other public works that have stood the test of time, and built a railway which made the hugeness of the subcontinent graspable. It also introduced 400 million Indians to themes like parliamentary democracy, good governance and the rule of law and the sort of things one was taught in boarding school like fairplay, a suspicion of experts, decency and standing up for the underdog.

Some of these themes took root in India and flourished. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, they were found to be totally unworkable. However, it is a little too early in the article for introspection, so let’s not spoil the fun of people in the holiday spirit.

First there will be the armies of flag sellers who will descend on motorists and bivouac at traffic intersections, reminding a weary public that it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to make the supreme gesture and buy a flag.

Then there will be the fairy lights on government buildings which will light up the night sky, producing their own special incandescence. And finally the newspaper supplements with photographs in sepia of the stalwarts of the Pakistan movement, who, if they only knew what their successors had done to their country would be turning over in their graves.

The rituals will be no different from what they have been in the past. Children in their thousands will be hauled out of bed at six in the morning so they can wave the star and crescent in the broiling sun at the specially organized hoisting of the flag, while school principals, negotiating their prominent role with considerable dash, will say the usual things expected of them. And the president will take the salute at the smart march past in the capital, a pageant in which the Pakistan military has no equal.

In urban centres the youth on motor-cycles, that lives under the delusion that there is an intimate connection between efficacy and volume and that senior citizens benefit in some strange and inexplicable way from getting their ear drums pierced at least once a year, will stealthily remove the silencers from their machines before tearing down the thoroughfares at top speed.

But in spite of the news that the brouhaha has already started in Peshawar, Mardan and Kohat, and other cities in the Frontier, where the MMA has made strenuous efforts during the last three years to undo everything the Founder of the Nation stood for, one can’t help getting the feeling that the revellers in the southern part of the country do not display quite the enthusiasm they did 20 years ago.

In fact, if last year’s festivities are anything to go by, it is obvious that the celebrations, in Karachi at least, didn’t appear to have quite the bite and the affable aggression one saw in the past when the country was infused by feelings of vulnerability and gross insecurity

The main reason that is being cited for the less than total enthusiasm is the efforts being made by people on both sides of Pakistan’s eastern border to come together and to normalize relations. Much of the credit for this must go to President Musharraf and the former prime minister of India, Atal Behari Vajpayee, for initiating the peace process.

There are also other reasons. In a political atmosphere that is relatively free and where Pakistani journalists enjoy unprecedented press freedom, hoary old chestnuts have been occasionally pulled out of the fire. Speakers in seminars pontificate on the two nation theory and question the very basis of partition. Dr Ziauddin Ahmed’s name has cropped up on more than one occasion, especially his sharp comment that 1947 marked the division of the Muslims. It was a prophetic quote often used to describe the plight of the Indian Muslims, the largest of the three divisions in terms of numbers, who have become a totally ineffective minority.

Columnists, writing against a rising inflection of uncertainty without the promise of an assured diagnosis, predictably point out that Pakistan is in a right royal mess and is moving further and further away from the cherished ideals of the founder of the nation. These ideals are rapidly being reduced to the status of an anachronism.

What one finds really surprising is that, like the golden words of Oliver Wendell Holmes which occasionally insinuate themselves into editorials in the United States, the sayings of the Quaid still pop up in newspapers and on state television in Pakistan. The president and those currently ruling in the national and provincial assemblies certainly don’t subscribe to them, nor for that matter, do members of the opposition parties when they come to power. So why is this farce being perpetuated?

There is plenty of faith, though not of the kind envisaged by Mr Jinnah; little unity and hardly any discipline. In fact, every time August 14 approaches this writer is reminded of that scene in Richard Attenborough’s remarkable film on the Indian sage, which merits repetition.

Prominent leaders of the Indian nationalist movement, who had drunk deep at the well of jurisprudence, had collected to address a cross section of enlightened Indian public opinion in a park.

After Mr Jinnah, always upright, constitutional and correct had struck out for home rule, Mr Gandhi said that India was seven hundred thousand villages, and not a handful of lawyers in Bombay and Delhi who made speeches for each other and for the liberal English magazines that granted them a few lines. Unless the leaders stood shoulder to shoulder with the toiling masses in the broiling sun, India would never be free. Nor would they be able to challenge the British as one nation. All they would be doing would be replacing one set of unrepresentative rulers with another

India today is not shining, as the Congress Party demonstrated in a resounding election victory last year. But it is the world’s largest democracy which has always been headed by a civilian; and come hail or shine voters go to the polls every five years.

At the risk of sounding overtly cynical, except for a brief interlude, unrepresentative government appears to have been the theme of Pakistan’s constitutional history. If the constitutional lawyers have excelled in anything, it is in the field of legitimizing extra-constitutional takeovers by men whose power and authority cannot be questioned. This is an area in which they have displayed a rare gift.

On this August 14 one wonders how many people in this blighted Islamic republic will think about the 700,000 Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs who lost their lives in East Punjab and West Bengal and other parts of India, and the hundreds of thousands of others who were uprooted from their homes and trekked in both directions on foot, bullock cart and bicycle, carrying their meagre belongings with them, driven by a patriotic spirit and the promise of a better future.

One wonders how many of the refugees who made it to Lahore and Karachi had any idea of what was in store for them. They knew that there would be untold hardships. But surely none of them could have had the slightest inkling that they were destined to live in a land that would be constantly ruled by a succession of authoritarian father figures who were a law unto themselves, a national theme dedicated to the usurpation of power and the evolution of a system of accountability which is more academic than functional or punitive. They certainly didn’t have the slightest inkling that a province would be able to introduce the iniquitous Hasba bill. Perhaps they have an idea that this is only the beginning.

Keeping effective check on proliferation

THE recent U.S-India defence pact signed in Washington, apart from other things, would allow New Delhi to join the multilateral Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Earlier, the chief of the Indian naval staff, Admiral Arun Prakash, in an interview given to The Hindu, had expressed New Delhi’s reservations about joining the PSI unless India was given a proper role in the decision-making mechanism of that initiative.

What is the PSI and how it intends to prevent the illegal proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons are the questions which are raised by those interested in knowing about rationale and capability of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative. Furthermore, it has also been asked why the PSI is restricted to a handful of core member countries and why the initiative has been launched outside the ambit of the United Nations.

The Proliferation Security Initiative is a global plan aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass destruction (MWD), their delivery systems, and related materials worldwide. The initiative was announced by US President George W. Bush on May 31, 2003, in a speech given prior to the holding of G-8 summit. The PSI originates from the national strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction issued in December 2002 by the United States. The core members of the PSI are the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Poland and Australia.

The Madrid Initiative of June 15, 2003, proposed strategies for intercepting cargoes suspected of containing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or missile components. So far over 60 countries have joined the PSI but the decision-making rests with the 11 core members. The PSI is largely assumed to be a tailor-made activity intended to penalize North Korea and Iran — countries on the US list of ‘rogue states’.

In September 2003, 11 countries agreed to and published the PSI ‘Statement of Interdiction Principles’. This set of principles identifies specific steps for effectively interdicting WMD shipments and preventing proliferation facilitators from engaging in this deadly trade. The PSI is part of an overall counter-proliferation effort intended to apply intelligence, diplomatic, legal and other tools at the disposal of member states to prevent transfers of WMD-related items to countries and entities of concern. To a great extent, it is in proximity with the UN Security Council resolution 1540 adopted unanimously to prevent trafficking in WMD material. While the strategy strongly relies on diplomacy and intelligence sharing in checking illicit shipments, one wonders how far the world community can rely on the authenticity of such a data sharing in the backdrop of the fiasco in Iraq.

The enigma of proliferation of whatever kind is basically an outcome of the West’s domination of the world at large. The Third World and the East have always been at the have-nots’ end. While the West had been the principal proliferater, the developing world has merely acted as collaborators of sorts. Proliferation was being pursued as a policy of appeasement. The have-nots’ in quest of technical know-how have employed tactics that of late, especially in the wake of 9/11, has become a nightmare for the West.

One may question the very rationale and credibility of the PSI by arguing that the recognized nuclear states are themselves responsible for the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other means of mass destruction. That the United States, a key proponent of the PSI, encouraged proliferation by refusing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and by withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

In giving the PSI an institutionalized structure, the suggestions that came from IAEA’s Hans Blix and El Baradei can be of some importance. They have proposed measures that can be employed under the UN and other multinational agencies to check proliferation at source — for instance, permanent inspectors for biological weapons and missiles and a check on enrichment and reprocessing activities. The PSI, nonetheless, appears to be a new channel for interdiction cooperation outside of treaties and multilateral export control regime.

The PSI carries a couple of lacunas. A key gap in its framework is that it applies only to commercial, not government, transportation, whereas, it has been observed that governments have been at the vanguard of such proliferation activities in the guise of their own ‘national interests’.

Similarly, there are a couple of gaps and contradictions as far as the framework of the PSI is concerned. The US intelligence community continues to identify Russia and China as being sources of proliferation of WMD-related material. However, both the countries have generally supported the initiative. On the other hand, India and Israel are off the hook probably for reasons of complicity. And there are countless US and European firms that openly defy export control laws and sell accessories of proliferation with impunity. Some of the issues which undermine the capability and credibility of the PSI to achieve its objective of non-proliferation are as follows: (i) The PSI lacks the capability to carry out interdiction of ships and other modes of transport involved in illicit supply of WMD or related materials.

(ii) PSI lacks the capability to prevent the illicit traffic of WMD through alternate routes like Caucasus and Russia.

(iii) It lacks the support of China to interdict the illicit supply of WMD, particularly as suspected by North Korea.

(iv) The PSI has not been able to deal with the issue of distinguishing the dual use of ingredients for WMD, which may have both civilian and WMD applications.

(v) How to convince countries not backing the PSI that it will not violate national sovereignty or be a threat to international commerce.

(vi) Ensuring that PSI interdictions at sea, air and land based WMD shipments will not undermine the spirit of law or result into armed confrontation between participation forces and target states.

(vii) Why the PSI targets unfriendly regimes and ‘rouge states’ while overlooking proliferation by friendly countries?

Yet the deeper the initiative delves into issues of international law, the harder the member states are likely to press for UN approval and support — an eventuality the United States is not entirely likely to face. More important still, the success of the PSI depends in large part not only on whether and how the logistical, legal, and economic issues are resolved, but on a broad-based participation, including that of China and Russia.

Dr Richard Falkenrath, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, admits that the PSI is a somewhat vague mechanism in its totality, but says that “before the PSI there wasn’t any forum to go to check such activities”.

However, the PSI is an issue that has neither been received very well in Pakistan nor had an intellectual discourse on it. Pakistan enjoys the privilege of being on the list of countries suspected of involvement in proliferation. At times it was penalized by not delivering the F-16s it had bought and at times it was condoned for going nuclear and rewarded with military supplies and with a major non-NATO ally status — all designed to keep it at the beck and call of Washington.

Even if the western world is able to set up an effective system of proliferation security, it is not going to work unless the mindset in both the worlds changes decisively. After all, no one can prevent Dr Khans and Dr Kasturis from carrying dangerous information, thoughts and knowledge to a prospective client. There is no way of preventing this form of trafficking.

If the PSI and other such mechanisms are to succeed, there is a need for a dialogue between the technology-possessing West and the deprived East. Only accommodation and understanding between the two can ensure that such deadly know-how is not misused at the whims and caprices of vested interests.

Furthermore, while one can talk of the PSI, two ends need to be checked: the restive establishments in the West which thrive on arms supplies and the non-state actors around the world. Otherwise, half-hearted measures to combat proliferation, whether nuclear, chemical or biological, may not render positive results. Non-proliferation efforts must be in tandem and not superficial or selective.

No age limit

THE most dangerous thing about a joke is when it isn’t funny anymore. That’s the case with one I’ve been telling one in my talks about Social Security. In explaining benefits, I said, “If you are 65 years old, you will get 50 per cent of your benefits, provided you served in the 82nd Airborne for four years.”

People laughed, but they’re no longer laughing that hard.

The reason is that the Pentagon would like to recruit soldier-officers up to 42 years of age. The Army isn’t meeting its quota, so it must raise the age limit for second lieutenants and National Guard reserves.

As Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “You go to war with what you’ve got.” The trouble is, because of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon can’t wage a war with what it has.

To make things more difficult, the defence department has just released a report stating that the Iraq forces are not able to defend their country without American assistance, which means the US Army may be there for five or six years — or even longer. Some solders will have been there for so long they’ll be entitled to Social Security payments.

I’ve stopped telling my joke.

People who must send their sons and daughters to war ask the same question. “What went wrong?” But people who support the president and don’t have to serve ask, “What went right?”

Big Talkmouth of TV fame (I can’t use his name or I’ll be breaking the law.) said, “In spite of what the bleeding heart liberals say, nothing went wrong. We got into Iraq to unite Sunnis and the Shias and the Kurds in one big happy family. It worked. But that’s not what you read in the papers.”

He continued, “The left wing media is soft on the war.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Bush thought of it first.”

“Did Saddam Hussein really buy nuclear material from Niger to make weapons of mass destruction?” I inquired.

“We won’t know until Karl Rove or Vice-President Cheney leak it to the press. This much we do know. Saddam would have had the bomb if he had thought of it first.”

I said, “So we did the right thing by capturing him?”

“Of course. We wouldn’t have known what a bad guy he really was. If it wasn’t for Hussein, our mission in Iraq wouldn’t have been accomplished.” I said, “Why is Saddam treated like a prisoner of war and the other Iraqi prisoners are hung by their thumbs and sexually tortured?”

“A brutal, sadistic, vicious head of state who has killed thousands of people is innocent until proven guilty.”

“When is he being tried?”

“Very soon, even before they have a constitution. They want to show the world that they are a democracy, which is the reason we went into Iraq in the first place.”

“I didn’t know we were doing so many things right until you explained it to me.”

“Many Americans don’t. Every time something goes wrong, the White House has to explain why it’s right.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Jihad and propaganda

IT was hard to suppress a shudder at the sight of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s finger-wagging deputy, warning of more attacks like those which brought mass murder and chaos to London on July 7. Zawahiri’s remarks, broadcast on al-Jazeera TV on Thursday, are guaranteed massive media coverage. So it is very important to challenge what he said: the responsibility for atrocities in Britain or elsewhere belongs directly to those who organise them and carry them out.

Zawahiri’s comments, made nearly a month after the event, suggest an attempt by Al Qaeda to claim credit, if not direct responsibility, for something it may have had little to do with. Evidence from the London attacks is still being gathered, though there is no sign of any foreign “mastermind”. Most experts say little is left of the pre-9/11 Al Qaeda as a coherent, hierarchical organisation after the losses of the war in Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, beyond any bandwagon or propaganda effect, this latest videotape provides cruel confirmation of what this newspaper has long argued: that the disastrous war in Iraq has supplied new motivation for Muslims angry at western policies in the Middle East. Last week the government reacted with outrage to a report by the Chatham House thinktank which made precisely that point, though only days later Jack Straw edged towards the truth by admitting that the British presence there was “part of the problem”.

Iraq is a bloody and uncontrollable mess. Hints of a staged pullout of US and UK forces from next year are welcome, even if George Bush and Tony Blair will not give a timetable for full withdrawal. But then there is the rest of A -Qaeda’s disingenuous wish list — “stop stealing our oil”, “security in Palestine”, ending western support for “corrupt rulers” and “infidel armies withdrawing from the land of Muhammad” — as Zawahiri enunciated it.

Even if you accept these terms of reference or prefer sharia law to democracy, such goals are impossible to achieve in a free, interdependent world. And tackling the real issues behind them will not be helped by slaughtering innocents anywhere in the name of jihad.

—The Guardian, London

Dog tricks

THE scientists in South Korea who cloned one live dog out of 1,000 expensive attempts say they only mean to make a better medical-research dog. Of course, researchers can’t regularly, if ever, afford million-dollar lab-cloned animals, though individual billionaires with a favourite mutt certainly could.

The Seoul National University scientists who produced the eponymous Afghan hound previously produced 30 cloned human embryos for stem cell research. Another South Korean stem cell researcher critically observed that cloning a full human being would be easier than making another Snuppy because it is much harder to harvest and keep alive dog eggs and embryos. That is a goal strongly rejected by the Seoul National researchers, but a worry that’s unlikely to go away.

The lead Seoul National researcher, Woo Suk Hwang, has been hailed as a champion cloner, with success from lab rats to a cloned pig strain that could suppress rejection of pig organs by humans. —Los Angeles Times