MY last article, published in these columns a week ago, was primarily an attempt to assess, to the extent possible, the status of Iran’s nuclear programme. This is an indispensable exercise in view of the deliberate distortions in the western media, particularly since the United States launched the present campaign that has already got the Iran case referred to the Security Council and that is now geared to imposing UN sanctions on Iran.

As discussed last week, the referral has so far only escalated the crisis as the response of the revolutionary Iran is almost always determined by a tradition of resisting unjust outside pressures and intimidation. The collapse of the additional protocol has put the IAEA at a disadvantage. The nuclear watchdog agency is now hardly in a position to add much to its assessment that there is no instant and present danger from Iran’s nuclear programme and that, at the same time, it is unable to reach any definitive opinion about Iran’s ultimate intentions.

Some broad, if tentative, conclusions are possible about the emerging situation.

First, Iran is still largely preoccupied with solving technical problems in creating a network of centrifuge cascades to undertake low uranium enrichment (3.5 per cent) on an industrial scale necessary to meet indigenously the fuel requirements of Bushehr , which should go critical this year, and future nuclear reactors. Iran is about to announce bids for two more nuclear power plants.

Secondly, should Iran embark upon the production of highly enriched uranium (weapon grade HEU), it will take years before it can accumulate enough of it to build an explosive device.

Third, there is no credible evidence of Iran’s success in mastering the implosion technology.

Fourth, given the renewed emphasis on nuclear rearmament in states that already possess nuclear weapons — including Israel — and given threats of regime change, increased US-funded subversion by anti-regime elements especially the Iraq-based Mujahideen-i-Khalq, it is more than likely that demands for developing nuclear deterrence are growing in sections of the Iranian political-military class.

A similar summary of US policy will be less neat. Pakistan got its nuclear deterrent after surmounting countless hurdles put in its path by Washington, and even now, one would have to be an incorrigible optimist to think that the United States has abandoned its objective of an eventual denuclearisation of Pakistan’s defence capability. Its resolve to prevent Iran from acquiring this capability is much stronger for several reasons. These reasons include the US strategic interest in the energy resources of the Middle East and Central Asia, the protection of the sea lanes guarded by nuclear-armed battle groups and, last but not least, Israel’s insistence upon a total monopoly of nuclear power in the region. In Iran’s case, the aim is to deny the country a nuclear fuel cycle, regardless of the safeguards Tehran would accept.

This is, however, not to suggest that the present debate in the West is monolithic. There is a point of view that Iran’s nuclear progress is unstoppable, that the world can live with an Iran that has mastered the technology but, like Japan, is voluntarily keeping it verifiably short of weaponisation , and that, more importantly, a grand bargain with Iran can be struck on the basis of accepting Iran’s civilian nuclear programme under full safeguards and by offering incentives that make weaponisation unnecessary. The incentives will probably have to include credible security assurances to Iran, removal of existing impediments to free trade with Iran and recognition of its right to sophisticated technology for the modernisation of its oil and gas infrastructure.

Israel’s influence in Washington is a major impediment to the acceptance of the above logic. It is as determined as ever to use the awesome American military power to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme and bring about a regime change. In their remarkable study, “The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy”, Harvard scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt note that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose no existential threat to the United States. Their documentation of Israeli pressure on Washington to take action against Iran is impressive. On the eve of the Iraq invasion, the Israeli defence minister had observed that Iraq was a problem but “Iran is more dangerous than Iraq”.

Ariel Sharon had demanded that the United States should put the strong arm on Iran the day after it conquered Iraq. Israel’s ambassador in Washington had called for a regime change in Tehran. The distinguished professors imply that this is one major reason why Washington could live with a nuclear Soviet Union, a nuclear China, or even a nuclear North Korea “but not with a nuclear Iran”.

With every new statement, Nicholas Burns, the US undersecretary of State, who is playing an important role in removing political and legislative obstacles to the opening of the floodgates of nuclear technology for India, ratchets up the pressure on the Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. It is accompanied by leaks that Washington remains ready to construct yet another “coalition of the willing” to bypass the Security Council if it does not comply with the US demands.

It is revealing that Burns has now called for an arms embargo and specifically asked Russia to withhold the delivery of Tor M-1 missiles to Iran that would enhance Iran’s defence capability against aircraft and guided missiles at a certain altitude. China needs an uninterrupted supply of oil from the region at a reasonable price and Russia, which has extensive relations with Iran, can hardly accept such extravagant demands.

In fact, both Russia and China are establishing their credentials as friends of the Arab-Islamic world while the United States is increasingly perceived to be waging an interminable war against it. This perception erodes the American design of global governance. The projected coalition would, therefore, represent only a narrow band of the client states of the United States.

Russia and China will not encourage Iran’s weapons programme but should be expected to continue opposition to sanctions without incontrovertible evidence of it. Iran has renewed its desire to continue a dialogue with the IAEA because that restores the issue to its technical parameters. The neighbouring states of the region, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, disapprove of a weapons programme but firmly oppose the military option as it is likely to plunge the region into uncontrollable instability.

At the heart of the present crisis is Washington’s reluctance to countenance a negotiated solution that dilutes its maximalist objectives, including denial of all nuclear technology and an early regime change in Tehran. It may begin with demands for the stiffening of sanctions and graduate to threats of unilateral military action. There is talk of monstrous new conventional bombs now being perfected and even more ominously of bunker-busting tactical nuclear weapons to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites. There is also the perpetual possibility of a US-sanctioned Israeli air strike though that would require a degree of acquiescence on the part of some Muslim states. Any such complicity by an Arab state is likely to have grave repercussions.

We have now sufficient information as to why and how the Iraqi ground forces succumbed so easily to the Anglo-American ground forces. Similar vulnerabilities do not exist in Iran and its battle-hardened armies can inflict unacceptable damage on invading forces. President Ahmadinejad’s defiant statements are partly explained by the need to mobilise the armed forces and the people for a conventional defence as well as a protracted asymmetrical war on many fronts. Iran can carry the battle, in one form or another to Iraq, Afghanistan and even Israel. The mere rumour of an impending conflict in the region has already pushed the oil price to $75 per barrel and a hundred dollar price tag would be amongst the early consequences of the worsening of this crisis.

One can easily profile American and Israeli firepower — the much flaunted capability to hit 5,000 targets in a very short period of time — but it is doubtful that even the war parties in Washington and Tel Aviv can sweep under the carpet the political, economic and military costs of exercising this option. Warnings of this cost are gathering strength in the United States and UK and may, over a period of time, weigh on the side of prudent diplomacy. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s description of an attack on Iran as “an act of political folly” that would set in motion a progressive upheaval in world affairs has a much wider resonance with important segments of the American strategic community than is often realised amongst us. It is a question of a president whose approval ratings have sunk to around 30 per cent committing the most powerful democracy in the world to an unjust and illegal war. There is, nevertheless, much concern in Pakistan that the present stand off between Iran and the United States would pose a serious dilemma for its decision-makers. As a matter of fact, a contrary argument could also be built.

First, the crisis provides Pakistan with an opportunity to nuance and recalibrate its current “alliance” with Washington which constrains Pakistan’s choices but leaves the United States to largely brush aside Pakistan’s apprehensions in regard to Afghanistan and the Indo-US nuclear deal. Even if one accepts the rationale for having accepted an unequal relationship in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy of 9/11, there is no reason why Pakistan should not strive to recover some of its lost freedom of manoeuvre where matters of compelling national interest are at stake. Iran’s security and stability should certainly be one such contingency.

Secondly, as a friend of the US and Iran, Pakistan should offer its good offices to foster a diplomatic solution. Admittedly, Pakistan’s effort in this direction can have only a limited impact. But given the stakes, it is an option worth exploring.

The writer is a former foreign secretary. Email: tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

THE nation learned last week that there had been a cabinet reshuffle. This was supposed to have been the good news. One must, therefore, presume that the puppeteer who pulls the strings that make the marionettes dance must have had a jolly good motive for doing so and for relocating the information minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

A theory did surface that the reason for the horizontal transfer was that the latter had, of late, started making statements that contradicted the utterances of the president. Apparently the reason was political.

The self-exiled chairperson of the second largest party in the National Assembly is purported to have said that she would have no truck with the president or his minions as long as Sheikh Rashid Ahmed continued to be entrusted with the task of enlightening the public on what is happening in the country. That was probably enough to send him packing.

There are some television viewers who will miss him and his prophetic utterances. They will also miss his two-stroke voice, the adenoidal whinnying, the occasional double entendre served up in generous dollops and the messianic gleam in his eye whenever anybody mentioned Kashmir. But there are some who must have said good riddance. There is, after all, a limit to saying too much too often.

It has been famously said of Sheikh Rashid Ahmed that he rose without a trace. The fact that he was able to hang on as information minister for as long as he did is quite creditable. This is probably because, unlike others before him, he did not try to project himself at the expense of El Supremo.

His new assignment ought to keep him busy for a while and away from the microphones. He should wholeheartedly dedicate himself to the task of ensuring that Pakistan Railway is at least restored to the level that existed in 1970 when one could still get a decent, clean meal in the dining car and at the railway station.

If he can accomplish that, it would be a great achievement. It is the railway that made the hugeness of India graspable and provided much of the folklore of the Raj. And it is still the railway that provides long distance transport for the majority of the population of this country. At his press conference he said something about being a “grassroots” man by which, one presumes, he meant that he is a member of the proletariat. He also spoke about making the trains safe to travel in by improving the condition of the tracks.

Whatever anybody might say he is still the quintessential Pakistani. Let’s leave it at that. Who knows, he might just pull it off. Stranger things have happened in this country.

Now here’s the bad news. The size of the cabinet, which ought to have been drastically reduced, has instead been expanded. One fails to see the wisdom of such a move, especially in a land where the masses are groaning under the rising cost of living and where the country’s largest and most important city has still not been able to come to grips with its energy needs.

The expansion of the cabinet is being seen as an attempt to placate dissenters in a shaky coalition. But why does this have to be done at the expense of the nation? It’s so much easier to ship them off to places like Basutoland or Sierra Leone where they can’t do too much harm.

When one tots up all the costs that will be incurred by the new ministries, the cars that will have to be purchased, the staff that will have to be recruited, all with their own hierarchy and pecking order, there will be a totally unnecessary dip into the nation’s resources.

And then there will be the accompanying intrigues, the attempts to outdo one another in gratuitous novelty, and the competition to see who can best emulate the examples set by members of the National Assembly and indulge in more wasteful expenditure.

The general perception is that the government has failed miserably in establishing its credentials as a body that is responsive to the needs and requirements of the people. The induction of new faces will not solve anything. It will not stop the practice of honour killing, provide jobs for the unemployed or abolish the Hudood Ordinances. It will only add to the problems the country is facing.

Meanwhile, a momentous event has taken place in the country. The president has been seen scouring the countryside in an attempt to sell the idea that good water management is the way to a better future. He is, of course, right. One just wonders why he didn’t start the ball rolling six years ago when the nation was terrified of him, and people like Rice and Boucher, with their talk of democracy, had not yet been parachuted over Islamabad.

Last Wednesday the president attended the ground breaking ceremony of the six and a half billion dollar Diamer-Bhasha dam. After a somewhat brief introduction he added, perhaps a little too vehemently, that all dams including the controversial Kalabagh, would be constructed under the ‘2006 Water Vision’ to meet the growing water and energy requirements of the country. At last somebody has decided to do something about it.

The other dams, which go under the exotic names of Akori, Munda and Kuram Tangi would be completed by 2016. It is now being perceived that the president has plans to be around in 2016, with or without his uniform, when he would be called upon to press the button which would generate electricity from the turbines.

Around the time the president was visiting Gilgit, this newspaper published two significant photographs which represented contrasting examples of fortune, and a daily bulletin on the number of electricity breakdowns that were taking place in Karachi. In the first picture, which was a happy one, the photographer had captured two smiling former Pakistani prime ministers enjoying the spring sunshine in London, and looking for all the world as if they had just concluded a pact to oust an unelected head of state.

In the second, which was an extremely depressing one, the photographer caught some of the grief and anguish on the face of a 14-year old girl, a karo-kari victim, who had survived an attempt on her life after being shot four times, and was resigned to her fate. What is so sad and unfortunate is that nobody really cares if she lives or dies, not even those NGOs who hold regular seminars on human rights and make sure their speakers get their pictures in the papers.

What is difficult to understand is why the government repeatedly shrinks from performing its duty. to carry out the judicial verdicts against the killers.

And now a word about the bulletins. The Metropolitan section of this paper has been, during the last week, simply brimming with front page accounts of how the public has been suffering because of the loadshedding and the frequent electricity breakdowns in Karachi. It had gotten so bad that the prime minister, chief minister and governor of the province — all three of whom have huge generators installed in their place of work — had to take note and summon the management of KESC. In all fairness to the management, last Friday was considerably better than the other days and the current was switched off only twice for short intervals.

IT’S a truism that all conflicts end eventually. But how do you resolve a confrontation with an adversary that appears unable or unwilling to negotiate a settlement? That’s a common problem that runs through the West’s battles with militant Islam.

The most pressing instance is Iran’s drive to become a nuclear power. The United States and its allies still talk as if it will be possible to stop the Iranian nuclear programme short of war, through a combination of sanctions and diplomatic negotiations. But the Iranians push ahead, seemingly oblivious, and the ruling mullahs act contemptuous of the West’s threats and blandishments.

Iran’s implacability may have been the most important lesson of the three years of “negotiations” over its nuclear programme conducted by three European Union nations, France, Britain and Germany. In fact, says a senior French official, it wasn’t really a negotiation at all. “The EU talked and the Iranians responded, but they never came back with counterproposals because they could not agree on anything.”

French analysts believe the Iranians displayed a similar refusal to negotiate during their long and bloody war with Iraq in the 1980s. The exhausted Iraqis made efforts to seek a negotiated peace, but the Iranians rejected their feelers. After America and France covertly aided Saddam Hussein, the Iranians finally accepted a United Nations-mandated cease-fire in August 1988. But there was never a formal peace treaty, and the Iranians dragged their feet even on the exchange of prisoners.

The latest example of Iran’s diplo-phobia was a statement this week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissing the US-Iran talks over Iraq that had tentatively been set with the US ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad. There was nothing to talk about, Ahmadinejad implied. Now that the Iraqis had formed a new government, he said, “the occupiers should leave and allow Iraqi people to run their country.”

Analysts think this reluctance to negotiate partly reflects divisions within Iran’s ruling elite. Certainly the diffuse centres of power in the Iranian government make it difficult to reach a common position. But I suspect there is a deeper disconnect: For a theocratic regime that claims a mandate from God, the very idea of compromise is anathema. Great issues of war and peace will be resolved by God’s will, not by human negotiators. Better to lose than to bargain with the devil. Better to suffer physical hardship than humiliation.

This same blockage is evident in other conflicts with Muslim groups. Al Qaeda doesn’t seek negotiations or a political settlement, nor should the West imagine it could reach one with a group that demands that America and its allies withdraw altogether from the Muslim world. The closest Osama bin Laden has come to a political demarche was his Jan. 19 offer of “a long-term truce based on fair conditions,” which weren’t specified. His deeper message was that Al Qaeda would wait it out — waging a long war of attrition, confident that its adversaries would eventually grow tired and capitulate. America’s powerful weapons might win battles, he said, “but they will lose the war. Being patient and steady is much better, and the end counts.”

The West has placed its hopes on the political maturation of radical Muslim groups, figuring that as they assume responsibility, they will grow accustomed to the compromises that are essential to political life. But so far, there is little evidence to support this hope. The Hamas government appears to have nothing it wants to negotiate with Israel. Indeed, it still refuses to formally recognize the existence of its adversary. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has agreed to little compromises since it joined the government, but not big ones.

A word that recurs in radical Muslim proclamations is “dignity.” That is not a political demand, nor one that can be achieved through negotiation. Indeed, for groups that feel victimised, negotiation with a powerful adversary can itself be demeaning. That’s why the unyielding Yasser Arafat remained popular among Palestinians, despite his failure to deliver concrete benefits. He was a symbol of pride and resistance. Hamas, too, gains support because of its rigid steadfastness, and a strategy that seeks to punish pro-Hamas Palestinians into compromise will probably fail for the same reason.

The Muslim demand for respect isn’t something that can be negotiated, but that doesn’t mean the West shouldn’t take it seriously. For as the Muslim world gains a greater sense of dignity in its dealings with the West, the fundamental weapon of Iran, Al Qaeda and Hamas will lose much of its potency. —Dawn/Washington Post Service