IRAQ finally has a government that can lay claim to a degree of legitimacy, though questions regarding its effectiveness and credibility continue to be raised. Before his nomination, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was known as a tough defender of Shia rights. However, he has tried to shake off his partisan image and promote a policy of consensus and reconciliation, claiming that his goal was to “close up the divisions that have emerged through sectarianism”.

It remains to be seen how he will lead a cabinet of 39 ministers, representing virtually all shades of political opinion, and political representatives hailing from 18 ethnic and religious communities in Iraq.

Despite the success of the joint US-Iraq operation that led to the death of Al Qaeda leader Musab al-Zarqawi, a number of issues could come to haunt the Iraqi prime minister, primarily because of his failure to forge national consensus on contentious issues. The first is the issue of insurgency. Some ministers favour a “no holds barred” approach, involving massive operations that inevitably result in major “collateral damage”. The other view, promoted by President Jalal Talabani, favours a softer, more inclusive policy, as it is feared that an all-out attack on the insurgents, will only exacerbate current tensions and produce long-lasting bitterness.

The second difficult issue relates to the future status of the US-led coalition forces, on which the new government, along with parliament, has until the end of the year to craft a policy.

The current leadership wants the coalition forces to stay on for at least a couple of years, for without their presence and active involvement in the operations, it would be difficult to maintain even a semblance of order in the country. The Bush administration is, however, ambivalent on this subject. It fears that an open-ended commitment to keep troops in Iraq could prove disastrous for the Republicans in the forthcoming congressional elections and also impact negatively on the November 2008 presidential polls.

Corruption is a major concern as well, especially at the highest levels. The role and function of American contractors, who are awarded projects, without regard to competence or credibility, has caused public scandals. While thousands of state employees, such as doctors and teachers do not receive their pay regularly, millions of dollars continue to be siphoned off by the militia commanders.

The formation of the new government should have been an occasion for celebration, but the terror and trauma of the past three years has been soul-shattering, causing pain and suffering on a colossal scale. Particularly worrying has been the rise in sectarian tensions. Security and safety are virtually non-existent.

The Shia community does, however, feel a measure of satisfaction. After decades of domination by the minority Sunni community, they have a feeling of freedom and redemption. There is a sense of genuine pride that they are now dominating the government.

While the US-led coalition has good reason to celebrate this important step in Iraq’s eventual return to the international community, the country is gradually undergoing a de facto partition, along ethnic and sectarian lines. A report by a joint civilian-military group, based in the US embassy in Baghdad, is a strong rebuttal to the usual upbeat public statements issued by US and British officials. It provides a sobering assessment of Iraq’s deteriorating political, economic and security situation. It rates the overall stability of six out of the 18 provinces as “serious” and one as “critical”. It warns that sectarian and ethnic frictions are widespread, even in those provinces described as non-violent. A US official in Baghdad was constrained to admit: “Iraq is at a pivotal point. The next six months will set the stage for this country to succeed or not.”

Nor surprisingly, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was the first to rush to Baghdad to hail the formation of the Nuri al-Maliki government as proof of the wisdom of the Anglo-American approach. The truth is that no country, other than the US and its close allies, accepted the rationale of the US invasion of Iraq. Even allies in the Middle East viewed the invasion as illegitimate and therefore chose not to respond to US suggestions that they involve themselves in restoring peace and order in that country.

Nuri al-Maliki’s government is firmly structured along sectarian lines, with ministers selected according to the ethnic group to which they belong. Instead of ethnic divisions receding, this issue has exacerbated manifold, in the past three years. Since March 2003, the issue of sectarian divisions has been given priority in determining policy. The reason is that the occupation forces ran out of excuses for their illegitimate action.

When alleged ties to WMD and Al Qaeda were proved wrong, the occupation powers claimed that they were in Iraq to protect oppressed communities — namely, the Shias and the Kurds — and to promote democracy in the country. They conveniently ignored the fact that Saddam Hussein followed a non-discriminatory policy, brutalising anyone who he considered a threat to himself, irrespective of whether his victims were Sunnis or Shias, Arabs or Kurds. His supporters and ministers too hailed from all communities.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can weaken the insurgency if he reaches out to the Sunnis, who are the principal aggrieved party. But by agreeing to give the Sunnis only 11 per cent of cabinet posts, although they constitute at least 20 per cent of the country’s population, he has not started off well. He will also have to be judicious on the issue of constitutional amendments, especially relating to the sharing of oil revenues. The de-Ba’athification process, which has thrown thousands of Sunnis out of jobs and barred them from new ones, is another sore point. Even the Kurd leader, Barham Salih, has characterised the campaign as a major mistake.

The prime minister will also have to take strong action against the militias, whether they be Shia or Sunni. This would include the need to challenge the Mahdi Army of Moqtada Al Sadr. Unless his wings are clipped soon, he could become a major irritant for the government. This would encourage violence, ethnic cleansing and even possible Balkanisation.

Contrary to what Bush and his colleagues have been claiming, a Pentagon-sponsored study has concluded that Muslims do not hate American freedom, but rather US policies. Only last week, an investigation into the death of two dozen Iraqis, revealed the shocking fact that a group of US marines had carried out unprovoked killings of civilians. This happened in Haditha in the Sunni-dominated Anbar province. Earlier, the US authorities had tried to cover up their ghastly crime. The report now confirms that the marines engaged in killing innocent women and children, in what was described by congressional officials as “methodical in nature”.

The Middle East is sitting on a volcano. It is a deeply troubled region and its oil wealth has brought little comfort to the people. In fact, it has created an economic and social divide that is tearing societies apart. While the overwhelming majority leads a life of economic deprivation and political disenfranchisement, a small minority enjoys the benefits of being associated with authoritarian rulers. The former harbour strong feelings of rage; while the latter live smugly, unconcerned with the seething anger. It is this disillusioned mass that then directs its anger at the US, holding it responsible for propping up unrepresentative regimes.

Suicide attacks, individually or in groups, followed by massive American retaliation, is a daily feature, resulting in the death of hundreds of Iraqi civilians. The economy, too, is in a shambles, thanks to the sanctions and wars. But all this would still be manageable but for the deep mistrust and suspicion that plagues the entire country. Hundreds of people are killed every week, with rival groups accusing each other of engaging in death squads, sanctuary bombings and kidnappings. As US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, admitted: “Even with the formation of this unity government, tremendous challenges still lay ahead.”

Both Bush and Blair were confident that all they needed to oust the Saddam regime and take charge of a docile Iraq was a short, swift and virtually casualty-free military operation. Such was their belief in the success of this strategy that they decided to celebrate it in ways that can only be regarded as theatrical. Bush decided to land in a jet fighter on an aircraft carrier to proclaim “Mission Accomplished”. Blair’s aides had an even more bizarre plan — to arrange for a special parade for the victorious prime minister along Pall Mall and Whitehall in the summer of 2003.

To cap it all, we witnessed the spectacle of Bush and Blair engaged in the theatre of the absurd. In an extraordinary joint press conference in the White House on May 26, both admitted that mistakes had been made, but insisted that the end result was still worth it, and, therefore the world must support the new dispensation in Iraq. It was through this bizarre ‘mea culpa’ that the two sought to defuse the growing anger against them in their countries. It must have taken some courage to admit that “not everything since liberation has turned out the way we had expected or hoped. We have learnt from our mistakes, adjusted our methods and have built on our success”. Clearly uneasy at having to make this confession, they showed none of the bravado that marked their earlier press conferences.

Of course, for all those who have had to endure Bush’s outrageous remarks, it was gratifying to hear the American leader being contrite and expressing regret for some of his earlier taunts and insults.

Blair was, of course, his usual ingenious self. He first exuded confidence about the formation of the new government — “a child of democracy struggling to be born”, and then appealed to the international community to support the government, conveniently forgetting that he and Bush had dismissed the pleas of that same international community, and even threatened the United Nations, if it did not do their bidding.

The occupation forces have failed to halt the country’s descent into a sectarian civil war and are reluctant to admit failure and set a definite timetable for their departure. Sadly, this once stable and peaceful country is sliding into chaos.

The writer is a former ambassador.

So, it’s another “mission accomplished”. The man immortalised by the Americans as the most dangerous terrorist since the last most dangerous terrorist, is killed by the Americans.

A Jordanian corner-boy who could not even lock and load a machine gun is blown up by the US air force — and Messrs Bush and Blair see fit to boast of his demise. How short are our memories.

“They seek him here, they seek him there.

“Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

“Is he in heaven? Is he in hell,

“That demned elusive Pimpernel?”

Sir Percy Blakeney, of course, eluded the revolutionary French. But the Baroness Orczy — unlike Mr Bush — would scarcely have bothered with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian thug whose dubious allegiance to Al Qaeda turned him into another ‘Enemy Number One’ for those who believe they are fighting the eternal “war on terror”. For so short is our attention span — and Messrs Bush and Blair, of course, rely on this — we have already forgotten that our leaders’ only interest in Zarqawi before the illegal 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq was to propagate the lie that Osama bin Laden was in cahoots with Saddam Hussein.

Because al-Zarqawi met Osama bin Laden in 2002 and then took up residence in a squalid valley in northern Iraq — inside Kurdistan but well outside the control of both the Kurds and Saddam — messrs Bush and Blair concocted the fable that this “proved” the essential link between Saddam Hussein and the international crimes against humanity of September 11, 2001.

The date on which this fictitious alliance was proclaimed — since it is far more important, politically and historically, than the date of Zarqawi’s death — was February 5, 2003. The location of the lie was the United Nations Security Council and the man who uttered it was Secretary of State Colin Powell. What a sigh of relief there must have been in Washington that Zarqawi was dead and not captured. He might have told the truth.

With an inevitability borne of the utterly false promise that the bloodbath in Iraq is yielding dividends, we were supposed to believe that the death of Zarqawi was a famous victory. The American press dusted off their favourite phrase: “terrorist mastermind”. No one, I suspect, will be able to claim the 25 million dollars on his head — unless he was betrayed by his own hooded gunmen — but the American military, stained by the blood of Haditha, received a ritual pat on the back from the commander-in-chief.

They had got their man, the instigator of civil war, the flame of sectarian hatred, the head chopper who supposedly murdered Nicholas Berg. Maybe he was all these things. Or maybe not. But it will bring the war no nearer to its end not because of the inevitable Islamist rhetoric about the “thousand Zarqawis” who will take his place, but because individuals no longer control — if they ever did — the inferno of Iraq.

Osama bin Laden’s death would not damage Al Qaeda now that he — like a nuclear scientist who has built an atom bomb — has created it. Zarqawi’s demise — and only Al Qaeda’s killers would have listened to him, not the ex-Iraqi army officers who run the real Iraqi insurgency — will not make an iota of difference to the slaughter in Mesopotamia.

Bush and Blair slyly admitted as much when they warned that the insurgency would continue. But this raised another question. Will the eventual departure of Bush and Blair provide an opportunity to end this hell-disaster?

Or have the results of their folly also taken on a life of their own, unstoppable by any political change in Washington or London?

Already we forget the way in which the same American army credited with Zarqawi’s death has proved only a few weeks ago that he was a bumbling incompetent. The beast of Ramadi — or Fallujah or Baquba or wherever — had produced a video tape in which he fired a light machine-gun while promising victory to Islam. Days later, the Americans found the rough-cuts of the same video — in which Zarqawi could be seen pleading for help from his comrades after a bullet jammed in the breach of the weapon.

In prison in Jordan, back in the days when he was a mafiosi rather than a mahdi, Zarqawi would drape blankets around his bed, curtains that would conceal him from his fellow prisoners, a cave — a Bin Laden cave — from which he would emerge to stroke or strike the men in his cell. Possessive of his wife, he left her with so little money that she had to go out to work in his native Zarqa. When his mother died, Zarqawi sent no condolences.

Like bin Laden — the man of whom he was both beholden and intensely jealous — he had already transmogrified, undergone that essential transubstantiation of all violent men, from the personal to the immaterial, from the uncertainty of life to the certainty of death. Zarqawi’s video tape was an act of extreme vanity that may have led to his death and he may have made it, subconsciously, to be his last message.

That the intelligent services of King Abdullah of Jordan — descendant of the monarch whom Winston Churchill plopped off to the Hashemite throne — might have located Zarqawi’s “safe house” in Baquba was a suitably ironic historical act.

The man who believed in caliphates had struck at the kingdom — killing 60 innocents in three hotels — and the old colonial world had struck back. A king’s anger will embrace a duke or two. Even an ex-jail bird. Which, in the end, is probably all that Zarqawi was. —(c) The Independent

IT was an Indian voice that attracted my attention while I was loitering around downtown Manhattan in New York, recently. The man took me to a nearby eating store, a common feature in America where a retail outlet offers you hot, cooked food along with everyday necessities like toothbrushes, shampoo and medicine. I discovered that he was the owner and had a dozen similar stores in the city.

“We are noticed now,” he said. “Never before were we Indians given even a cursory look. Now the Americans know that our country is doing well.” What he was trying to convey to me was that India had suddenly become a success story. Newspapers and even television networks gave it prominence. Many Indians occupied key positions in the fields of technology, medicine, education and business.

“We can even influence the US Congress and the government,” said my middle-aged Punjabi friend. He took pride in the fact that he had come from India with $5 and was now worth at least $10 million. “All of us have done well,” he claimed. However, the NRI (non-resident Indian) success in the US is only part of the story. India’s eight per cent annual growth has made all the difference in changing the perception of policymakers, editors and businessmen. India is no more the land of maharajas, snake charmers and dancing girls. It is considered to be a country that is trying to catch up with the West through science, technology and economic development.

Probably, this is the time when we should be thinking about addressing the issue of India’s long-term image in America. Duplicating think-tanks or institutions may not serve our purpose. I have in mind an Indian university in the US. Maybe, we can start with the extension of some leading Indian university like the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Indian subjects could be taught along with American history or whatever else is part of their cultural and political scene. Hindu extremist organisations may find in the university an outlet for their contribution to India. At present, they are funding the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which they believe is a cultural organisation.

The proposed university or whatever else set-up has to put across India’s ethos: democracy and pluralism. America is impressed by our open and secular society, but the image has been damaged because of the violence in Gujarat. The anti-conversion legislation, which the BJP’s state governments have passed, has made the Christian world suspicious. It should be told that this is not India. The Bharatiya Janata Party is only a political organisation seeking more votes, behaving irresponsibly and even spoiling the country’s reputation in the process.

Image making is an enormous task. It cannot be done exclusively by the government or the foreign office. They can contribute and they have taken a good step by opening Nehru centres in important world capitals. Unfortunately, the bureaucracy has taken them over. This is what I fear may come in the way of image building. The approach of the bureaucrats is too stultified and their ideas too set in the face of a fast changing world.

On the other hand, America is too squeamish when it comes to India. Washington is still plagued by New Delhi’s independent attitude during the Cold War and feels more comfortable with dictatorial and military regimes than democratic India. If we are able to develop the country economically, without disparity while keeping society open and pluralistic, it would be a miracle which America or even the rest of the world might buy.

During my stay in America I was disappointed to find that a country where I inhaled free air some 50 years ago, and where I read the liberal thoughts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln at university, is now embedded in conservatism, fanaticism and arrogance — attributes that an unchallenged superpower develops.

There is little concern for the weak, the poor and the underprivileged. The treatment meted out to Muslims is, indeed, shameful. It appears as if America has launched an unofficial war against the Islamic world. This is where New Delhi should play its role. It must re-secularise that society. I was, however, happy to find Hindus and Muslims friendly towards one another. People from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India meet socially all the time.

At present, they face too much fuss over immigration. I find in it traces of racism. What this really means is that the non- whites should not be given entry. True, Indians are mostly treated deferentially but that is because they have been found superior in intellect and entrepreneurship. When it comes to the West versus the rest, they too are tarred with the same brush of discrimination.

It is strange that America wants markets to open and the tariffs to go. But it does not realise that India and such other countries have manpower to export when America has goods. If Washington can insist on demolishing the walls of customs and excise, why not bring down the walls of visas and entry permits? People to people contact will bring the different parts of the world closer to one another. Yet this argument does not go down well with the West which wants markets abroad but not the people — black or brown — from the countries to which it sells the goods.

Going from America to the UK, what hits you is the lack of confidence. It appears as if the country cannot do without a set of crutches that once was represented by the colonies and their resources. The Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are doing better on the whole than Britons of the same level. The main reason is that Asian parents pay more attention to the studies and activities of their children.

Also, the British value system has got jumbled up. They look towards America and Europe, but it is like living in awe of rich relatives. What still impresses you is their dignified behaviour even under difficult circumstances. When I was in London, the British were in the midst of a debate over Prime Minister Tony Blair’s remark that he was not America’s poodle.

Even if he is not, what does he prove by saying so? The fact is that London looks to the State Department and Blair looks to Bush for daily guidance. It is pathetic to see the Tories criticising Labour but not suggesting how they would be any better if they were in office.

Nations have to work hard and relentlessly to start again when they fall from the peak. I did not find that kind of spirit in the UK. Sometimes, I wonder if these were the people who changed their defeat at Dunkirk into a victory. Indomitable and courageous, they did not give in when any other nation would have surrendered. Where is that spirit? Have the people changed, or were their forefathers made of a different mettle?

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.