WITH Israel’s massive and round-the-clock strikes on Gaza and Lebanon, the Muslim states around the globe are faced with a choice. Should they go with the “street” or should they look after the interests of the state and the elites that dominate them? The reaction of the countries the West has begun to call “Muslim moderate nations” surprised most observers. The leadership of these countries have emphasised that the Israeli action was in response to the unprovoked adventures by Hamas and Hezbollah.

There was indeed provocation by these two organisations but they had acted because of extreme frustration. Not doing anything meant accepting the status quo — a situation in which the blockade of Gaza was smothering Hamas. The great irony was that Hamas had gained power as a result of the process of democratisation pursued by the Palestinians in response to the pressure exerted by Washington. The conclusion was obvious. Official America was prepared to accept democracy only when it produced results that were satisfactory to it and served its strategic interests.

The Muslim world had been in this position before. In 1992, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), or the Islamic Salvation Front, won the first round of elections in Algeria. The Algerian military, at the urging of the French, who in turn were prodded by the United States, cancelled the second phase of the voting. Thousands of supporters of FIS fled to the mountains and began their violent rebellion that lasted for several years and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people.

While Egypt and Jordan chose to stay on the sidelines of the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Saudi Arabia quickly came out against the Lebanese party and also against Iran. Its position was revealed through the official news agency which said that “a distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures undertaken by elements inside Lebanon and those behind them.” This was also the line adopted by Washington. “Elements inside Lebanon” referred, of course, to Hezbollah and “those behind them” meant Iran. Some of the Sunni states of the Muslim world had clearly decided to side with Israel and the United States in curbing what was seen as the growing influence of Iran not just on the Shia communities but also on the masses in the Muslim world irrespective of the sects to which they expressed allegiance. A curious thing, therefore, happened in America’s campaign to bring democracy to the Muslim lands. The call for such a move was made with great eloquence by George W. Bush, the US president, in his second inaugural speech in January 2005. To thunderous applause by his audience that day and later by a series of neo-conservative commentators and analysts, this is what Bush had to say: “Freedom isn’t America’s gift to the world. It’s the Almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in this world.” This was a lovely sentiment embedded in a beautiful line but from the perspective of American strategic interests in the Muslim world it proved to be disastrous policy.

How did it become a disastrous policy? Encouraged by America, Egypt allowed a bit of space to those who opposed Hosni Mubarak, the country’s long-serving president who had exercised total control over the political system for a quarter century. The result was the resurgence of the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood. Mahmoud Abbas, successor to Yasser Arafat as the chairman of Al-Fatah and president of the Palestinian Authority, was encouraged to hold free and fair elections and the result, unexpectedly, was the triumph of Hamas.

The latter is seen from two very different perspectives. For the United States, Israel and much of the West it is a terrorist organisation that has been relentless in its fight against what it regards as oppression. It has developed the suicide bomber as a weapon that has brought some damage but enormous insecurity to Israel and its citizens. Hamas’s supporters see it as a benevolent organisation fighting a war against occupying forces.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese organisation has a similar position. It has been proclaimed a terrorist organisation by the West but is respected by the poor in Lebanon. There is little doubt that Hezbollah will register an electoral triumph and assume control of the Lebanese government if the country’s political system moved towards “one man, one vote.” At the moment the political structure allows disproportionate representation to the Christians at the expense of the Shias who are the country’s largest community and its poorest community.

President Bush and his associates in the government find themselves perched precariously on the horns of a dilemma. Push democracy in the Muslim countries and groups like Hamas and Hezbollah triumph, having built their reputation on the careful provision of social services by dedicated providers. At the top of these organisations are individuals who are clean and committed, thus presenting a clear alternative to the corruption and inefficiency that is so common among the establishments that dominate many Muslim states.

But the electoral triumph of Hamas and the popularity of Hezbollah have one troubling aspect: they are the product of the political under-development of the Muslim world. With poorly developed political parties, the choices available to the electorate are limited to those parties that represent religious ideologies or religious sects or regional interests. This was vividly illustrated by the outcome of the elections in Iraq. Dozens of parties took part in the elections, each representing some sect, ideology or religion. There was no political group that had cross-religious or cross-regional appeal that was able to secure much voter support.

In other words, focus on electoral politics as the first phase of democratisation has had a perverse effect. It has accentuated the divisions in the countries and in the societies in which elections were held rather than bring about political development.

This is not what was anticipated by President George W. Bush and his neocon supporters when they embarked upon their agenda for bringing about political reform in the Muslim world. The experience of the Muslim world demonstrates that freedom is not necessarily Almighty God’s gift to each man and woman in the world as Bush claimed. It has to be earned. It is an achievement rather than divine dispensation.

The word is now out; the genie is out of the bottle. Democracy is the preferred option for the masses in the Muslim world. The arrival of globalisation has meant that this message cannot be kept from reaching the masses by autocratic regimes. The Internet, cable television, and mobile telephones with embedded cameras ensure that news about the world reaches all parts of the globe almost instantaneously. The state, therefore, has to take notice of the street and the street in the Muslim world is getting increasingly agitated. How can the West, now tied to many parts of the Muslim world for economic and strategic reasons, respond to this developing conflict between the rulers and the ruled?

If you possess only a hammer you view every problem as a nail. This is the way America is acting in Afghanistan and Iraq and how Israel has launched its latest incursion in Lebanon. In spite of America’s experience, neo-conservatives have not learnt a lesson. There is a powerful interpretation of the current crisis in the Middle East doing the rounds in Washington. As Gideon Rachman, a commentator writing for the Financial Times, puts it: There is an argument “that the problems America is encountering the world around are precisely the result of the Bush administration’s renewed willingness to work with its allies. According to this thinking, weak-kneed Europeans have lured the US down the path of appeasement in Iran, North Korea and the Middle East.”

William Kristol who, along with Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, persuaded President Bush to use force to bring about change in the regime in Iraq, is once again advocating the use of force, a hammer to hit the Muslim nail. Writing for the Weekly Standard, the magazine of the neo-conservatives, Kristol argues that the fighting in the Middle East was part of a broad-based attack on “liberal, democratic civilisation. Weakness is provocative...The right response is renewed strength — in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran.” He urged President Bush to order an immediate “military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.”

It is hard to predict at the time of this writing exactly how the current conflict in the Middle East will end. Its impact, no matter which way it goes, will have enormous consequences for Pakistan.

I have said before in these columns that Pakistan is uniquely placed in the Muslim world. It straddles the Arab and non-Arab Muslim worlds. It has as its immediate neighbour Iran, the largest nation of Shia Muslims, as well as Afghanistan and the Chinese province of Xinjiang. The last two are strong believers of the Sunni interpretation of the Islamic faith. It is not often realised that with some 35 million Shias as its citizens, Pakistan has the second largest Shia population in the world after Iran.

Pakistan has, until recently, offered a reasonably harmonious environment for the followers of two main sects of Islam. It has cultivated close economic relations with Saudi Arabia and the countries of the Gulf. It is negotiating the construction of a natural gas pipeline that will bring Iranian gas into Pakistan. Investors in these countries are pouring billions of dollars in Pakistan to purchase not only the assets being privatised by the government but also in real estate. By working to enlarge the geographic coverage of the Economic Cooperation Organisation and by seeking admission into the Shanghai Group, it is seeking to build strong economic relations with the Central Asian states that follow Sunni Islam.

If the conflict in the Middle East widens the schism between the Sunnis and the Shias, it will have an impact on Pakistan. There will also be an impact if the Muslim street gets further agitated by the disproportionate Israeli response to the provocations by Hamas and Hezbollah. There will be consequence for public policy if the already negative feelings in Pakistan about America are further exacerbated by this conflict. Finally, the deepening of the conflict may encourage India to paint its own communal problems with the brush of Islamic extremists.

How should Pakistan respond to these challenges? They should not be used to further constrain the political system. It is quite possible that Washington may encourage such an approach in search of security in the sensitive geographical area of which Pakistan is a part. But that would a highly dangerous route to take; something the country should not attempt at this time in its history.

MORALITY in foreign policy is often subjective. The US administration is confident that it represents the forces of democracy and freedom, and thus feels free to do whatever it judges best to promote these fine things.

Israel perceives Palestinians and Arabs as committed to its destruction, justifying any action taken against them. Some in the Muslim world see no prospect of frustrating western cultural, economic and military dominance on western terms of engagement, and so choose other methods — such as suicide-bombing — that better suit their weakness.

Many Americans and Israelis believe that virtue is anyway unimportant, that the Arab world — and indeed the world at large — chiefly respects the successful use of power. Yet the weakness of this argument is laid bare in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. The US, Israel and their backers — prominently including Tony Blair, if not the British people — are perceived both as behaving immorally, and using force ineffectually.

In a recent article for the International Institute for Strategic Studies journal, Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the School of Public Policy at Singapore University, analysed the precipitous decline of perceived western legitimacy. His principal argument was that it is essential for the US and its allies to be seen to abide by the same rules that they seek to impose on others.

He proposed a recasting of the post-1945 Truman consensus, within which most nations acknowledged that the US sought to exercise its might for the welfare of all. Urging the US to renew its commitment to making the UN a real force, Mahbubani acknowledged the justice of giving large powers large voices through the Security Council. He argued, however, that its members’ special influence must be matched by a special sense of responsibility, which is today perceived as lacking.

The world is unimpressed, he said, by US attempts to limit the rising power of China. Osama bin Laden has “successfully delegitimised American power in the eyes of hundreds of millions of Muslims ... One of the key factors in the growing delegitimisation ... is (US) indifference to its impact and to how it is perceived in the eyes of the six billion people in the rest of the world.” The principle of political and economic evenhandedness is key, and is being flouted.

Most of the above seems undeniable by any reasonable person. It is hard to overstate the practical consequences of the West’s moral erosion. The 2001 Afghan invasion commanded widespread international support. Yet, in Afghanistan today, most Nato members are fulfilling their commitments to help stabilise the country in the most half-hearted fashion. American behaviour elsewhere has diminished willingness to assist American purposes anywhere.

This is mistaken, but unsurprising. The British contingent is striving its hardest in Helmand province, but the leakage of moral authority from Iraq has impacted on the perceived legitimacy of military action in Afghanistan. British soldiers on the ground pay the price, as ever, for their political masters’ misjudgments.

Last Tuesday the attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, delivered a shamefully complacent speech about Britain’s proud record in upholding international law, notably in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We in the United Kingdom,” he said, “take great care to ensure that we comply with the rule of law ... We take legitimacy very seriously.” Operationally, on the battlefield, this is true. But it seems astonishing that any member of a government that has joined with the US in inflicting frightful damage on western legitimacy should dare to speak in such terms.

Goldsmith added: “International law cannot be a substitute for morality or political judgment.” True enough. Blair, with the help of his attorney, has driven a coach and horses through all three.

Morality alone cannot make an international order work. Few of us, however, want to be represented by governments that are perceived by most of the human race as pursuing policies which have no moral basis at all.

Hezbollah is a profoundly unpleasant and violent movement, which has inflicted as much grief upon the people of Lebanon as the Israelis. But as long as Israel continues to deny justice to the Palestinians, Hezbollah’s actions will be deemed by many to possess more legitimacy than its own. Higher standards are expected from a sovereign state than a terrorist organisation.

It is understandable that George Bush should have endorsed the current Israeli campaign, for no more can be expected from him. It is almost incomprehensible, however, that Blair should also have done so, save in the context of the prime minister’s wider loss of radio contact with Planet Earth. Israeli actions fail the pragmatic as well as the moral test.

There is no possibility that they will suppress terrorist resistance to their polity. An Israeli academic chided me recently: “You columnists witter about proportionality — you should consider what the Israeli public demands from its government.”

This recalled to me the wise observation of that most brilliant of British strategists Professor Sir Michael Howard in the aftermath of 9/11. “We have just got to hope,” he said, “that whatever retaliatory action the Bush government undertakes to satisfy its own people for the twin towers does the least possible damage to the struggle against terrorism.”

The defeat of terrorism is best achieved through an unglamorous cocktail of politics, diplomacy, intelligence, bribery, police work and special forces operations. Above all, a successful campaign offers the society from which the terrorists are drawn a just political dispensation. Contrary to widespread belief, the British did not defeat the 1950s Malayan insurgency by brilliant soldiering, but by shrewd politicking, which included a promise to quit the country. Northern Ireland today may not be a satisfactory place, but it owes its relative tranquillity to politics and economics rather than to 30 years of counter-terrorist campaigning.

Israel’s attempts to quell opponents by the use of superior force may briefly appease its own public opinion, but contribute nothing to the nation’s lasting security — indeed the reverse. Bush deserves some sort of award from the erratic and incompetent leaders of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, to name but three, because the force most helpful to sustaining them in power is the raucous hostility of the US.

It is extraordinary to behold the loud, small people who direct US policymaking today, and contrast them with the towering figures who dominated in the late 1940s. Can Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld come from the same country that produced Dean Acheson, Averell Harriman, George Kennan and George Marshall? There was nothing limp-wristed about the latter. They forged the policy of containment of the Soviet Union and urged Truman to fight in Korea. Yet all were repositories of deep wisdom and generosity of spirit. When I once applauded their memories to Ray Seitz, then US ambassador in London, he dryly reminded me that none achieved elective office.

The point is well made. But they wielded influence in a fashion that determined US policy, in an era when western command of the moral high ground was hardly disputed in any civilised society. Somehow, though surely not under the current US president or British prime minister, this is what we must regain.—Dawn/ Guardian Service

THIS is not the first time that world leaders have had their summers ruined by “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.” In the summer of 1938, the quarrel between Germans and Czechs over the Sudetenland ‘which inspired Neville Chamberlain’s notorious phrase ‘ brought Europe to the brink of war.

The British prime minister’s shuttle diplomacy, which saw him fly three times to see Adolf Hitler in Germany, was inspired by memories of an earlier quarrel over another obscure country. In August 1914, the world had gone to war as a result of a quarrel between Serbs and Austrians over Bosnia. In September 1939, despite Chamberlain’s efforts at appeasement, another quarrel between Germans and Poles over Danzig (now Gdansk) led to World War II.

Could today’s quarrel between Israelis and Hezbollah over Lebanon produce World War III? That’s what Republican Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, called it last week, echoing earlier fighting talk by Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Such language can ‘for now, at least’ safely be dismissed as hyperbole. This crisis is not going to trigger another world war. Indeed, I do not expect it to produce even another Middle East war worthy of comparison with those of June 1967 or October 1973. In 1967, Israel fought four of its Arab neighbours — Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq. In 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. Such combinations are very hard to imagine today.

Nor does it seem likely that Syria and Iran will escalate their involvement in the crisis beyond continuing their support for Hezbollah. Neither is in a position to risk a full-scale military confrontation with Israel, given the risk that this might precipitate an American military reaction.

Crucially, Washington’s consistent support for Israel is not matched by any great power support for Israel’s neighbours. During the Cold War, by contrast, the risk was that a Middle East war could spill over into a superpower conflict. Henry Kissinger, secretary of State in the twilight of the Nixon presidency, first heard the news of an Arab-Israeli war at 6:15 a.m. on Oct. 6, 1973. Half an hour later, he was on the phone to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Dobrynin. Two weeks later, Kissinger flew to Moscow to meet the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev.

The stakes were high indeed. At one point during the 1973 crisis, as Brezhnev vainly tried to resist Kissinger’s efforts to squeeze him out of the diplomatic loop, the White House issued DEFCON 3, putting American strategic nuclear forces on high alert. It is hard to imagine anything like that today.

In any case, this war may soon be over. Most wars Israel has fought have been short, lasting a matter of days or weeks (six days in ‘67, three weeks in ‘73). Some Israeli sources say this one could be finished in a matter of days. That, at any rate, is clearly the assumption being made in Washington.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been in no hurry to get to the scene (she is due to arrive in Israel today). Nor has she scheduled any visits to Arab capitals. Compare this leisurely response to the frenetic shuttle diplomacy of the Kissinger era. While striving to secure a settlement between Israel and Syria, Rice’s predecessor travelled 24,230 miles in just 34 days.

And yet there are other forms that an escalation of the Middle East conflict could conceivably take. A war between states may not be in the cards, much less a superpower conflict. What we must fear, however, is a spate of civil wars ‘to be precise, ethnic conflicts’ across the region.

Between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon’s multiethnic society was torn apart in one of the bloodiest internecine conflicts of modern times. A repeat of that scenario cannot be ruled out as Beirut burns again.

Elsewhere, ethnic conflict is already a reality. Israel’s undeclared war against the Palestinians in the occupied territories shows every sign of escalating. There were lethal Israeli airstrikes on the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza last week. Palestinians also were killed in Nablus on the West Bank. There is no longer a peace process, no road map toward peaceful coexistence. This is a war process, and the map that Israeli leader Ehud Olmert has in mind will create not a Palestinian state but Arab reservations.

Yet the biggest ethnic conflict in the Middle East today is not between Jews and Arabs. It is between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

With every passing day, the character of violence in Iraq shifts from that of an anti-American insurgency to that of a sectarian civil war. More than 100 civilians a day were killed in Iraq last month, according to the United Nations, bringing the civilian death toll this year to a staggering 14,000-plus. A rising proportion of those being killed are victims of sectarian violence.

For Israel, spiralling Sunni-Shia conflict is a dark cloud with a silver lining. The worse it gets, the harder it will be for Israel’s enemies to make common cause. (Fact: Syria is 74 per cent Sunni; Iran is 89 per cent Shia.) But for the United States, such conflict, emanating from a country supposedly liberated by American arms, must surely be a cause for concern.

It may not be world war III. But the current crisis nevertheless calls for a much more urgent diplomatic effort than the Bush administration seems to have in mind.—Dawn/Los Angeles Times Service