“THE Trojan War
is over now; I don’t recall who won it
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
so many dead so far from their own homeland.
But still, my homeward way has proved too long.”
Joseph Brodsky in Odysseus to Telemachus

A distinguished American academic says that in the 16 mid-term elections held in the United States since the Second World War, the election that delivered control of the House of Representatives and Senate to the Democrats on November 7 was the seventh that could be classified as a “repudiation election”.

The event has also been described as the “great revulsion”. Such momentous changes have a complex genesis but it is seldom that an American election is so decisively turned by the foreign and security policies of an incumbent president.

Many of us who took issue with these policies, especially the utterly illegal war in Iraq, which is reckoned to have killed more than 650,000 Iraqis, found it distressing that Congress, the people and the media offered so little resistance even as evidence piled up that the world was becoming more and more unsafe, the region destabilised as seldom before and long-term American interests jeopardised increasingly. Sensitive analysts in the United States lamented in vain that a powerful coalition of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and ideology-driven politicians was subverting American values .This crisis of values in the sole superpower of the day became a global crisis, a general disorder that may take a generation to overcome.

A recent Princeton paper on national security for the 21st century observed that no matter how well-intentioned the American strategy, it could at times contain within it the seeds of its own destruction. Millions abroad saw it as a macabre dance of death, a descent into chaos out of which nothing could be created. Consider the following excerpt from the Princeton study: “By periodically using our status as the sole superpower to flex our military might, to disdain multilateral institutions, and particularly to try to unilaterally transform the domestic politics of other states, we have triggered a backlash that increases extreme anti-Americanism, discourages key actors from fully cooperating with us, and weakens our global authority.”

The invasion of Iraq was born out of doctrines and objectives that militated against all principles of establishing a stable world order. It was choice not necessity that made President Bush launch his aggressive campaign to snuff out dissent at home by dubbing it as unpatriotic, and abroad by declaring that those who were not with the United States were against it. The incoherence of the Democrats’ position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was partly caused by the Republican jibe that dissent was a betrayal of American men and women in harm’s way.

The unexpectedly large margin of votes by which the American people changed the balance of forces in the Congress reflected the buried resentment at the perversion of the political discourse during the last six years.

The roots of this frustration are deep and widespread; there is anxiety not only about the American purpose but also the American competence to achieve it. The litany of failures, missed opportunities and botched objectives humbled the Republicans and challenges the Democrats who promise to redress them. The growing violence in Iraq is its most spectacular but not the only example. The mindless extension of the so-called war against terrorism, against the Islamic-fascists of Bush’s fevered imagination to a harshly secular Ba’athist Iraq has given terrorism a new lease of life.

It has not been lost on the American voters that Syria that the neo-conservatives openly identified as the next target after Iraq, and Iran which was recklessly included in the axis of evil, would probably have to be courted to make sense of any exit strategy from the Iraqi situation. Iran rightly aspires today to rival the power of Israel in the regional calculus. It has just announced plans for the augmentation of its uranium enrichment capacity vital to its future nuclear power reactors. North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon. Both Iran and North Korea have demonstrated progress in developing medium-range missiles.

In a vast swathe of Asian-Pacific lands, American hegemony is being eroded as China, India and Russia come into their own. While the United States sank deeper into the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan, its backyard in Latin America was dominated by political forces out to undermine its economic grip on it. Led by Chavaz, the region is fast becoming the torch bearer of the movement to redefine globalisation in terms that would force metropolitan economies to share their gains more equitably with the disadvantaged nations; the Latin American protest movements have revived the old fashioned North-South dialectic.

An aggressive resort to hard power in the Middle East and the perennial threat to use it anywhere in the world have hobbled the ability of the United States to influence areas of human activity open to its considerable soft power. It is not a role model in environment-related global initiatives. Millions all over the world want to see the threat of deadly epidemics put on the global security agenda but the United States is too embroiled in costly military adventures to provide leadership.

The logic of these threats — disease, famine, drugs, social violence — warrants a qualitative improvement in the work of the United Nations but US unilateralists baulk at its empowerment. Be it a question of trade or of international property rights, Washington can only brandish the sword. By asserting its immunity to international law, the US generates an analogical lawlessness across the globe.

If the United States was a parliamentary democracy, the Democrats and the independents willing to caucus with them would be ready with alternative policies. They have still to recover from the enfeebling process in which the neo-conservatives had successfully trapped them. The president can still deliver well-timed blows to them for another two years. He is predictably offering them calibrated readjustment of domestic and foreign policies.

The name of the game is bipartisanship. A laudable concept in times of national crisis, it would, in the run-up to the presidential election, also test the skills of the Democratic Party to the utmost. The greatest test would be if Bush opts for the Vietnam formula of making one last desperate military effort in Iraq by pouring more forces into the conflict there. If the Democrats acquiesce in such an adventure, the price would be a loss of the momentum needed to win the race for the White House.

As expected, Bush has begun by sacrificing the perfect scapegoat, Donald Rumsfeld and by appointing Robert Gates, one of the 10 commissioners of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, as his successor. The group is expected to contextualise the crisis in Iraq in the broader Middle East where Iran and Syria will be offered another round of constructive engagement. This bipartisan review board will work hard to avoid the label of defeat; it may even countenance a last military push, propose regionalisation of the Iraqi problem by opening a dialogue with Iran, Syria and the neighbouring Arab states, consider safer redeployment of troops, and in the final analysis, bring them home in a phased manner.

Regionalisation of policy will be integral to all plans except that it has become vastly more difficult than in 2003. There is no hint from the Bush camp that it would swallow the bitter pill of accommodating the agenda of Iran and that of the Arab states. There would be Iranian-Arab competition on the parameters of a revived Middle East peace process. Israel will pull no punches in mobilising its formidable lobby in the US to pre-empt this revival. Then, there is the question of accepting Iran’s nuclear energy plans, an accommodation of Iran’s complete mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle, perhaps with some IAEA safeguards.

Israel would use every trick in its repertoire to sabotage such a regime that detracts from its nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. For once, the United States would be called upon to accord a higher priority to its own national interest over the expansionist interests of the Jewish state. As the major issues of today roll over from one administration to the other, the transition — the homeward journey of Odysseus in the Brodsky poem quoted above — would remain foggy and perilous.

Pakistan’s ruling elite is addicted to a state of denial. It has begun with the routine mantra that Pakistan-US relations are now set in a mould that would not get affected by changes in Washington. There is a sense of deja vu but it was the only declaratory statement that Pakistan could have made. The current anti-Americanism in Pakistan springs partly from unknown or poorly defined fears about United States’ ulterior motives that Islamabad has failed to dispel; in fact, the latest massacre in Bajaur has deepened them.

But there are also hopes that America under the Democrats would weigh in on the side of the angels. This drama of hope and fear is central to the present debate on the implications of the US mid-term elections for Pakistan and we would turn to it next week.

The writer is a former ambassador

SO the Ministry of Fear now has a Dowager of Fear, the good Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller who has discovered in the sanctum of MI5 another 30 “terror plots” to terrify us — and an entire generation of plots before the show is over. And how Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara admires her. “I think she is absolutely right that it will last a generation,” he announces.

Absolutely, indeed. The favourite Blair adverb, always trotted out when he really, truly and of course absolutely believes he is right; which is not the same at all, of course, as actually being right, which needs a lot more than belief to support it.

What is this trash? Accepting — which Blair can’t do, can he? — that the risk to us is caused by his pusillanimous, mendacious policies in the Middle East (and that of his lord and master in Washington) would cut this latest bulletin from the Ministry of Fear down to a mere couple of years’ worth of terror instead of a generation.

And note the smarmy way that officials in the Ministry of Fear now try to squeeze in a little bit of truth to take the edge off all those lies. According to Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the war in Iraq is not to blame for the “terror plots” we are facing. No, “it is now clearly the case that although the Iraq war did not create violent jihad, it has become a convenient excuse for violent jihad”. Come again, my good Lord? Now, let me get this right. Iraq has nothing to do with the “terror plots” — this, he says, is “clearly” the case (“clearly” being a notch down the road of lies from “absolutely”, which might be pushing Lord Carlile’s luck on this occasion). So the threats have nothing to do with Iraq but, er, well, yes, he tells us that they have, because the inventors of the “terror plots” lie to us about the real reasons for their deeds.

Note the deceit in this. We are permitted to link Iraq to the “terror threat”, providing we do so on the grounds that the perpetrators are lying to us about Iraq. And so what are the real reasons for the plots? Why — Lord Blair again — the answer is they hate our “values”, values which Blair cared nothing about when he illegally invaded Iraq. And sometimes, wading through this drivel, I wonder what the Iraqis think of it, those who are paying — in their tens of thousands of lives — for our folly?

I am thinking of some real terror in Baghdad, the terror that comes through the letter box or is stuck on to walls. Now here are real terror plots for the Dowager of Fear to get her teeth into, plots to massacre and “cleanse” whole communities from their homes and cities on the grounds of their religious sect. And so, let’s take a look at some really ferocious terror, collected on the streets of Baghdad and from the front doors of those who are indeed facing a generation of threats, many of them scrupulously collected by local UN officials and put together by my Italian colleague, Mario Portanova, of the Milan magazine Diario. They are printed, not handwritten, and they are poisonous.

“To the ignoble rejectionists, who sold their religion and community for worldly rewards,” begins one note from a Sunni group about its Shia Muslim countrymen. “It is clear that you must be classified among those who have betrayed the covenant of Allah and his Prophet (PBHU), and are intellectually and actively involved in fighting against the Mujahideen (holy warriors). Therefore we grant you 24 hours to vacate this righteous (sic) district, otherwise punishment and retribution shall be your fate. Allah is greater. Praise and grace be to Allah (signed) The Islamist Army in Iraq.”

It should be noted that many of these terrible notices of intent to murder are preceded by the first words of the Quran: “In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”

Now here’s another threat from the “Day of Atonement Brigades”, a Shia group: “To the disloyal Palestinians, declared enemies and Saddamist Ba’athists, specifically those who reside in the al-Shououn district (of Baghdad). This is a warning that you will be liquidated if you do not move completely away from this district within a 10-day period. Let this be a warning to all, without exception.”

And here’s the literary work of the “Allahu Akbar Brigades”, who are probably Sunnis, which specifically targets schoolgirls: “Death, crucifixion, amputation of hands and feet ... will be the retribution against those who defy Allah ... To all lascivious women who due to their mode of dress encourage sexual titillation, beware this will lead to worldly damnation. Bullets and the cudgel will be the punishment for those who have no morals, and those who persist in wearing short, provocative clothes. We are fully aware of what takes place after noontime in the school halls on Museum Road and elsewhere. We know about the ... secret meetings that are taking place. We are present among you and know all there is to know ...”

And now for the work of an Al Qaeda affiliate, directed at the Shia: “In view of the sectarian criminal acts which are being perpetrated by the so-called infamous Mehdi Army and the deceitful Badr Forces, including killing, abduction, deportation and displacement of the Sunni community in Mahmudiyah, Rashidiya, al-Shaab, al-Shattah and al-Hurriyah ... this formation has decided to respond twofold to each attack ... an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ... accordingly it has been decreed that you (Shias) must leave the Sunni community areas, including al-Ghaziyah, within 24 hours, otherwise we will chop off your heads as the militias have been doing to the sons of the Sunni community.”

There are many other pages. One calls on Shias to “leave their burrows” in Baghdad within two days or “taste the fire”. Another warns Shias not to visit their local mosque. “To those who pray at al-Sajad mosque, a horrendous death shall be your fate should you come within close proximity of this mosque ... Cursed are the agents of the occupiers.” This, of course, is the hell we have bequeathed to all the Arab peoples of Iraq, this nightmare of genocidal threat and murder. All for non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

And yet there is the Dowager of Fear trying to frighten us. That there may be “plots” I don’t doubt. But given the hell-disaster we have helped to unleash in Iraq, is it any surprise? — (c) The Independent

PRESIDENT Musharraf has finally swung his club and hit a birdie, and large sections of the nation are rejoicing. But even though he is hogging the limelight one can’t help getting the feeling that in the Great Game that he has been playing with the relatively new members in the clubhouse, he and his supporters are anxious to circumvent some of the puddles around the seventeenth hole, as if afraid they might inundate the course.

How different things would have been if he had wielded his club with the same determination and resolve seven years ago when he took over the stewardship of the country. He could have nipped the evil in the bud with a stroke of his pen. The landscape was then bright and green and a little uncertain, and there was nobody on the links to challenge him. He could have easily scored a birdie or two and have gotten away with it. People expect dramatic transformations after a coup d’etat or a radical change of government and are usually willing to accept anything.

In other words, if the president had wiped the Hudood ordinances completely off the slate, he would have done so long before the general elections, and long before the obscurantist elements in the country had had a chance to coalesce and band together and make their presence felt through the assemblies. But it was not to be.

Seven years later, the same links are crawling with an assortment of players representing a variety of interests, pressure groups, ideologies and alignments, all wielding an assortment of clubs, and a lot of golf balls are being tossed about.

But the point is, in spite of the hurdles and the wrangling and the behind-the-door deals during the last two months, and in spite of the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the head of the Q-League and the speaker of the National Assembly, both of whom are arch reactionaries, the president still managed to swing it. And that’s what really matters. Of course, the military strongman had to do a bit of prodding, but without that Chaudhry Shujaat might have repeated his earlier gaffe and tossed the bill back to the holy warriors.

While the president must be commended for taking the step that he has, the general impression among the liberal elements in the country is that there was really nothing to have stopped the government from going the whole hog and reproducing the original draft of the bill, instead of the moth-eaten version that finally saw the light of day.

In pushing through the Women Protection Bill in the lower House in its present truncated form, it does look as if the government is still anxious to sit somewhere between the balcony and the stalls, so as to give the impression that it has always had tickets for both enclosures.

The passage of the bill, nevertheless, uncorked a few interesting bubbles. While the MMA has to the outside world remained united and steadfast in its resolve to ensure that some aspect of the Zina ordinance remains on the statute books, differences have popped up over the issue in both the components of the ruling alliance as well as the opposition parties.

The PPP, MQM and PKMAP have stood for the total abolition of the iniquitous Hudood Ordinances, but felt it prudent to shift their weight onto the other foot, when they saw that an amended bill had a better chance of being passed than the original whose preamble was loaded with persuasive arguments and simply brimming with cogent reasons why the repressive ordinances should be completely scrapped.

The Nawaz faction of the Muslim League, which finds itself in the difficult position of being ideologically in harmony with the MMA and politically in sympathy with the PPP on the issue of bringing back democracy, came up with the lame excuse that the attempt to push through the bill was nothing more than a ploy by the government to divide the opposition. They, therefore, chose the safe course of abstaining from voting.

Why Imran Khan, chief of the Tehrik-i-Insaf, also decided to abstain, is not at all clear, especially as he comes across as a secular, liberal politician. His example was emulated by other small political groups like the BNP and the JWP who decided to look the other way when the issue was put to the vote.

The passage of this controversial bill is likely to pose a threat to the unity of the ARD whose long-term objective still appears to be the installation of a civilian president and sending the army back to the barracks. The Muslim League (N) was somewhat miffed by the support the PPP gave the government during the passage of the bill, and is sticking to the rather absurd theory that the bill was a clever gambit employed by the president to diffuse the opposition. Stories of collusion between the president and the exiled leadership of the PPP have not helped and have made the alliance more tenuous.

Unity within the MMA is also likely to be affected. Stories have surfaced about differences between the two top leaders within the six-party alliance, the rather stoic, hardliner Qazi Hussain Ahmed of the Jamaat-i-Islami and the more jovial and pragmatic Maulana Fazlul Rehman, who appears to have a penchant for sitting on the fence. The threat of the MMA MNAs to quit the lower House in early December has not created any ripples on the lake. Most political analysts see the threat as just another political gimmick. The difference is that this time the government has called their bluff.

What is, however, difficult to understand is the extraordinary obsession of the MMA with adultery, and the belief that the passing of the Women Protection Bill would now cast hordes of Pakistani women adrift on a sea of permissive wickedness. These holy warriors appear to have forgotten that in heterosexual rape cases it is the man who is always the aggressor, and not the other way around. The Hudood ordinances never stopped men from raping women. They just let them get away with it.

What the Women Protection Bill has done is to take rape out of the Hudood law and put it back into the Pakistan Penal Code, from where it had been unceremoniously plucked by the obscurantist Ziaul Haq.

The switch-over is particularly significant because the Hudood ordinances had changed the complexion of the offence by equating rape with adultery.

In no other country, not even in parts of darkest Africa and Melanesia, has there ever been a case like the one which occurred in Pakistan where a blind girl who had been raped was accused of fornication and awarded the punishment of death by stoning. Fortunately, wiser counsel prevailed and the sentence was not carried out.

But this case does illustrate the extraordinary lengths to which an absurd mind will travel to impose a special brand of retributive justice and to misinterpret religion.

What is truly astonishing is that it never appeared to have occurred to the magistrate trying the case and handing down the punishment that even if the rape victim had been able to unearth four witnesses who could have testified that a rape had actually taken place — an essential requirement of the ordinance — the victim couldn’t have possibly done so as she was blind.

Another major amendment in the bill focuses on the procedure for registering a zina case. The offence is no longer cognisable, and only the court can decide if the misdemeanour has any foundation or merit. And even if it does, the offence will now be bailable.

The good news is that the government has now prepared the Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Bill for consideration by the house at its next sitting. The draft seeks to put an end to six unjust practices currently being observed.

These are vani, forced marriage, depriving women of their property rights, divorce by uttering the phrase three times in one sitting, marrying women to the Holy Quran, and watta-satta (exchange marriages).

It is these practices that collectively give Pakistan a bad name and project the country as a stone-age culture where women are still bartered to settle disputes. The women of Pakistan, especially those belonging to the middle and working classes, have suffered unspeakable indignities and atrocities under the Hudood ordinances.

It is time to set the record straight.