IN returning this week to the likely impact of the Baker-Hamilton report on US policy one cannot lose sight of the essential attributes of the governments that were the driving force behind the invasion of Iraq. They did not take democratic decisions, nor did they listen to the United Nations. President Bush’s strong personality overshadowed the scene in America while the Democrats were just too feeble to uphold the American system of checks and balances.

In the United Kingdom, where the essence of democracy is normally purer than in the United States, an exceptionally gifted and articulate prime minister put a quasi-presidential stamp on decision-making. Both men were lured alike by expectations of imperial gains and, worse still, driven by ideological and religious impulses.

One is talking of impulses that spring from the darker subterranean strata of human personality which lead to glory or disaster, depending on the strength of the “correlation of forces” opposing them. Such enterprises, born out of a Napoleonic ambition to transform the world, invite an equally robust response. The antagonist in the Iraq epic was not of a heroic mould in the classical sense but a deadly local variant of asymmetrical warfare for which there was no ready remedy.

History would remember the Iraq war as one of the most amoral conflicts in modern times. A campaign built on lies clashed with resistance that threw all morality to the winds. There were no laws of war, no respect for conventions and treaties accumulated laboriously over decades. The savagery of “shock and awe” was more than matched by the wanton cruelty of the suicide bomber, an unprecedented use of disorder as the main weapon of defence, a scorched earth policy extrapolated into mass murder.

The Baker-Hamilton report can be implemented only if the Iraq war is brought back by both sides into the folds of civilisation. The barbarian in either camp is deterministically programmed to kill and destroy; how does Rome take the law to him?

It is, at one level, a question of restoring faith in norms that should not have been violated in the first place. There have been far too many disclosures on both sides of the Atlantic of how reality was distorted and how “facts” were created to manipulate decisions. The process has not come to an end. The latest is the testimony of the British diplomat, Carne Ross, to the Butler Commission that has surfaced despite the threat to him of the Official Secrets Act.

The essence of what this sharp and sensitive servant of the state has to say is that Prime Minister Tony Blair knew all the time that Saddam Hussein did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or any “other capability” to threaten the UK or its interests. More tellingly, responsible men from the UK and the United States agreed, according to Ross, that bringing down Saddam Hussein would lead to Iraq collapsing into chaos. Despite this knowledge there was no serious effort to look at alternatives to war. The UK and the US knowingly opted for chaos.

The chaos in Iraq is, therefore, not of the making of just the Al Qaeda which did not exist in Iraq in 2003 or of the remnants of the Ba’athist Party. It was scripted into the war plan as an acceptable consequence of the invasion. Donald Rumsfeld famously took the United States into an ugly war not only with the army he had (and not the army that war needed) but also with total indifference to the humanitarian disaster that it portended. Clearly, terminating such a conflict warrants a transcendent level of statesmanship perhaps similar to the one that enabled France to bring the Algerian war of independence to a closure.

James Baker and all of his nine veterans of war and peace knew that invoking that kind of statesmanship would be fanciful. Perhaps they did not even want to try doing so. They trimmed their sails and headed for the relative safety of the nearest haven. It meant assigning a secondary importance to the future of the Iraqi people and focused on extricating the US combat troops from the inferno.

For Iraq, they had no hesitation in transferring primary responsibility to the Iraqi government that works from an ever shrinking zone of safety. It would, indeed, be helped by embedding American trainers into the national Iraqi army but there are evident limits for this generosity. “If the Iraqi government”, let us read the report in the abbreviated executive summary, “does not make substantial progress towards the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government.”

How would this hapless government achieve “national reconciliation” in the midst of a full blown sectarian civil war? The report acknowledges an average daily death toll of a hundred Iraqi lives. It, however, underestimates the scale on which ethnic cleansing is taking place, on which people are forced to give up their homes and workplaces and on which Iraqis flee to any border that they and their exhausted children can cross. Can it be forgotten that for more than six months the occupation authorities have done nothing to change the most provocative parts of the constitution as an earnest of national reconciliation?

In fact, they have looked passively at the enlargement and hardening of the armed militias. The Baker-Hamilton report notes that the Mahdi army, led by Moqtada al Sadr, has 60,000 fighters and that “it is believed to engage in regular violence against Sunni Arab civilians”. The Badr Brigade, it says, is affiliated with the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which is led by Abdul Aziz-al-Hakim and has long-standing ties with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “While wearing the uniform of the security services,” the report notices rather calmly, “Badr fighters have targeted Sunni Arab civilians”.

I have some knowledge of SCIRI from my tour of duty in Tehran where this disciplined and highly motivated force took shape during the Iran-Iraq war. I cannot believe that Abdul Aziz-al-Hakim would sanction sectarian killings. In any case one would want to know what the highest leaders of the United States said to him during his recent visit to Washington.

The sectarian incubus, Sunni and Shia alike, has risen from the waters poisoned by the invasion. Let there be no mistake about it. The present violence pre-empts plans for creating a truly national Iraqi army and police. The nature and extent of the current disorder could seriously challenge the timeline envisaged for the withdrawal of combat troops; it will make the redeployment necessary for withdrawal — a hazardous undertaking that the military will flinch from.

The bitter truth is that the measures recommended by the Baker-Hamilton report, which President Bush is openly procrastinating about, would have a chance of succeeding only if they are placed in a time-bound plan for the complete termination of the invasion. If Iraq needs an overarching outside presence during a difficult transition to full sovereignty it should come from the United Nations or the neighbouring Arab states and not the “remnants” of Rumsfeld’s legions.

There is no doubt that the regional states can and must help. But is President Bush willing to consider a legitimate quid pro quo? Iran has gained enough influence in Iraq to expect a significant recompense. George Bush has to give up the campaign to bring about a regime change in Tehran, facilitate Iran’s unfettered return to the international mainstream and rethink the kind of nuclear capability of Iran, a signatory to the NPT, that “the international community” can live with.

In Syria, President Assad has made a number of statements that cumulatively point to a possible rapprochement with the United States but it hinges on Washington persuading Israel to leave the occupied Golan Heights. The latest news from the Golan Heights is that Israeli settlers now outnumber the native Arabs.

President Bush took a number of steps to balance the Baker report with more agreeable documents. He waits for the Pentagon assessment. Having juxtaposed several inputs he would probably reveal only an outline of his policy response. There are not many options but the psychological determinism — secular (read oil and military bases) or divine (voices from the netherworld) — discussed in the beginning of this article, may still be the main hurdle in charting a different course. He would know what the Democrats have in mind after the first of January but he could easily underestimate their resolve to force a decisive change.

A conflict that began in the fevered imagination of the neo-conservatives is still trapped in illusions. God, not just the 10 luminaries of the Iraq Study Group, will have to speak to George Bush to bring the carnage to an end. As to the mortal marauders who stalk the people of Iraq, there is an outside and more mundane chance that they may still pay heed to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf States and above all Iran in a forceful regional conference. There is a metaphysical dimension to this conflict. Men and gods have to work in harmony to bring the tragedy of Iraq to an end.

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

WHAT positions would Syria take if it entered a dialogue with the United States about Iraq and other Middle East issues? I put that question Thursday to Walid Moallem, Syria’s foreign minister, and he offered surprisingly strong support for the recommendations made last week in the Baker-Hamilton report.

“We are not against the US,” Moallem said. “To the contrary, we want to be part of a regional dialogue that, in our opinion, serves American interests in the region.” He described America and the region as being at a “crossroads” and said: “Either we go for stability, or the region will fall, and religious civil wars and the extremists behind them will take over.”

Moallem’s comments are the most detailed Syrian response to the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former representative Lee H. Hamilton. As we made a line-by-line review of the group’s recommendations involving Syria, Moallem expressed support for nearly every item. When I asked if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad endorsed these positions, he answered: “He is the leader. I am expressing his ideas.”

Moallem portrayed Syria as a potential partner in stabilising the region. He referred at one point to “the noble cause of peace between Syria and Israel.” Later, he said that while Syria favours a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq, a rapid American withdrawal before Iraqis are ready to take over security would be “an immoral step.”

The Bush administration has shown little interest in dialogue with Damascus, and the administration has been sharply critical of Syria’s campaign against Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a key US ally. Administration officials have said in the past that although Syria speaks of a desire for cooperation and dialogue, its actions — in Lebanon and elsewhere — have not matched its words.

A former Syrian ambassador to Washington, Moallem worked with Baker on diplomatic issues involving the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which opened the way for peace talks between Syria and Israel that were ultimately unsuccessful. The Syrian said that when they met again in September to discuss the Iraq Study Group, Baker asked him: “ ‘Walid, how can we return to the Syrian-American situation of the early 1990s, when we succeeded to build mutual trust?’ I told him, ‘This is our wish also in Syria.’ “

Moallem argued that the Bush administration’s efforts to isolate Syria have failed and that it’s time for the administration to try another approach based on shared Syrian-American interests in three goals for the Mideast: peace, stability and prosperity. He said that although Syria hoped to recover the Golan Heights, it was not setting this as a condition for dialogue.

“A constructive dialogue has to start without preconditions,” he said. He denied that Syria was seeking greater power in Lebanon as the price for its help in Iraq. “This is not a deal. This is not, ‘We will do this if you give us Lebanon,’ “ he said. But he did note that if America wanted dialogue, “you need to reassure us about your good intentions concerning our stability.”

Syria has already begun implementing some of the Baker-Hamilton recommendations for Iraq, Moallem said. With this month’s restoration of Syrian-Iraqi diplomatic ties, he explained, the two countries are beginning joint efforts to control their border and increase political and economic cooperation, as called for by the Iraq Study Group. “We are not doing this to please the US We are doing what is in the Syrian and Iraqi interest,” he said.

Moallem said he supported the report’s recommendation for an Iraq Support Group that would draw in Syria and other neighbouring states, but only after the Iraqis themselves had agreed on plans for disarming militias and ending sectarian divisions. He said that the timetable for withdrawing US troops “depends on Iraqi ability to take over security” and that America’s military role there should focus on training rather than fighting.

On the specific Baker-Hamilton recommendations involving Lebanon, Moallem also expressed general support. He said Syria wasn’t shipping arms to Hezbollah, that it would “continue our cooperation” with the U.N. investigation of the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri and that it was “ready” to “achieve a deal on exchanging prisoners” with Israel. He also disclosed what he said was a previously unreported effort by Syria and Qatar to broker a compromise between the radical Palestinian group Hamas and the moderate Fatah faction of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Is this Syrian gambit for real? Is Moallem serious in his offer to talk with America about a comprehensive package of peace with Israel, stability for Iraq and compromise in Lebanon? The answer is that there’s really only one way to find out, which is to explore further the ideas the Syrian foreign minister has put on the table. —Dawn/ Washington Post Service

STRIKES and demonstrations have become a common feature of daily life in Karachi. The spectacle of burning tyres, cars being stoned, retailers pulling down shutters over shops, police grappling with angry agitators, bystanders being caught in the crossfire, commuters being stranded as transporters give the thumbs down signal and anti-social elements lurking in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to pillage and plunder, have become a regular feature of life in the metropolis.

Not a day passes without some organisation, association, faction or splinter group bivouacking on the pavement outside the Karachi Press Club, whilst a man with a megaphone and an exceptionally loud voice catalogues the newest iniquities of the government. Incidents which once traumatised the citizen, no longer shock him. They have become part of the landscape, like broken roads, traffic jams and overflowing drains. And the citizen, numbed by years of inactivity on the part of the establishment, stoically accepts his fate.

It doesn’t take too much provocation for people to get riled these days, what with the rising cost of living, high unemployment, institutionalised corruption and a bleak future. A small incident, the removal of an unjust law, or an indelicate statement by a foreign pontiff, is enough to bring people onto the streets, and to stir the rabble rouser with the voice of a foghorn in the North Sea into action. Some of the grounds for the agitation might appear to the thinking man as totally frivolous; but to the aggrieved parties, led by leaders with short fuses promising to wreak vengeance, they are reason enough to storm the Bastille.

Here is a typical news report which appeared in a section of the press on November 10, 2001, which indicates what the administration has to go through every time there is mob violence. “A young man was killed and some arsonists and a policeman got wounded during the daylong strike called by the supporters of Pak-Afghan Defence Council (PADC). The 35-member alliance of big and small religious parties called the strike to protest against the US-led strikes on Afghanistan and the army regime’s policy on the issue of the ‘war against terror’. The city witnessed a complete business shutdown on Friday.

“A number of intermittent incidents of violence, stone pelting and attacking of vehicles, signboards, installations, burning of tyres and effigies were also witnessed during the strike. Mobs of miscreants, armed with sticks and wooden rods and carrying portraits of Osama bin Laden, accused as the prime suspect by President George W. Bush in the US attacks, also attacked various ambulances and rescue volunteers, causing damage to two rescue operation vehicles and wounding their drivers.

“Countering arsonists at various scenes, heavily armed police teams, backed by paramilitary Rangers resorted to baton charging and teargas shelling to disperse the crowds. But no arrest was made, till late in the evening and almost all the concerned police chiefs of districts and city police force were denying any incident of violence, though some of them differed with the opinions of their own colleagues and bosses. Heavy contingents of police integrated by paramilitary Rangers were also witnessed at all the sensitive spots, arteries and streets of the city.

“Businesses, at both the ports and the Karachi Stock Exchange, were also affected due to the strike while trade centres, markets, educational institutions, and government and private offices remained completely closed as the government had already announced the day as a national holiday to celebrate the 124th birth anniversary of the poet of the east, Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal.”

Subsequent news reports which cover strikes and demonstrations might differ in the number of casualties and the fury which is unleashed, but in essence they are the same. They are motivated by the same calculated mendacity.

The very first time this writer came across the word “strike”, was when he was a young student in India. On February 19, 1946, The Times of India reported that the Royal Indian Navy had mutinied. This was really huge. What started off as a total strike and revolt by the native sailors of the Royal Indian Navy on board ship and shore establishments at Bombay harbour spread throughout India from Karachi in the west to Calcutta in the east, and ultimately came to involve 78 ships, 20 shore establishments and 20,000 sailors.

A little research indicated that the first strike in recorded history occurred towards the end of the 20th dynasty, under Pharaoh Ramses III in ancient Egypt in the12th century BC. The workers of the royal necropolis organised the first known strike or workers’ uprising in history. The event was reported in detail on a papyrus at the time, which has been preserved, and is currently located in the Italian city of Turin.

In current day Karachi, unlike the experience of the 1970s and 1980s, a strike call has seldom anything to do with industrial action. A strike is essentially a call to disrupt all kinds of movement and to throttle activity. Success is measured by the extent to which the city is destabilised and immobilised; the greater the paralysis the greater the success of the protest. In that sense, every call to militant action militates against the interests of the country because it impedes progress.

What makes the whole protest business rather sordid is the fact that strikes don’t have the slightest effect on the people against whom the strikers are protesting, but destroy the livelihood and damage the property of people who, like themselves, are victims of the same bad administration.

According to a survey carried out by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 2001, a working day in the port city lost by violence and the ensuing disturbance inflicts a loss of over a billion rupees. This figure includes over 150 million rupees in indirect tax revenue.

Karachi remained in the vicious grip of various acts of terrorism and strikes during May of that year, which restricted actual working days of business to 18. Besides the tragic loss of 61 lives, the financial loss to the nation during this month was colossal. The city has over the years been turned into a minefield of political demonstrations, protest meetings and religious rallies, and there hasn’t been a single demonstration during the last 10 years that hasn’t had a tragic ending.

Though all demonstrations have the potential of ending in violence, the ones that the police and rangers rue the most are the ones led by the holy fathers. Not only do they have certain inevitability, they appear to be fuelled by an inexhaustible supply of supporters and volunteers. There were only 244 madressahs in Pakistan in the 1950s. Now there are over 11,200, providing a training ground for extremists.

One wonders if the agitators ever stop to think of the damage they do to the country every time they go on an orgy of violence. Industries suffer production losses of around 50 per cent whenever there is a shutdown strike, and the country’s revenue collection often declines by around 30 per cent. Because of the uncertain conditions many industries in Karachi, such as tanneries and textiles, have already shifted their businesses to the Punjab and to the Frontier, adding to the growing unemployment figures. Is there, perhaps, some sinister plan to continuously destabilise the port city? It is certainly beginning to look like it.

THE United States has not had much luck in winning hearts and minds as it wages what President Bush calls the “war on terror.” But it could at least make an effort to stand by those whose hearts and minds it won decades ago in other conflicts. Instead, it is turning its back on them.

The anti-terrorist laws introduced after Sept. 11, 2001, are keeping thousands of bona fide refugees from places around the world out the United States, on the grounds that their past participation in armed insurgencies, even those friendly to (and sometimes supported by) the United States, makes them a threat to American security. Perhaps no group is more harmed by this legislation — with its absurdly broad definition of “terrorist activity” — than the Hmong, a hill tribe of northern Laos.

Beginning in 1961, the Hmong were recruited by the CIA to halt the spread of communism in their country. The “secret war” waged here in northern Laos was a sideshow to the Vietnam conflict. The Hmong were the de facto ground forces in the U.S.-led air campaign.

And yet, unless Washington changes the legislation or issues a waiver, these former U.S. allies will never set foot in America. Unbelievable as it seems, their past heroic struggle on behalf of the CIA is now regarded as “terrorist activity.”

I spoke to two dozen Hmong who fled from Laos to Bangkok in the past two years and who have been recognized as refugees by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. Those old enough to have fought in the CIA’s war stated their situation clearly: The United States had asked them to fight and supplied them with weapons, munitions, food and clothes. They were not part of any other group, terrorist or otherwise. They were part of the CIA.

In 1975, when the Communists won in Laos, the United States evacuated only the top officers, leaving most Hmong fighters behind. Fearing persecution and mistreatment by the victorious Pathet Lao, the Hmong felt they had two choices: hide in the mountains of northern Laos or flee across the Mekong to Thailand. After the betrayal of 1975, the lobbying done by those already resettled and the Hmongs’ CIA mentors resulted in substantial redress: Between 1976 and 2005, about 153,000 Hmong came to the United States.

Many of those waiting in Bangkok to follow in their footsteps spent almost three decades living a primitive, secluded life in the jungle of northern Laos. They told me that a few thousand Hmong are still there. Little is known about their lives. Journalists who attempt to visit their hideouts — a few days’ walk from Phonsavan — often end up being detained by Laotian authorities.

One former CIA recruit, Xo Chia Vue, 64, hopes that once he is reunited with his two brothers and his son in Fresno, Calif., he can meet the two American pilots he rescued in the 1970s and perhaps the family of the pilot whose remains he helped evacuate after his plane crashed into a mountain in 1971.

But Xo Chia Vue, who spent 14 years fighting for the CIA, is barred from the United States and, like all other such combatants, is considered a “terrorist.”

—Dawn/Washington Post Service

The writer is a senior policy adviser at the International Rescue Committee.