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| February 15, 2007 | Thursday | Muharram 26, 1428 |
Not by breathing fire
Back to the pavilion
Iran: nuclear poker face-off
Slavery and remorse
THE alter ego of a boom, I suppose, is doom. Failure does not have too much to worry about, but success has a great deal to lose. You can't lose, can you, if you have nothing to lose?
IT COMES as no surprise that a majority of the people in Pakistan are dissatisfied with the state of governance in the country. The government is also aware of the public’s feelings on this count. Its immediate reaction — an unhealthy one — was to suppress the findings of the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement survey in 2004 which brought this fact to the fore. Subsequently, it proceeded to set up the National Commission for Government Reforms under Dr Ishrat Hussain in a bid to address the problem. Now eighteen months later some statistics have been released that record the public perception about various services provided by the government. Needless to say, in most cases the people are not happy with the performance of the government, especially in the health and education sectors. This is disconcerting for the government because it is an established fact that the level of people’s satisfaction with the government is determined entirely by its success in addressing their basic needs.
Generally the factors which influence the government’s capability of delivering in the social sectors are efficiency, professionalism, integrity and commitment of the service providers. This in turn is possible if the government ensures open, merit-based, transparent recruitment at all levels of public services. Dr Hussain recognises this principle but he has not provided any guidelines as to how this is to be ensured. The basic fact is that corruption is pervasive at all levels of the administration in the country as the service providers scramble to maximise the financial gains they can squeeze out of projects by illegal means. The decay in the education sector is reflected in the people who are administering the various sectors lacking in professionalism and skills, making them inept and inefficient. The stagnation and decay in politics and the mad scramble for power at every level have killed the political commitment and idealism of those who are expected to provide inspiration to the service providers. Hence the entire system — be it health or education — is in a state of decay and collapses.
The commission headed by Dr Hussain faces an uphill task.. But prescribing guidelines and laying down rules, as he has been speaking of from time to time are not such difficult tasks. But if these are not actually implemented, nothing will change and the entire reforms exercise will prove futile. The plain truth is that implementation has always been the most difficult aspect of policymaking — partly because no strategy for implementation is laid down. There is also the distasteful fact that decades of maladministration and corruption have very often created vested interests which have benefited from the status quo. They work actively to block implementation of reform policies to save their privileges and advantages. This is also the case with governance in any sector. Although this is a cause for widespread despair and despondency, efforts to change the pattern of things must continue. One approach would be to make a beginning in one area of national life —health, for instance, which has recorded the greatest dissatisfaction — and try to improve the services and facilities there. It would be easier to make an impact in a relatively small field which would help to create a momentum in the other sectors. This could prove to be a positive catalyst for change in larger areas of governance.
WHILE both Iran and North Korea figure prominently on President Bush’s axis of evil list, Washington has been far from even-handed in its approach to the two countries on the nuclear issue. The attitude towards Iran, which unlike North Korea has not detonated an atomic device and has still a long way to go before it acquires the capability to do so, has been one of utter hostility and muscle-flexing. The threat of a strike on Iran’s nuclear targets is looming large, especially as the US strengthens its naval presence in the Gulf. Although it maintains troops in the Korean peninsula, Washington has adopted a far less militaristic posture vis-à-vis Pyongyang — possibly because of the strong Chinese influence in the region. In fact, the recent agreement with North Korea on the dismantling of its nuclear facilities in exchange for $300 million in economic aid and fuel can be attributed to the six-nation negotiations and a policy of carrot and stick that has taken the form of heavy sanctions being slapped on North Korea. While North that country may yet renege on the agreement — as it has in the past — it is still an achievement and a small step towards stopping nuclear proliferation.
In the case of Iran, as a signatory to the NPT, Tehran is within its rights to develop nuclear power to meet its energy requirements, although it has been pulled up for not giving an accurate picture of its nuclear activities and is currently under UN sanctions. At the same time, while President Ahmadinejad’s unwise statements about Israel and open defiance on the nuclear issue have contributed to an atmosphere of mistrust between Tehran and Washington, Iran has allowed inspections of its nuclear sites by IAEA officials who found no proof of a weapons programme. What is needed is less aggression by the US that has a long history of bitter relations with Iran, and a less abrasive approach by President Ahmadinejad. If a regional conflict is to be avoided, inflexibility must be avoided and the path of negotiations followed — even if this takes years. The existing nuclear powers could set a precedent by following NPT provisions and reducing their own stockpiles so that others are encouraged to emulate them.
THE house of cards that is the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal has not fallen, after all. The rift between what appeared to be a hardline stance of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and a pragmatic one of Maulana Fazlur Rahman over whether to resign from the assemblies stands resolved. For the present the six-party religious alliance has decided to hold on to its seats in parliament and the privileges that go with these, with realpolitik moderating the Jamaat-i-Islami’s earlier stand on en masse resignations. The MMA’s central council has also decided to end its boycott of the National Assembly sessions, without changing the alliance’s opposition to the women’s protection bill — whatever that means. JI leaders, who were most vociferous in their demand for the alliance to resign en masse, now say that they would continue to oppose government moves aimed at ‘liberalising’ society. The MMA has also decided to approach the mainstream opposition to chalk out a joint strategy for launching a movement at some stage against the government. For its part, the People’s Party seems reluctant to join any alliance with the religious right, howsoever loose that might be. But, as the latest MMA decision to stay on board the parliamentary scene reveals, politics is a game of convenience for them, and the stance taken today is not necessarily a guide for tomorrow.
Looking at the whole gambit staged by the MMA of first talking tough and then settling comfortably back in their seats, it can be said with some justification that the religious right forms an integral part of the current political scenario. This also puts the government’s so-called ‘enlightened moderation’ in a poor light, juxtaposed as it stands with the MMA’s ‘acceptable’ brand of extremism. Can one exist without the other? There is no telling if tomorrow the MMA will not consider re-electing the president for a second term.
There have been few contemporary success stories quite as dramatic as Dubai. Five decades ago it was not even on the urban map of the world, not much more than an antiquated port with a blind eye, the only address on a beachhead that survived because of international indifference. It did not even have a pot of oil. It still does not.
Today, its skyscrapers shimmer like an Arabian Nights miracle. If traffic jams are a modern metaphor for urban growth, then Dubai can put in a bid for a place in Guinness. From seven in the morning till past ten at night, a curve of tail to tail or head to head snake of blinking cars snakes along the hidden tarmac. In a remarkable display of imagination the rulers of this small principality have converted a strip of sand along an uncertain ocean into a business-cum-shopping-cum holiday haven.
Suddenly an unspoken uneasiness hovers over this dream. What happens if America and Israel, alone or in tandem, launch a military assault on Iran's nuclear facilities this summer?
The reactor at Bushehr is literally just across the Gulf. The fallout, once again literally, would be immediate as well as long term for the whole region. No one expects Iran to successfully defend itself against an American aerial missile and bomber invasion. Seymour Hersh, who broke the story of American preparations for just such an attack many months ago in the New Yorker, reported that among the weaponry on the war games table was a controlled-impact nuclear bomb. No one has any real idea of what the radioactive fallout would be for Iran and its surrounding region.
Central Asian nations do not have a clue of the collateral damage their children might suffer, and for how long. Gulf states have further concerns. The Americans do not have the infantry for a follow-up regime change even if the assault was perfectly successful. So the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would remain in power, at the heart of a polity created by the late Imam Ruhollah Khomeini. It does not need much imagination to foresee that Iran would target western business interests in retaliation, which are strewn within reach from Dubai to Doha.
It has taken a remarkable generation to create Dubai. More than glass and concrete, Dubai is a rare symbol of confidence in what was once dismissed as the Third World. What happens to the interests of Bush's friends in oil and industry if Dubai's durability and stability is corroded? What happens to oil and energy in the region if it is affected by radioactivity?
Planners in Pentagon, the White House and Tel Aviv might believe that they have done their studies and the consequences are under control, or that the damage will be within acceptable limits, whatever that means. These are largely the same people who wrote fantasy scripts about flower-strewn streets in Baghdad lined by cheering crowds as George Bush was honoured by a ticker tape parade along the Tigris. The track record, to put it mildly, is not encouraging.
Nuclear poker requires nerves of uranium and no one is certain about the strength of any player's cards. Everyone knows that Iran does not have nuclear weapons yet, but that is not the question. Has the facility at Natanz already crossed the point where its destruction would trigger damage in excess of Chernobyl at the very least? If not, will that point be crossed by October? Ergo, if there is to be a military solution then it must be before the end of this summer.
There is some comfort in the fact that Iran has moved away from unambiguous belligerence towards more nuanced diplomacy. At Davos in January former President Khatami discussed a scheme with American and European delegates to this economic love-fest in which Iran would suspend enrichment of uranium for six months. This period would be used by a group consisting of members of the Security Council plus Germany and India to inspect and assess Iran's nuclear programme and report back to the United Nations.
In a related gesture, Iran did not vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning denial of the Holocaust that Hitler perpetrated during the Second World War. In Iran, senior clerics have condemned, publicly, uninhibited adventurism in policy, referring clearly to Ahmadinejad.
Is this good-cop-bad-cop strategy? Is Iran merely buying time, and if so, how much time? Another Security Council resolution is due in March. America will obviously seek to phrase this resolution in terms that make it a virtual authorisation for war if Washington chooses to go to war. Does Iran want to thwart it or dilute it without giving much in return? Is Iran waiting for winter, when the American presidential campaign season will make Bush hostage to domestic politics?
Everyone has the same list of questions. I suspect you might not find firm answers even in Tehran. It might be more relevant to apply a general principle while the players sit at the nuclear poker table, their cards clutched against their breast, their teeth clenched.
Nations might, in certain conditions, be martial or hegemonic, but they are rarely suicidal. Grievous mistakes, exacting a colossal price, are made, but not out of intent. If Germany in 1914 had known the impossible cost of war, and the certainty of defeat, would she have commenced hostilities in the First World War? If Bush had known what he knows now about the consequences of invading Iraq, would he have dared launch his "shock and awe" campaign? The answer in both cases is a clear no. The only thing certain about nuclear poker is that if there is a confrontation, there are no winners. It was surely this thought that prompted Jacques Chirac to muse before reporters in Paris recently that it did not much matter whether Iran had a nuclear weapon or two, for if it ever dared use them it would be obliterated. (There was a meaningless retraction of this statement later.)
Pranab Mukherjee has just returned to Delhi from Tehran. He cannot be much wiser than before he left, because the answers to the difficult questions fluctuate with every changing shadow on any player's face. What Mr Mukherjee did, with the confidence of a veteran, was to underscore the maturity of India's presence at the table. India is a legitimate nuclear and economic power, and possibly a role model for Iran even if India may have no wish for such an honour. But India has a stake in the outcome of the game, and it is in its immediate interest that tensions be calibrated downwards. Apart from other consequences, a military confrontation would implode the world economy just when one section of India is rising from the economic atmosphere into the stratosphere.
After all, just one alphabet makes the difference between boom and doom.
The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi.
THAT slavery was a shameful episode in American history is beyond debate; not so the issue of whether or how states where it flourished for more than two centuries should apologise or express remorse for it. In recent weeks the legislatures of Virginia and Maryland, former slave states whose last slaves were freed more than 140 years ago, have grappled with that quandary and more broadly with the question of what symbolic or practical value attaches to an act of public contrition.
Virginia, whose state anthem with its references to "darkies" and "old massa" was retired (but not repudiated) just a decade ago, took up the question first. There, the House of Delegates approved a resolution stating its "profound regret" for the state's role in sanctioning slavery, as well as in "the historic wrongs visited upon native peoples." The resolution was approved without opposition, though not before an initial draft was rewritten and stripped of the word "atonement," which, some feared, might have opened the door to monetary reparations. Maryland may now follow suit with a similar if somewhat less elegantly worded resolution that also expresses the state's "profound regret."
Both documents seek to redress an enduring sense of grievance among some African Americans (and, in the case of Virginia's resolution, American Indians). Each rightly makes reference to slavery's lasting, poisonous legacy of discrimination, enforced segregation and racism. And each pays tribute to the high ideal of equal, inalienable rights that are the birthright of every citizen regardless of race, creed or colour.
Some may ask what purpose is served in making such a gesture so many years after the fact and with so many generations separating today's Virginians, black and white, from forebears who may have owned or been slaves. After all, as the Virginia resolution states, "even the most abject apology for past wrongs cannot right them, nor can it justly impute fault or responsibility to succeeding generations or justify the imposition of new benefits or burdens."
True enough. But it is equally true that expressions of repentance and remorse in public life, as in interpersonal relations, can be helpful, healing emollients.
—The Washington Post