Sending troops to Iraq

According to reports, the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, was told by President Musharraf "not long ago" that Pakistan would be willing to send troops provided the request came from Iraq and provided there were other Islamic troops on the ground.

More recently, the ISPR director-general, Major-General Shaukat Sultan, said in a TV programme that there were three conditions that had to be met before Pakistani troops could be sent. These were (a) they would be there under UN auspices (b) the request for troops would come from the Iraqis and (c) there was consensus within the country on this issue.

It would appear that two of the three conditions have been met. The government has yet to test the waters with regard to the existence or otherwise of the consensus within the country.

Obviously, the way to ascertain that would be to have a debate in the parliament. There is no indication yet that the government intends to bring this subject before the National Assembly.

While the UN Secretary-General seemed quite confident, in the above-mentioned interview, that troops from other Islamic countries would be on the ground soon, but no country has yet made any such official announcement yet.

There were initially high hopes that there would be such an announcement from Egypt but media reports after the recent kidnapping of an Egyptian diplomat in Iraq show that Cairo would not send troops there. Morocco and Bangladesh, the other Muslim countries from where troops were expected, are maintaining complete silence.

This is not surprising. In much of the Muslim world, the prevailing conditions in Iraq are seen as America's misadventure in an Islamic country from the consequences of which the US is now trying to rescue itself by enlisting, in a very subordinate capacity, the United Nations.

So long as the UN's involvement in Iraq is seen in this light, reluctance to participate in any UN operation will be even greater in the Muslim world than it is in what the Bush Administration refers to as "Old Europe"

A recent poll conducted in the Arab countries, which asked virtually the same questions as in a poll conducted in 2002 shows how deep American popularity had sunk. In the 2002 survey, 76 per cent of Egyptians had a negative attitude toward the United States.

Now it is 98 per cent. In Morocco, 61 per cent viewed the country unfavourably in 2002, but in two years, that number has jumped to 88 per cent. In Saudi Arabia, a similar attitude has intensified from 87 per cent in 2002 to 94 per cent in June.

The majority of those polled believed that America invaded Iraq for oil, to protect Israel and to weaken the Muslim world and that the Iraq war has caused more terrorism, brought about less democracy, and left the Iraqi people far worse off today than they were while living under Saddam's rule.

They also indicated that the only way for America to improve its image was to stop supporting Israel and change its Middle East policy. If any further evidence of the extent of frustration among the Arab masses was needed it was provided by the poll results that while Jacques Chirac was the most admired among the world leaders, Saddam Hussain and Osama bin Laden had a tie for the fourth place preceded only by the late Gamal Nasser and Ayatollah Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Considering this public mood, only a foolhardy Arab or Muslim government would volunteer troops for serving in America- occupied Iraq. This perception could change if the Iraqi government, though not truly independent, could ensure that the UN would be able to function independently of the 140,000 strong American force in Iraq and could fulfil its limited mandate in a reasonably secure environment.

Is this possible? As this writer mentioned in an earlier article, the past experience does not augur well for the future. The high-profile Bremer may have left Iraq and the new American ambassador may have adopted a low profile even while heading the largest American embassy in the world and he may also have repeatedly emphasised that the new Iraqi government was fully sovereign.

The fact remains that military actions that the continuing turbulence make necessary give the American forces a high profile. It also underlines the fact that the Iraqi security forces remain under-trained, under-manned, suspected of divided loyalties and therefore incapable of giving the Iraqi government the underpinning it needs.

In these circumstances it is unlikely that the Iraqi government can ensure freedom of action to the UN unless the Americans agree to let it do so. It is also not certain if the UN's neutral role will win plaudits from the interim government.

Much of what the last UN special envoy proposed in term of the composition of the interim government was summarily rejected by the American handpicked interim governing Council and the ones now in the interim government are the same persons. They are seeking to build their own power base.

Some of Bremer's egregious errors - the disbanding of the Iraqi army or the open quarrel with Moqtada Al-Sadr - have been corrected. An amnesty has been declared that would allow many of the insurgents to return to normal lives.

All this, however, may not be sufficient for the interim government members many of whom including the prime Minister have spent many years in exile and have no real grassroots support or even recognition among the Iraqi masses.

It is unlikely that they will welcome an early election particularly if is supervised by the UN and therefore reasonably free. Lastly, the security situation is far from satisfactory.

The pause in insurgent activity for a fortnight or so after the handover of power has been followed by a spate of vicious attacks. There are almost daily reports of Iraqis being killed and injured in attacks mounted on recruitment centres and in American attacks on insurgent targets.

There has also been a new round of hostage taking, which, in turn has hastened the process of desertion from the ranks of the "coalition of the willing". The Philippines have withdrawn their entire contingent but many other countries have reduced the size of their forces or told the Americans that they would not stay beyond another two or three months.

Many countries, including India (whose three nationals are being held hostage), are now trying to ensure that their nationals are not sent to Iraq by companies in Kuwait and elsewhere.

This is bound to cast a negative effect on the reconstruction effort and restoration of basic services, the absence of which is adding to the frustration of the ordinary Iraqi.

The impact the hostage taking is having on the coalition partners and on other countries has clearly encouraged the insurgents and further hostage taking can therefore be anticipated.

It would seem strange, in these circumstances, to recommend that Pakistan should nevertheless consider sending troops to Iraq to protect the UN contingent and thus to facilitate the completion of the UN mission of holding elections and helping the Iraqis formulate a workable and viable constitution.

Yet this is what I would recommend if and only if there are clear indications from the Americans that the UN will be allowed to perform the task with the neutrality that is expected of it.

It is clear that the Iraqi situation is messy. Many may say that it is a mess created by the Americans and that they should get to grips with it. The unfortunate reality is that this will only add to sufferings of the Iraqi people.

It could also mean that Iraq falls apart and as a consequence of that brings turbulence if not chaos to the entire area. This is the last thing our friends in the region would want.

Nor is the Muslim world prepared to face such an eventuality, much less of emergence of a fundamentalist regime in an Iraq forsaken by the world. Afghanistan has taught us what that can mean.

Some Americans may still entertain ambitions about Iraqi oil. Some of them may still believe that if the current chaos in Iraq increases the threat of terrorism to the Muslim world, it is a price worth paying for ensuring that Israel has its way in Palestine.

Most of them, however, are beginning to see the Iraqi adventure as a big mistake and, hopefully are prepared to follow the advice former President Clinton offered in an interview to CNN when he said, "I hope that once we show good faith in the United States, if we show good faith in observing sovereignty, giving up monopoly on contracts, working with the U.N., I think in due time, perhaps not before very long, we could get more help from the Nato allies".

If the Americans do give the UN a free hand and if they urge the Iraqi government to do likewise the UN can become an instrument for bringing order and political harmony of sorts to Iraq.

The UN cannot, however, perform this function without having adequate security for its personnel and for the many posts that it must perforce set up all over the country. Providing such protection is not an easy task nor is it, in the present circumstances, any less fraught with risk.

It should be clear that the troops under the UN banner will have nothing to do with the fight that the Americans or the Iraqi security forces are carrying on against the insurgents.

Their task, pure and simple at least theoretically, will be to provide protection to the UN's task force. Once it is recognized that bringing some political order to Iraq is in the interest of the Muslim world and once we are convinced that this is what the Americans will not interfere with, the question of sending Pakistani troops no longer remains problematic.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

In this age of science

As you drive from Islamabad to Murree, the beautiful green hillsides are dotted all over with huge garish hoardings advertising all kinds of consumer goods. None of our government leaders who talk glibly of the environment and beautifying one city or another and turning it into the Paris of Pakistan, realizes that before beautification can take place ugliness has to be removed.

I believe that when we go up to a hill station we do so to escape the heat of the plains, but we also do so to get away from it all - from the commercial atmosphere of the cities - but if these hoardings are already in place to greet us I wonder what we are trying to escape from? And now Murree is to have a neighbour called New Murree (why not another name?). It is all set to be a glorified version of Rawalpindi's Raja Bazaar.

Chief Minister Parvez Ilahi is said to be credited with an aesthetic sense; at least I know that he has a feel for culture. Why doesn't he clear Murree and the road to it of all the ugly hoardings if he wants to make the place a sylvan attraction as it was meant to be? But I also know that he is from a business family.

Does he really believe that all the firms and companies which flaunt these hoardings will go bankrupt with the removal of these giant advertisements? If I were the prime minister I would ban all extra large hoardings, these eyesores, even in the cities of Pakistan.

All these firms pay for the use of municipal space, but, on the other hand, we have a genius for utilising "extra-curricular" spots for advertising free of cost. During general elections, shabby and ramshackle constructions all over the country are plastered with the candidates' names, making an ugly environment even uglier.

And as soon as the election fever subsides, these are painted over with the two stock occupants of all open-air wall space - astrologers and indigenous clinics. Both are symptomatic of our unshakable reliance on things unscientific.

Really, it has to be seen to be believed the way wall after wall is decorated with names of "world-famous" soothsayers living in small towns all the way from Islamabad to Lahore, not to speak of the rest of the country.

Yes, none of these great star-gazers and palm-readers lives in Rawalpindi and Lahore, or even in Gujrat and Gujranwala. They cast their spells, or whatever it is they do to forecast the future, in places like Lala Musa and Mandi Bahaudin.

A well-known astrologer-palmist used to frequent our office in Lahore in the early fifties. Like the cooks and bearers of old English officers serving in India, he too kept up a book of testimonials in which letters of appreciation were carefully pasted. I tell you there was no government leader from the governor-general downwards, or politician or captain of industry of that time, who had not given him a letter.

In glowing terms they praised the man for his "spiritual powers and his uncanny ability to look into the future." We got rather friendly with this seer who was attracted to us by free cups of tea.

Although he insisted that he was a combination of God-given prescience and the art/science of astrology and palmistry that had endeared him to national leaders, he also gave us a glimpse of the plain horse sense that went into his vocation.

He told us that, every six months or so, there was a stage in these leaders' lives that was important for their upward ascent. It was these stages that our friend exploited.

Basing his advice on a careful reading of newspapers and on the law of averages, he would tell the leader concerned whether what he wished for was going to happen or not, and what to do if it did not happen. Usually he was right, or nearly right, and hence so many testimonials replete with fulsome praise of his powers.

In our time, during the eleven years of General Ziaul Haq's rule, there were two gentlemen in Lahore who were said to be very close to him because of their reportedly superhuman attribute of being able to foresee things.

It is a sad commentary on the late general's much trumpeted devotion to Islam that he relied more on the so-called mystical powers of these two gentlemen than, like a true Muslim, leaving his future to God Almighty.

Because of common knowledge of this affinity with an autocratic head of state, these charlatans literally held court at home and were besieged by scores of needy persons.

I don't think there is any point in impressing upon the public that our religion does not countenance such devious methods. In a country whose two successive prime ministers (Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto), both highly educated, used to go to that malang baba in Mansehra when in distress, the baba who never spoke but indicated his answers to their questions by sharp taps of his stick on their bodies, what can you expect from the common man? One wishes he had given them a proper caning!

The dawakhana or clinic business too seems to be flourishing, thanks to free advertising. A variety of treatment is offered at these places. There is Chinese and Japanese, and Arab and Greek, plus nostrums secured after years of serving a saint in a mountain cave.

As you must have noticed they concentrate almost entirely on countering male debility. Any visitor from abroad, if he were able to decipher this Urdu writing on the wall, would be justified in thinking that the biggest medical problem of the Pakistani male was neither Hepatitis nor Aids but impotence and the like.

Impotence it is, though the real impotence is against political adventurers, exploiting in the name of democracy, whom we, as a nation, continue to tolerate for years on end. Have you ever heard of a political leader in Pakistan losing ground because of having been exposed as a fake?

Reliance on unscientific ways of self-improvement is one reason why we have not been able to popularise science in Pakistan. Government leaders visit so-called holy men and express their regime's total commitment to superstition and voodoo.

They fall over each other trying to get departed saints to intercede with God on their behalf. The people follow their example. I have yet to see anyone of these leaders walking in the footsteps of these great men and emulating their piety and selflessness.

How different is the new NSC?

Much has already been said and written about the National Security Council (NSC) which in its present form is one of the recently added organizations to the already vast paraphernalia of the federal government.

The pros and cons for creating such an organization have been part of a relentless national debate in recent months in parliament, in the press and up and down the country.

One of the aspects of articulate public debates and discussions on the topic is that instead of its being made a part and parcel of the Constitution it has come into being as a product of a specific act of Parliament.

The clearly stated purpose of having such a wider and larger forum is to discuss matters of national security with the inclusion of the opposition and some other elements in order to develop a national consensus on highly sensitive and strategic matters.

This is not for the first time in our history that we have had a National Security Council in place. During the rule of General Yahya Khan there was a National Security Council which was chaired by the president.

The NSC in those days was run by a serving major-general with the director, Intelligence Bureau (DIB) and the DG, ISI both reporting to him. So in effect the current NSC is not all that of a revolutionary idea. Furthermore we are not the only country in the world to be instituting this sort of a mechanism in our state structure.

In recent decades, we have witnessed the rise of the national security state in many parts of the world wherein the advice of critically strategic agencies working under governments receive more than routine attention by means of intense and detailed briefings.

The existence of such a forum should, therefore, make it possible to lay bare the sort of information these agencies carry in their chests, and which they are otherwise unable to share on a regular basis with the rest of the government as well as with the opposition.

There are of course several views prevailing as to whether or not the NSC deserved to come about by means of a constitutional amendment or merely through an ordinary act of Parliament.

Or for that matter was there any need for it at all? Assuming that it is now a fact of life, would it not be right to give it a chance to prove itself as an organization that is useful in averting the sort of constitutional impasses or difficulties that our national history is littered with.

In the subcontinent most people, including Pakistanis, are overly impressed by the Westminster system of a sovereign parliament. As an unadulterated version of the people's will, we tend to hanker for that sort of arrangement without realizing that the Westminster system has itself taken an extremely long time to get to its present state, though it could hardly claim to have achieved perfection.

The constitutional history of Great Britain is itself replete with much struggle and efforts to achieve the present largely unwritten precepts and principles under which state craft is conducted by both sides in parliament.

The current controversies, involving the Hutton and Butler Reports, are sufficient evidence of the fact that even Westminster can have serious problems in the handling of matters relating to the national security.

The last time we had a NSC in the 1970s was not the best example of the performance of such a body, because, at the end of the day, we had lost East Pakistan. Surely the proceedings of that particular NSC ought to be laid bare before the country, so that one is doubly sure that structurally and politically, the recently formed NSC will focus more on the country's security problems and will not waste time as the last one did more than 30 years ago.

We may not necessarily go the same way now. But we have a right to know as to how different the new NSC is going to be, particularly in its capability to deal with the problems that have arisen in the post 9/11 situation.

Valid questions arise in respect of the personnel of the NSC and what sort of experiences as well as intellectual inputs it would have access to. Is it going to have the benefit of only single digit backgrounds or is it going to have a broad array of Pakistanis giving their feedback? In what way is it going to do a better job than the Defence Committee of the Cabinet? Is it merely the addition of the leader of the opposition and the provincial chief ministers that is going to make the crucial difference? Now that the NSC has started off with the abstention of the Chief Minister of the NWFP - how its performance is going to be affected?

One thing is quite clear that the MMA went along with the amendments proposed by the federal government in the form of what is generally known as the LFO/17th Amendment.

The NSC is not the culmination of that process. In fact, the NSC is indeed only the tip of the iceberg. By virtue of coming into being by way of an act of parliament, the NSC is probably the most benign of a series of injections delivered by the present government into the system.

One must not forget that with the coming into being of the NSC, the DCC does not, 'ipso facto' stand abolished and therefore, has not disappeared from the scene. Needless to say the cabinet is still well within its right to discuss and express its considered and consolidated views on national security matters in the DCC and to convey those views to the NSC.

It would indeed take a very obstinate NSC to ignore or throw out unceremoniously the unanimous views of a federal cabinet just as it would be a cabinet that would formulate its views in a quixotic manner so as to be rejected by a body of professionally trained and experienced men and women in the NSC.

This reminds me of a legal maxim which goes on to state rather coolly that the law follows reality. Another form of the same maxim is that the law goes on to recognize reality - yes, even new realities.

In this country if we were to finally bury the hatchet new vistas are bound to open up. We owe it to our subsequent generations that our national quarrels should end so in order to let loose our peoples' creative and productive energies for a better future.

The important thing for Pakistan in the 21st century is that the political process remains unimpeded. I think too much is being made of the NSC. It has been formalized with the aid and support of the MMA in parliament.

And even if hypothetically speaking this formalization had not taken place, in reality there would still have been a de facto NSC. So why not recognize the reality and try and work with it.

If it does not work, the NSC will remain dormant much like a redundant appendix, and if it does we will have found ourselves the thermostat to ensure our survival. Either way the risk is worth taking.

A credit to his profession

About three months ago, Paul Foot devoted the first half of one of his columns in The Guardian to a blistering attack on the American occupation authorities in Iraq, blasting in particular Paul Bremer's denunciation of groups "who think power in Iraq should come out of the barrel of a gun", pointing out that the proconsul owed his position to the fact that "he was able to rely on the greatest firepower on earth".

"What advice," asked Foot, "can we offer Bremer and his fellow imperialists, who keep denouncing Iraqi resistance to the invasion and occupation of their country for the violence and duplicity that they themselves regularly deploy? The mote and beam story appears twice in the New Testament, and each time the advice is spot on: 'Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote in thy brother's eye'."

Having said his piece, the columnist veered off into a completely different field: that of cricket. He recalled how, as a conscript in the British army, he happened to be stationed in Jamaica in 1957.

"Skipping my duties," he wrote, "I bribed my way onto a tin roof at one end of Sabina Park in Kingston and, in conditions of uncomfortable ecstasy, watched every run of Garfield Sobers' record-breaking test innings of 365 for the West Indies against Pakistan."

Thirty-seven years later, his son Matt was able to replicate Dad's experience by watching Brian Lara improve on Sobers' tally: 375 against England in Antigua. In April this year, Paul and Matt were together glued to the TV screen, watching Lara cruise to 400.

"It is difficult to compare these things over such a long period," commented Foot, "but watching Lara is certainly far more nerve-racking than watching Sobers. Sobers always seemed safe; Lara, with his high back-lift and flashy style, far more vulnerable. But if I had to choose between the two, I'd go for Lara."

"A great three days for me," he concluded, "definitely something to tell my grandchildren about..." That, unfortunately, will no longer be possible. Ten days ago, the 66-year-old Paul Foot died suddenly as he was about to fly out of London for a vacation with his family.

His absence will sorely be felt, not just among family and friends, but throughout the British press. The foregoing sample of his output gives an idea of the breadth of Foot's interests.

He wasn't, however, primarily a commentator either on international affairs or on cricketing matters. He made his name as an investigative reporter, serving as a beacon in that sphere.

But that accomplishment alone may not have earned him the widespread esteem he enjoyed. That respect owed a great deal to an accurate image of him as a relentless champion of the underdog.

One of Foot's most celebrated interventions was on behalf of the four men convicted in 1979 for the murder of news paper boy Carl Bridge water. The accused weren't, he admitted in private, a particularly salubrious quartet, and society was quite possibly safer with them behind bars.

But the point was that they had been locked up for the wrong reason. Foot was convinced of their innocence in the Bridge water case, and he kept at it until the convictions were overturned following revelations about involuntary confessions, false evidence and other examples of unscrupulous police practices.

In a letter to The Guardian last week, Ann Whelan, the mother of one of the Bridge water Four, described Foot as a "dear friend", saying: When all I was feeling was hopelessness and despair, he helped me along - he changed my life."

Another cause that Foot embraced was that of the Lockerbie victims' families, repeatedly expressing concern through much of the 1990s that in their supposed investigation of the case, the British and US governments were motivated by the need to score political points rather than a desire to find out the truth about the destruction of the Pan-Am flight over Scotland in 1988.

He noted that in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, the official line was that the bombing had been orchestrated by a Syrian-based Palestinian group at Iran's behest, in retaliation for the unprovoked shooting down of an Iranian passenger airliner by the US navy the previous year.

He wrote in 1995: "An interminable series in The Sunday Times in late 1989 named the gang, its leader, its bomb-maker and the Palestinian who had bought clothes in a Maltese boutique which ended up in the bomb suitcase."

Two years later, the blame suddenly shifted to Libya. By then Syria had signed up to the 1991 version of the coalition of the willing; it's co-operation was symbolically significant, so Hafez Al Assad could no longer be alienated. A different culprit therefore had to be selected.

Foot returned to the subject time and again, most recently in March this year, after the families of British Lockerbie victims complained that they had been taken for a ride by the government.

The families had backed Tony Blair's groundbreaking visit to the Libya on the grounds that it would yield some more details about how the attack was executed.The prime minister returned without any new information, nor any indication that the subject had even been broached with Libyan officials. In Foot's view, there was a simple explanation for this: Libya had nothing to reveal.

Making it clear that his opinion wasn't necessarily shared by the families, he concluded that Abdul Basit Al Megrahi, the former Libyan diplomat convicted and imprisoned for the bombing, is innocent "and his conviction is the last in the long line of British judges' miscarriages of criminal justice.

This explanation is also a terrible indictment of the cynicism, hypocrisy and deceit of the British and US governments and their intelligence services. Which is probably why it has been so consistently and haughtily ignored."

Whether or not Foot's suspicions were well-founded, his dogged pursuit of the matter means that should the whole truth about Lockerbie ever emerge, he'll deserve a certain proportion of the credit.

Many of his other crusades were less newsworthy on an international level, but at the same time more successful in reversing injustices. They changed lives. Which explains why he will be fondly remembered not just by his colleagues in the profession but by large numbers of ordinary folk.

Foot's reputation as a muckraker was already established by the time he was recruited by the Daily Mirror in 1979. Having been at school and then at university with Private Eye founder Richard Ingrams, he enjoyed a long-term relationship with that scurrilous magazine; but, although the Eye's staple was satire, Foot injected a note of seriousness in his FootNotes column, often bringing to public notice significant developments that had escaped the notice of the mainstream press.

Among these was British Petroleum's violation of sanctions against Rhodesia and Edward Heath's secret talks with the Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s.

However, it was at the Mirror that he came into his own as a journalistic tribune, soliciting and investigating complaints of injustice against individuals and groups, while at the same time continuing to expose scandalous behaviour by government agencies and private corporations. His column carried a contact address and a phone number, and the public response was tremendous.

The success of Foot's crusades owed a great deal to his meticulousness as a collator of facts. And the respect he enjoyed within the profession is borne out by the fact that after the press baron Robert Maxwell acquired the Daily Mirror, there were only two exceptions to his policy of interference in the workings of the newspaper: Foot's columns, and those of his equally well-respected colleague John Pilger.

Last week Pilger described Foot as "one of the greatest journalists of his and many other generations", adding: "I have lost both a friend and an inspiration."Maxwell was peeved when Foot picketed his home over a union dispute, but desisted from firing him.

His successors proved less tolerant. When Foot investigated bloodletting at the Mirror in the early 1990s, he was prevented from publishing the results. So he chose to distribute copies of his article on the street. Shortly afterwards, he was snapped up by The Guardian.

Foot was more than a journalist and writer - his books included a demolition of Enoch Powell and a re-evaluation of the Romantic poet Percy Bys she Shelley in the light of his radicalism - he was also a political activist, associated for decades with the Socialist Workers Party.

Although he enjoyed friendships across the political spectrum, he had little time for those who praised his journalism but dismissed his politics. His zeal for justice, he insisted, was motivated by his socialist principles.

Born into privilege and bred accordingly, Foot dedicated his life to fighting for the unfairly underprivileged. It could, at a stretch, be described as a family trait - his uncle is Michael Foot, the nonagenarian former leader of the Labour Party.

In a tribute at the weekend, the writer Nick Cohen described Paul Foot as "the best hope for thousands who had nowhere else to turn, their court of last appeal".

And former Mirror editor Richard Stott, in an obituary in The Guardian, called him "a steadfast beacon of integrity.... who stood against the vested interests of the corrupt, the power hungry, the liars, cheats, hypocrites and shysters". Stott concluded: "He did not always win, but the great and good thing was that he never stopped trying, and our trade was immeasurably more noble for it."

Email: mahirali2@netscape.net.