A thorny road to peace

THE Arab-Israeli conflict is, above all, a confrontation of perceptions. The governing party in Israel has historically seen its country as the fulfilment of a biblical dispensation, which would be denied by any dividing lines on Palestinian soil. For Palestinians, expulsion from a territory for centuries considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has thus far been beyond Palestinian emotional and psychological capacities.

The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to overcome the Jewish state: one group arguing for permanent confrontation, while moderates are willing to move towards the same objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence desirable in itself.

The most active diplomatic initiative comes from the so-called quartet composed of Russia, Europe, the United Nations and the United States. They have come forward with a “roadmap,” a series of procedural proposals by which a final agreement is to be reached by 2005. They share this hopeful prospect because at least the non-US members seem to believe that the most important instruments for forging a peace agreement are a sharp pencil and a map, with the result to be imposed by the United States. The United States has insisted on a verified end of terrorism and a dismantling of the terrorist apparatus on Palestinian soil as a precondition of negotiations on specifics.

Ironically, the formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement may be emerging. In Israel, the dominant Likud Party is undergoing a process of soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb in which Arabs become a majority in Palestine and demand control of the entire land. The change of mood in Israel implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the 1948 defeat and the division of the land of Palestine.

If Israeli opinion has come to accept that the only means to prevent a demographic disaster is a Palestinian state, the psychological basis for a breakthrough will have been reached.

At the same time, the Palestinians may be in the process of learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable — a view apparently shared by an increasing number of Arab states, which would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians.

That trend may be reflected in the recent New York Times interview of Syrian President Bashar Assad suggesting that an agreement between Syria and Israel was 75 per cent complete and that America should assist in the completion of negotiations. This comment has not received the attention it deserved. Does it mean that Syria is prepared to make a peace agreement with Israel even before a Palestinian settlement, with the predictable consequence of easing international pressures on Israel?

Is Assad prepared to expel from Syrian and Lebanese territory the Iranian-funded militant group Hezbollah without whose dismantling Israel will surely never make peace? And Assad’s estimate of what has been completed seems modest since the principal issue concerns the few hundred yards difference between Syria’s international frontier and the land it occupied beyond it in 1967. (The issue concerns riparian rights in the Sea of Galilee, which should be capable of solution.) Could it be then that the most severe psychological obstacle to agreement is on the Palestinian side? And that another obstacle is the encrusted ideology of the prevalent negotiating framework? In that context, the concept of the security fence being built by Israel (if not its present location) may emerge as a solution rather than an obstacle.

In half a century of Israel’s existence, the Palestinians have been the central element in the region’s refusal to accept Israel. No Palestinian leader has fully recognized Israel or renounced the right of refugees to return there. Government-sponsored public assaults on the very concept of a Jewish state are unremitting. Even the Palestinian signatories of the much-ballyhooed Geneva Accord went no further than to relate the return of refugees to a proportion of refugees accepted by third-party countries and left Israel discretion in determining the final number. The “concession” is empty; coupling some right of return with Israeli discretion would make Israel vulnerable to international pressures to adjust the number for the sake of regional stability.

The breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli negotiations took place in 1977 when President Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to Jerusalem and, among other gestures, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There has never occurred a similar act of grace on the part of Palestinian leaders. Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel’s existence. Dismantling the terror apparatus may be difficult to do quickly, but ending the systematic rejection of Israeli legitimacy and incitement to terror in the media are within the scope of immediate Palestinian decision.

All involved in the peace process should re-examine whether what has become conventional wisdom is not itself an obstacle to progress: a return by Israel to the 1967 borders, the abandonment of the vast majority of Israeli settlements and the partition of Jerusalem in return for some sort of international guarantee and acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians. The idea of an international force for that purpose is gaining increasing acceptance.

But what precisely does an international guarantee mean? Against what danger does it protect and by what means? The historical record of multilateral guarantees is dismal, especially in the Middle East.

The real challenge is terrorism, against which international guarantees are likely to prove empty. If Israel’s armed forces with a huge stake in the outcome could not prevent infiltrations, how is an international or even an American force going to do it? It is much more likely to prove a barrier against Israeli retaliation than against Palestinian militancy. The probable outcome is that an international force would become hostages which will either purchase their safety by turning their backs on violations or risk their lives by serious efforts, at which point the governments supplying the forces will be under pressure to withdraw them.

Security should be pursued by other strategies that take account of the special features of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

(a) The demarcation line between the two societies is not an international border but a ceasefire line that ended the first Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 1948. It was never accepted by the Palestinians until nearly half a century later and, even then, not as the border of a legitimate Israeli state.

(b) The two societies live in the closest proximity to one another; indeed, the central challenge is how to achieve coexistence when the distance between the Jordan River and the sea is 50 miles or less. There is no cushioning strategic space as in the Sinai between Egypt and Israel.

(c) In these circumstances, security cannot be based on battle-lines in a war that ended more than half a century ago and must instead be adjusted to the experience of actual security threats.

(d) In any foreseeable agreement, the Israeli concessions will be territorial and concrete, while the Palestinian concessions are largely psychological, hence revocable. The pledge of abandoning violence was already part of the Oslo agreement with derisory results. The argument that, under an agreement, confidence may be restored ultimately does not answer the challenge of the short run.

American opposition to the concept of a security fence, therefore, should be reconsidered. A physical barrier difficult to penetrate would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of dignity. It provides a line on the other side of which settlements have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned.

Is the Palestinian objection less the result of the principle of the fence but the ratification of the permanence of Israel it represents? By the same token, Israel must be serious about vacating the territories beyond the security fence. Some object to the security fence as being reminiscent of the walls created by communism, especially in Berlin and along the east-west German borders.

The Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine acceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solution that creates a Palestinian state immediately and marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement, even if it falls short of the entire gamut of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the essentials of its requirements.

For both sides, a resolution will be traumatic. For many in Israel, the abandonment of settlements and the partition of Jerusalem will be perceived as a repudiation of much of the history of the Jewish state. For the Palestinians, it will be a final end of the myth by which their society has lived. America’s role is central: it needs to explore whether there is a Syrian negotiating option, to abandon the illusion that America can impose some paper plan and, at the same time, to move the parties with determination toward a goal that seems, at last, conceptually within reach.— Dawn/Tribune Media Services International

Menace of honour killing

LAST week the media recorded two events of great significance — the capture of Saddam Hussain, and President Musharraf’s miraculous escape from a bomb attack that could have taken his life.

Viewers in Karachi who learned of Saddam’s capture on CNN, were appalled at the way the thirty second footage was repeated ad nauseum. The film clip showed a bald headed man, presumably an army dentist, probing the teeth and gums of an exceptionally hirsute former leader of the Iraqi people.

The terse statement that followed, pointed out that Saddam Hussain was unrepentant and unapologetic. Really ! What did the clutch of exuberant, breathless CNN reporters expect him to say. ‘Welcome to Mesopotamia. Forgive me if I opposed the destruction of my country and my army, and the killing of so many Iraqi children after you guys imposed sanctions for ten years...’

The news flash had hardly gone off the air when the conspiracy theories surfaced on the Internet. ‘Actually, Saddam had been in a safe house in Texas all this time. He came over on Air Force One and was stuck in that hole, because the Americans now needed an excuse to pull out of Iraq. Saddam has always been a CIA plant, and will miraculously escape just before his trial.‘

The Saudis, who have an equal number of cynics, have already thrown a spanner in the works. They have pointed out that the pictures shown on CNN were actually taken two months ago. It had something to do with the colour of the date palms.

Anyway, Saddam has now gone, and good riddance. Whatever a person’s basic convictions, nobody can ever deny that he was essentially an evil man.

Some citizens of Karachi, who like the serious stuff, and are addicted to watching foreign news programmes, invariably turn to the BBC to authenticate what they see on other channels, in order to sift fact from fiction.. This British channel has, over the years, earned a reputation in Muslim countries, for fair, objective reporting — the kind of approach which is shorn of what Muslim viewers regard as the intrusive, almost subliminal bias displayed by certain American TV channels towards the Jewish cause.

There was a time, however, when the BBC was in the dog house in Pakistan, and had to eat humble crow. This was in 1971, when a reporter, stationed in Delhi, filed a story that the Indian army had captured Lahore. What an outrage there was. A chorus of protest streamed from the Pakistan foreign office. And loyal Punjabis in London and New York caught the next plane home to fight for their beloved city.

The broadcast also provoked five ardent local loyalists, who at some time or the other, must have kissed The Blarney Stone near Cork. They took out a full page advertisement in this newspaper, and I can remember the headline as if it had been printed yesterday. ‘Stop Martial Law in Ireland.’ It was their way of protesting against what they detected as a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the facts.

That was a long time ago, and relations between Pakistan and the United Kingdom have, fortunately, improved considerably. Until this inexplicable attempt by MI5 to bug the Pakistan high commission in London. Some sources believe this was done to check the proliferation of nuclear weapons to the ‘axis of evil states.’

Whatever the reason, President Musharraf is understandably piqued by the British government’s reluctance to confirm or deny the incident. The affair must be particularly embarrassing for MI5, especially because Pakistan is a staunch ally in the war against terrorism, and also because Pakistan helped Britain to identify and spy on terrorist suspects in Britain.

Unfortunately, the permanent under-secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, the man of the 66-word sentence, is no longer around. But I am sure they will think of something.

The recent attack on President Musharraf must be condemned in the strongest terms. That it has taken place at a time when the two subcontinental nations are moving closer towards an understanding, has given the issue of terrorism a particularly sinister twist. One hates to think of the impending chaos and state of anarchy that would have been unleashed, if the perpetrators of this dastardly attack had been successful. The bomb blast has been roundly condemned by all countries, including India, which fully understand the implications involved. .

What is unfortunate, is that the sudden security alert will isolate the president from some of the attempts made in the recent past to come to grips with the age- old practices which are destroying the social fabric of Pakistani society.

One of the most intriguing things about the ruling elite in Pakistan, has been its apparent determination to continue its policy of appeasement to the forces of reaction and obscurantism, while ignoring the issues that really matter.

The president, the prime minister and their supporters, which includes a variety of functionaries and hangers-on, haven’t missed a single opportunity at forums in Pakistan and abroad to condemn the killing of women in the name of honour.

They read out well crafted speeches, full of moral indignation, written by experts trained in the art of churning out flowery epistles, laced with tear-jerking examples of how destitute and deprived the poor are in their country. The sort of stuff which is easy to write, so long as they don’t have to do anything about implementing the proposals

So, what is stopping them ? What is stopping the prime minister from making an example of murderers who are decimating the female population of Pakistan at the rate of two a day.?

The president has already cracked down on the religious extremists, much to the relief of the saner elements in the country. And he has already banned some of the organizations responsible for sectarian violence, and arrested their leaders, which has made him the supreme target of fanatical hit men. So why is the prime minister not taking action against men involved in honour killing ? Is it because he believes that in rocking the boat he might be alienating the male chauvinists in his party?

Well-meaning citizens in Pakistan who wield a measure of political authority, have frequently expressed their views on the subject. The leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, has on many an occasion, condemned honour killing as totally un-Islamic. The chief minister of Sindh, in one of his unguarded moments, said he would do anything for the women of his province. The MQM governor, echoing the sentiments of his leader, has strongly condemned this inhuman and grossly unjust practice.

Even the president of Pakistan is on record as having made a firm commitment in the Human Rights Convention held in Islamabad. But no legislation has as yet been passed, and no administrative action taken against the violence being perpetrated again the women of this country. Bureaucrats talk about passing legislation, when legislation already exists.

One of the most significant developments of the year is the increasing awareness among people of all walks of life, lawyers, human rights activists, doctors and students, that there is a need to curb the menace of what is referred to as honour killing. Hardly a week passes without some NGO or the other condemning this unholy practice which militates against all the norms of decency.

The Sindhi television channel KTN, has devoted a number of programmes to this topic, in which families of victims have expressed their helplessness. And even in the North-West Frontier province where tribal customs and taboos survived the rule of law of the British, there is now considerable awareness of the need to enforce the law and to declare honour killing as murder, to be tried under Section 302 of the Penal Code of Pakistan.

Two weeks ago, a three-day workshop was held in Peshawar, organized by the provincial law, parliamentary affairs and human rights department. Entitled “Draft laws to protect women’s rights”, three groups of lawyers, religious scholars and government employees, discussed issues like the customary practice of swara, the non-provision of shares to women in inheritance, domestic violence, talaq-i-mughalliza and talaq-i-Salasa, (both practices which are condemned in Islam,) and child marriages. All these practices were declared penal offences.

Nobody knows what the ultimate outcome of the six proposed draft laws will be. But the point is, a beginning has been made. All it needs is a nod from the prime minister. This is a good time for him to assert himself and to demonstrate that he represents both sexes in the country, and not just the feudal lords.

Western media’s biased role

“IN the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, people of diverse ethnic groups developed an increasingly intense devotion not only to their locality or their region, or their family, or their ethnic group, but to a huge tract of territory which they began to think as the nation.

This has been the chief consequence of the revolution in mass communications since the nineteenth century. Songs, dances, poems and religions fanned the flames. Wars were not only caused by, but stimulated the process, further.”

So says Prof Hugh Thomas in his scholarly work entitled ‘A History of the World.’ Making a departure from the established practice of recording events in a chronological order, the Reading University scholar chooses to make a thematic review of major world developments. His account of the growth in the field of mass communications, which manifestly impacts the world today, is particularly absorbing.

But the media has to be honest and objective if it has to succeed in fulfilling its role of defining a healthy set of values for society, to draw an inseparable line between right and wrong, to be the upholder of liberty and freedom. Tocqueville was wholly right when he declared in 1835 that “a nation that is determined to remain free is right in demanding at any price the exercise of this independence” (of the media). It was the recognition of this noble role that led to the acceptance of the media as the ‘fourth estate’ in the UK as early as 1789. Three decades earlier, in 1753 to be precise, seven million newspapers were sold in the UK annually; 20,000 a day, more than any other country at that time.

Yet, truthfulness and objectivity have been an elusive hallmark of the fourth estate. About seventy years back, the American media found itself precariously perched. It was helplessly dependent for news flow on the British press. Kent Cooper, a former Executive Manager of the Associated Press (AP), complained about American dependence thus: “Reuter decided what news was to be sent from America. It told the world about Indians on the warpath in the West, lynching in the south, and bizarre crimes in the north. The charge for decades was that nothing creditable to America was sent. Figuratively speaking, in the United States, it wasn’t safe to travel on account of the Indians.”

Today, the media has a formidable clout. It can demolish states, institutions, and even presidents of the most powerful country of the world.

A flurry of insinuations against Islam, and more recently, against Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him), have almost become a norm of daily life in the West. Day in and day out, misguided commentators and right-wing observers provide fresh proof of unfeigned disdain for Islam with remarks that are caustic and biting and have a telling effect — both on the naive non-Muslim viewers as well as the followers of the faith.

The name of Islam has been sullied with unpardonable lapses as newscasters pause to lay undue stress on a select group of words — Islam, Qur’an, Muslims, Islamists, and Muhammad — in a singular display of contempt. The rising phantom of hatred seemed to assume alarming proportions. That the insinuations were fraught with dangerous overtones nobody seemed to realize.

Given the fact that Muslims venerate Jesus Christ and Moses (Peace be upon them) the disrespect shown to Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) marks an unbecoming show of levity on the part of the media that hurts and hurts profoundly. Islam, one of the three Abrahamic religions, lays profound emphasis on peace and tolerance. True, a few fringe religious groups have engaged in terrorism but their folly can in no way be attributed to the teachings of the faith.

Then there is Pakistan, a state in the vanguard of the war on terrorism. The country has acted sincerely in fulfilling its obligation, yet it has been singled out time and again to be mercilessly clobbered for crimes it has not committed. More recently, the ABC in a programme, described Pakistan as ‘the most dangerous country in the world!’ Such outrageous comments are a norm rather than an exception while the western media conveniently ignores state-sponsored terrorism in India and other parts of the world.

principles of the founding fathers or ignore the inspirational edicts of Thomas Jefferson. A relevant sampling: “We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.” Mustn’t the Western press act with a greater degree of responsibility?

The writer is editor of Pakistan Link, USA.

End of the beginning

HE was found, appropriately enough, crouching in a hole. Saddam Hussein, who will be remembered above all for the hundreds of thousands of people he condemned to mass graves, surrendered in ignominy from a miserable pit near the Tigris River.

Unlike many of the mass murderers who preceded him, from Hitler to Pol Pot, he will probably live to stand trial for his crimes. “He will,” President Bush said, “face the justice he denied to millions.” For that, Iraqis can thank the skilled US soldiers and intelligence analysts who managed to locate the former dictator and arrest him without firing a shot. They can also begin to think with greater confidence about an Iraq where brutality and privation give way to the tolerant, modernizing and prosperous country that most people want.

The bitter insurgency that US forces have faced in Saddam Hussein’s home region will not cease with his arrest, as a car bombing quickly demonstrated. Many of those who fight the American-sponsored provisional authority do so for reasons that extend well beyond loyalty to Saddam Hussein.

It is even possible that some who oppose the occupation, especially in the Shia population, will feel more impetus to attack American targets now that there is no risk they will be re-empowering their former oppressor. But many more Iraqis, freed from lingering fear that the dictator could return, may be ready to think about their place in the new order and join in the task of rebuilding.

That is the greatest gain the capture may offer US authorities and the Iraqi Governing Council: another chance to win over a part of the population until now excluded from the political transition, especially in the “Sunni Triangle” north and west of Baghdad.

Paul Bremer called on supporters of the former regime to “come forward in a spirit of reconciliation and hope, lay down their arms and join ... their fellow citizens in the task of building a new Iraq.” It will be important that US and interim Iraqi leaders follow up on that message in the coming days, looking for ways to involve more representatives of the Sunni population in reconstruction projects.

— The Washington Post

Closing the chapter of hostilities

IN the run-up to the next Saarc summit starting on January 4, 2004, in Islamabad, a spate of initiatives in India and Pakistan have warmed the hearts of those who wish the two states to have cordial relations. After a long wait, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali received a reply to his August 6 letter from his counterpart Atal Behari Vajpayee confirming his decision to attend the summit in Islamabad.

Significantly, Pakistan’s announcement, unilaterally and without any conditions, of ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC), the working boundary, and even the Siachen Glacier, which India reciprocated, is holding and providing immense relief to the people of Kashmir. Restoration of air links between the two countries will take place from January 1, 2004. The resumption of the Samjhota Express train service, the possible opening of the Muzaffarabad-Srinagar as well as the Sialkot-Jammu bus service along the 75-mile-long route, the ferry service between Karachi and Mumbai, the road between Monabao and Khokharapar are in the offing. In order to back up the service to a quantum jump in the number of people likely to travel through these routes, steps are being taken to increase the number of the two high commissioners’ staff from 55, to 110 in the near future.

Pakistan and India have also agreed on 500 products for tariff concessions as part of the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), and Prime Minister Jamali has endorsed the idea of a meeting of Saarc commerce secretaries on free trade before the Saarc summit Islamabad. President Musharraf has also offered to withdraw troops from Kashmir if India reciprocated in its part of Kashmir. India is reported to be ready for talks on troops cut at the LoC. Bilateral talks over the Baglihar Dam have taken place and the World Bank is getting into the picture to sort out the issue.

The cumulative weight of all these measures in the last few months is far more than one can recollect having seen in such a short period in the past half a century. It is generally believed that once we close the chapter of war and unending hostilities and open the road to peace, prosperity and happiness will fly in.

It is quite evident that the blurred visions of the sub- continental leaders in the past are giving way to an enlightened approach. The force of the painful rejection factor that almost always gripped both the countries when discussing each other’s initiative appears to be yielding to pro-active dynamism.

The pace of the CBMs has now acquired a considerable momentum because the impetus to rapprochement is coming right from the top. Together with some discreet push from the international community, the current positive postures are expected to substantially repair the damage done at Agra.

It is quite clear that the lack of flexibility in the stance of the Indian and Pakistani leaders on the complex issue of Kashmir has made the status quo a preferred alternative, which it is not. Let us also admit that the status quo implies continuation of painful tensions. And this, in turn, would imply huge costs both in financial terms and human lives. With more than a third of the budget going to defence expenditure in Pakistan and a significant proportion of the same in India, human conditions in both countries would pose immeasurable risks including the phenomenon of continued violence.

A paradigm shift of resources must take place from spending on military to investment in literacy, education, health, nutrition, safe water supply, rural infrastructure, employment generation, enhancement in productivity through technical enrichment of people, regional trade, etc. It would be naive to believe that Pakistan has the military might or diplomatic clout to settle the Kashmir issue and significantly reduce tensions.

It would be equally naive to believe that India can leave the Kashmir thorn in its flesh and hope to become a regional power. While the centrality of the Kashmir issue cannot be denied, it is necessary first to focus on a host of extremely important CBMs and implement them so that it may lead to an amicable resolution of the Kashmir issue.

Of course, India cannot ignore the Kashmir dispute because the lingering shadows of this problem might cast dark clouds on the rapprochement process itself. However, instead of passing declarations and agreements in general terms, the two countries should start working quietly and diligently and, if necessary, with the help of a third party on a roadmap for peace and harmony acceptable to all the three parties — India, Pakistan and the people of Kashmir. The preparatory work must address, step by step, the concerns India has repeatedly aired about cross-border infiltration, and that which Pakistan as well as the world has termed as human rights violations in the Indian-held Kashmir. The question of the will of the Kashmiris remains vital.

The preparatory work should also determine how to associate the representative Kashmir leadership in the rapprochement process. This intricate and difficult issue must be addressed as the previous agreements between India and Pakistan, for example, the Tashkent Agreement, the Lahore Declaration, etc. could not forge ahead because the Kashmir leadership was not there as a party. At the same time public needs to be educated and the incorrect information in books for schools and colleges in both countries should be revised so that a congenial environment is created.

Let us admit that the recently announced ceasefire cannot hold if there is no progress on the Kashmir dispute. At the same time Kashmir cannot remain the bone of contention forever; 56 years are enough. This single dispute has deflected us from the crucial task of social and economic development for more than half a century while the rest of the world has tackled the real issues of poverty, ignorance, malnutrition etc much better than we have done in this part of the world.

Let us also admit that both countries need a tension-free environment to attract domestic and foreign investment as well as a stream of valuable tourists. The year 2004 is crucial. In view of the general elections in India in October 2004 — if not earlier — the preparatory work should start right away.

The civil society, in general, and the Pakistan-India People’s Forum, in particular, should impress upon the political stalwarts in both countries that the deepest wish of the people is peace, and that the fate of 1.5 billion people of which more than one-third live in abject poverty, cannot remain hostage to the politics of gestures only.

Similarly, the international community must remain engaged to nudge the peace process ahead. Almost 500 million people have been waiting for the economic dawn in their lives for too long. Is it not reason enough to initiate and stay on the course of rapprochement with utmost sincerity?

The writer is a former senior adviser to the World Bank.

Bush’s enemies list

THE Pentagon, by allowing for too few troops and by exercising too much optimism in planning for postwar Iraq, shot itself in both feet. It also apparently deafened itself to international reality.

The military’s announcement that it would not issue major Iraq reconstruction contracts to countries that didn’t support the US-led war was clumsy enough; consider that Canada was included on this updated enemies list. The timing is what puts the ban in the “what were they thinking?” category.

Just last week, President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James A. Baker III to wheedle patience from countries that are owed more than $100billion in debts incurred by Saddam Hussein’s regime. The two biggest creditors are France and Russia, which of course are among those banned from getting major reconstruction contracts.

It’s true that Paris and Moscow snuggled up to Hussein even after the 1991 Persian Gulf War to procure lucrative contracts allowed under United Nations guidelines. But Russia has cooperated in helping to destroy its own Soviet-era nuclear weapons and is a US ally in trying to stop or roll back North Korea’s nuclear arms programme. France has provided troops to fight Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants in Afghanistan.

Canada sent troops to Afghanistan and saw several killed in an accidental bombing by a US plane. Canadians have directed peacekeeping forces in Kabul as well. Ottawa opposed the war but has pledged more than $200 million for reconstruction of Iraq. Outgoing Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Thursday that Bush had told him Canadian firms would not be stopped from bidding, but it was unclear whether they would be limited to being subcontractors, like firms of other banned countries. Bush called the leaders of France, Russia and Germany (also on the list) last week to urge them to help restructure Iraq’s debt. We can only imagine the reception he got.

The Iraqi government to be formed next year will indeed start from too big a hole if it is forced to spend most of its money just paying interest on the debts of the Hussein regime.

— Los Angeles Times