LAHORE, Feb 1: Former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali has said that the security agreement signed by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami with India is against Pakistan’s interests and President Musharraf or Prime Minister Jamali should immediately visit Tehran to have it repealed.

Talking to Dawn here on Saturday, he said Pakistan’s increasing isolation in the world could encourage enemies to think of aggression against the Islamic republic.

He advised the president to take the nation into confidence and deal with the emerging situation using its collective wisdom.

Disapproving of the policy of unbelievable flexibility in foreign affairs and total rigidity on the home front, Mr Ali said the president should permit Mian Shahbaz Sharif and Ms Bhutto to return to Pakistan and initiate with them discussions on national security.

“The other ominous factors eroding Pakistan’s position are the changing regional alignments. China and India are moving from normalization of relations to cooperation.”

The former foreign minister said Pakistan’s foreign policy was in turbulent waters with the Islamic republic being accused of providing nuclear information to North Korea and safe havens to remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“The increased militant activity in Afghanistan is also being attributed to these safe havens. There have been insinuations in the world media that Osama bin Laden is holed up in Pakistan.”

Referring to the US policy in the region, Mr Ali said the US seemed to have decided to forge a strategic partnership with India. Therefore, he added, the tone and tenor of US ambassador Nancy Powell and Indian Premier Vajpayee was quite understandable.

He pointed out that Pakistan had once again been accused of either promoting or not preventing cross-border movement into the Indian-held Kashmir.

Convinced that the US would mount an attack on Iraq by the end of the current month or early next month irrespective of the opposition from other countries, Mr Ali said that to deal with the situation arising out of the imminent attack, the Jamali government should work out a policy in consultation with the friendly Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Iran and Turkey.

In his opinion, the looming war “will be probably one of the most unpopular wars the US has fought during the past 100 years”.

The Bush administration, Mr Ali said, had failed to build an international consensus on the issue. Three out of five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia, China and France, had rejected the war plan. These countries, he said, would either abstain from voting or exercise veto when a resolution was moved before the Security Council.

Thus, he said, being unable able to have a new resolution adopted by the world body, the US would have to take recourse to the earlier Resolution 1441.

The former foreign minister said the world was not convinced that the option of international inspections in Iraq had been exhausted. “There is a perception all over the world that the US is going to war not to disarm Iraq, but because of its economic and strategic interests.”

The Bush administration had adopted a unilateralist foreign policy and the US president had become an instrument in the hands of ultra-conservative elements. “President Bush is a troubled man,” he remarked.

Mr Ali said the war would not be a protracted one and its outcome was also predictable, given the imbalance between Iraq and the allied forces.

He warned that there would be a backlash in two provinces as a result of the war and a civil movement within Pakistan was bound to affect the fragile political structure built by Gen Musharraf.

In response to a question, he said the Jamali government was over-reacting on the issue of registration under the INS laws. “It was for us to determine if US policy had any flexibility. The best adviser in this regard was our ambassador in Washington. The foreign minister should have embarked on a visit to Washington only after assessing the entire situation. Now he will be coming back empty-handed, which is a matter of disappointment for the people.”