Taking the development route

TWO rounds of bombings in London’s underground railway system have once again invited speculation on the motives that inspire young men to give their lives in order to create chaos. According to one view the Muslim communities in Britain, already alienated by the failure of the society in which they live to offer them full accommodation, have turned to violence to draw attention to their anger. This is probably what President Musharraf meant when, on the July 21 address to the nation, he invited the British to look at their own failure before pelting stones at Pakistan.

While Pakistan’s culpability in the crimes committed in London is confined to its tolerance for some of the madressahs that teach hatred against all those who don’t accept their narrow point of view, the country’s long and ongoing involvement in the Kashmir dispute has already had a number of unanticipated consequences. I have written before that it was reasonable — but very shortsighted — on the part of strategists in Islamabad to rely on the zealotry promoted by some of the madressahs in order to balance India’s military advantage.

As a result of this strategy Pakistan may have stalled India in Kashmir but it has also bought a serious problem for itself. Pakistan is now in the eye of the Islamic extremism storm partly the result of the Kashmir strategy. The time has come to switch to some other approach to achieve progress on Kashmir rather than continue to hope that jihad would eventually rescue the people from their miserable plight.

Economics could succeed where politics has failed in ultimately resolving the problem of Kashmir. A two pronged approach — simultaneous focus on development and on inter-regional trade — could introduce a new dynamic in the two parts of the state. It could induce the people of Kashmir to get absorbed in working towards their economic betterment and forgo the temptation to resort to violence in order to settle their score with India. At the same time, by getting involved in the economic development of Kashmir, both India and Pakistan will begin to see that there are much richer rewards from the pursuit of this strategy than the mindless encouragement of militancy (on the part of Pakistan) or the suppression of insurgency by the use of excessive and brutal force (on the part of India).

How would economics really work? In two earlier articles on the subject, I proposed a multi-sectoral development programme to accelerate the rate of economic growth in the Indian occupied areas of Kashmir. A similar programme could be launched in Azad Kashmir, concentrating on the same sectors as those proposed for the areas under India’s control. According to my very rough calculations the two programmes together would cost some $25 billion — $20 billion for the Indian side and the remaining $5 billion for Azad Kashmir — and could be implemented over a period of 10 years, say from 2006 to 2016.

The estimates used by me are rough orders of magnitude. I had two reasons for providing them. One, to underscore the point that a programme developed to improve the economic prospects of the two parts of Kashmir would involve a commitment of large amounts of financial resources in order to produce the desired results — to convince the alienated population in Indian-held Kashmir that the world is prepared to come to their assistance. This will not be done by supplying them with arms and military training but by giving them the resources for their economic uplift.

Given the amount of money that will need to be spent in order to produce a palpable difference in the lives of the people in the state for them to give up doing what they have done for the last decade and a half — to give up arms and violence and turn to serious economic work — the international community will have to foot a significant part of the bill. This, as I will note below, has been done once before to solve a dispute between India and Pakistan that at that point seemed intractable.

Two, I wished to suggest that there are areas in the economy of Kashmir that could develop reasonably quickly and provide a significant increase in well remunerated jobs, and therefore, could produce a noticeable increase in incomes, particularly for the state’s youth.

But there is one other objective a successful programme of Kashmir’s development must satisfy: to link the state’s economy with those of India and Pakistan in a way that neither country will have reason to resort to force in the area. By focusing on the development of the energy sector and supplying surplus electric power to both Pakistan and India, the plan proposed by me will tie Kashmir’s resources not only with its own development but also with the growth and development of India and Pakistan.

A consensus has developed among economists around the globe that the world faces a serious energy problem. Given the rapid growth of China and India — and now Pakistan — the demand on the world’s increasingly limited supplies of fossil fuels is bound to increase. Foreseeing that this would happen, world oil and gas markets have already registered a pronounced increase in both spot and long-term prices. Both are at historical high levels. Development of the state’s energy resources could be a central element in the programme of economic development for the two parts of Kashmir. A great deal of further work needs to be done to develop the programme in detail. It would require considerable amount of expertise and deep knowledge of various sectors. It could be formulated by multilateral development agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank where such knowledge and expertise resides. The two agencies could also help to mobilize the required resources and oversee the programme’s implementation.

The experts may come up with a different set of sectors to concentrate on than those proposed by me. They may also propose a different timeline for the programme, stretching over a longer period of time or being condensed for a shorter period. Their cost estimates are bound to be different than those made by me.

There is of course a very good precedence to turn to the international community to use economics to resolve a difficult issue. This was done almost half a century ago by India and Pakistan to find a solution to the problem of dividing the water resources of the Indus River system. There was considerable acrimony between the two countries soon after they gained independence, and at one time one it appeared that they would resort to all-out war in order to decide their opposing claims on the waters that flowed down from the Himalayas through Kashmir and into the plains of Punjab which was now divided in two parts, each with a stake on the waters of the system.

The Indus Water Treaty of 1960 was the product of farsightedness on the part of the leaderships of the two countries, in particular President Muhammad Ayub Khan of Pakistan who recognized that the only way to settle the dispute was to aim for four objectives: develop a system-wide development plan, have the plan incorporated into an international treaty, establish a mechanism for the resolution of disputes that would inevitably arise between the two countries, and convince the international community to meet a large part of the expenditure that would be required to implement the plan. The Indus Water Replacement Works that were formulated within the context of the treaty were ambitious in scope and provided what each country needed. Something similar will be needed for the formulation and implementation of the Kashmir Development Plan.

At the moment, senior leaders of India and Pakistan are concentrating on building confidence on both sides of the border so that the two countries can live in peace and harmony. There is an assumption that this would eventually lead to some accommodation on Kashmir. This is a passive approach that may not produce the results that both sides want. A more visionary strategy is required of the type that was adopted in 1960 to solve the problem associated with the division of waters in the Indus River System.

What would be the economic impact of the $25 billion development plan proposed in this series of articles? What are the likely consequences on Indian held Kashmir and on Azad Kashmir on the of economic rates of growth, on the levels of employment, on the incidence of poverty, and on bringing about their greater integration with the global economy?

Using a simple model, this level of investment, spread over a 10 year period on both sides of the present divide, should yield $50 million additional income a year. This would correspond to an increase of 9.5 per cent a year in the GSDP of both parts of Kashmir. The combined gross product of the two sides is of the order of $5.6 billion, $4.4 billion for the part held by India and $1.2 billion for the parts that are with Pakistan. Income per head of the two parts is about the same at $400 a year.

The total population of Kashmir in 2004 was 14 million, with 11 million on the Indian side and three million in Azad Kashmir. This is likely to increase to 17.5 million by 2016. A 9.5 per cent growth in GSDP would mean that the size of the combined economies would increase in constant terms to $14 billion, increasing per capita income to $800, bringing it close to the anticipated incomes in both India and Pakistan. This is not an impossible target to achieve considering that the state economy has grown at a rate well below the Indian average. The same is true for Azad Kashmir, the Pakistani part of the state.

An important feature — in fact that should be a condition for international help for the programme — will be the agreement by the two countries that they will be willing to incorporate the state of Kashmir and the territory of Azad Kashmir into a sub-regional trading arrangement. Such an arrangement could be a corollary to the Safta, (the South Asian Free Trade Area), expected to be launched on January 1, 2006. I will return to this subject next week in the final article of the series on Kashmir.

Facing years of blowback

WHEN Tony Blair says we should not “give one inch” to the terrorists, what he really means is that he isn’t prepared to give one inch to those who say he blundered by invading Iraq.

It’s difficult to respect a prime minister who is prepared to put his own hunger for vindication before a serious attempt to understand where the war on terror is going wrong, but it’s hard to see what else he could do. To admit an error of such magnitude would leave him in an untenable position. If we are stuck with Blair we are stuck with his policies, however detrimental they may be to our security.

Revulsion at the London bombings has produced a rallying effect that has insulated him from criticism, but this may prove to be short-lived. It is surely only a matter of time before admiration for Blair’s presentational skills in moments of crisis gives way to sober reflection on the rather more weighty matter of how we got into this crisis in the first place. Iraq is not going away. If anything there are valid grounds for believing that the worst is yet to come.

The first of these is the escalating violence in Iraq itself. It didn’t take long for the bubble of euphoria that accompanied the Iraqi elections in January to burst and make a mockery of Dick Cheney’s claim that the insurgency was “in its last throes”. In the first half of July alone there were more than 40 suicide bombings in Iraq.

This suggests a campaign of extraordinary regenerative force. Whereas most terrorist organizations view the loss of members as an occupational hazard, those driving the violence in Iraq embrace it willingly in the knowledge that more volunteers will always be available. It also suggests that leadership of the insurgency has passed from disaffected Ba’athists to the most extreme Sunni Islamists led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

There is strong evidence that the Bush administration realizes the seriousness of its predicament and is lowering its ambitions accordingly. Gone is the tough-guy “bring ‘em on” rhetoric. Instead Donald Rumsfeld now talks about a 12-year campaign in which the insurgency is defeated by Iraqi forces long after coalition troops have departed.

The architects of the Iraq war are looking for a way out, but that is unlikely to be the end of the matter. We face years of “blowback” for gifting Al-Qaeda an active theatre of operations to recruit and train a new generation of jihadists. Our leaders cleared out one hornet’s nest of international terrorists in Afghanistan only to create another one in Iraq.

Potentially more worrying still is the emerging politics of post-Saddam Iraq. This has gone through three phases, each corresponding with the declining fortunes of the occupation. The first was an attempt to install a government of hand-picked emigres led by the one-time neo-conservative favourite Ahmad Chalabi. This plan was dumped when it became apparent that Chalabi enjoyed almost no domestic support. The second was the “Ba’athism lite” option under Ayad Allawi, the Shia strongman and ex-Ba’athist thought capable of reaching out to former Saddam loyalists. This failed when Allawi polled a disappointing 14 per cent in January’s election.

The third phase, and likely shape of things to come, has been the rise of the Shia Islamist bloc that now controls a majority in the Iraqi parliament. Coalition strategists are putting a brave face on this by stressing the supposedly moderate and democratic credentials of these “new Islamists”. But you do not need to look very far into the past to see how unlikely this is.

The new prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, was feted on a recent trip to the White House, but his hosts conveniently chose to forget the fact that his Dawa party was suspected of involvement in a string of terrorist attacks against western interests, including the 1983 bombings of the US embassy in Kuwait and the US marine barracks in Beirut. The latter, the worst act of terrorism against the US prior to 9/11, killed 241 American peacekeepers. In those days Dawa acted under the guidance of the Iranian intelligence services.

Of course, times change. Al-Jaafari has renounced terrorism and embraced electoral politics. Today both he and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of the main Shia party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), make all the right noises about pluralism and national unity. But this is so out of step with their ideology and backgrounds that it is hard to see it as a sincere account of their plans for Iraq.

It is also demonstrably out of step with the reality on the ground. Where they are already in control, the Shia parties are enforcing an increasingly repressive religious code. In Basra, formerly one of the most liberal cities in Iraq, there has been a clampdown on the sale of alcohol, singing in public, short haircuts and women without headscarves. Beatings have been administered to male doctors who treat female patients and students attending a mixed-sex picnic. These measures are enforced by militias such as the Badr Brigade, affiliated to Sciri, which also controls the local police.

The encroachment of Iranian-style theocratic rule has been paralleled by a growing alliance with Tehran in areas such as energy and defence. It would be wrong to see Iraq’s Shia parties simply as instruments of Iran. But it would also be foolish to ignore the very strong gravitational pull Tehran is likely to exert, for both ideological and strategic reasons, on the fledgling Islamic state to its west.

As the Sciri leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said on a recent visit to Basra: “The great Islamic republic has a very formidable government. It can be very useful to us, and it has an honourable attitude towards Iraq.” Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries remain hostile to Shia rule in Iraq, so it is perhaps inevitable that they will be drawn to the protective embrace of their co-religionists.

All of this presents a grave problem for Bush and Blair. According to the Bush doctrine they intervened in order to “create a balance of power that favours human freedom”. Instead, they are in danger of creating a balance of power that favours Iran, a country still deemed to form part of the “axis of evil”.

The recent victory for the hard-line candidate in Iran’s presidential elections and the regime’s apparent determination to acquire nuclear weapons compounds the problem. Bogged down in Iraq and now entirely dependent on the goodwill of its Shia majority to make the place governable, America and Britain have left themselves with few credible options for containing Iran or even influencing its behaviour.

The invasion of Iraq has frequently been described as the biggest diplomatic blunder since Suez. This already looks like a considerable understatement. On a worst-case scenario that now seems possible, it could very well come to be seen as one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes of all time. —Dawn/Guardian Service

A major, new challenge

FEW foreign visitors to Washington have aroused as much interest and excitement as did the Indian Prime Minister during his official visit recently. Its results have not dampened speculation; they have only fuelled it further.

The agreements arrived at had been in the pipeline for months, possibly years, as both sides were determined to transform their relationship. President Clinton, too, had been desirous of forging similar ties, but his wishes had been thwarted by India’s nuclear tests in 1998. Bush had always favoured strengthened relations with India and in September 2001, he waived nuclear-related sanctions on India. Since then, the two have expanded their military and counter-terrorism cooperation.

On January 12, 2004, the Bush administration and the Vajpayee government announced the NSSP initiative, which opened a strategic dialogue, as well as cooperation on missile defence and non-proliferation. Then in June 2004, the US allowed Boeing to begin the joint development of a communication satellite with India. Finally, when on June 28, US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and Defence Minister Mukherjee signed the 10-year defence agreement, it was a clear signal of the political, economic and strategic direction that the two countries had decided to take, independent of US relations with any country, including Pakistan.

Earlier, the state department spokesman, in his briefing on March 25, after Secretary Rice’s visit to New Delhi, had declared that the US was anxious to evolve “ a decisively broader strategic relationship”, which would “help India become a major power in the 21st century.”

More importantly, Ashley Tellis, the brilliant young strategic analyst, now regarded as an expert on China, who had been tasked with the responsibility of fleshing out proposals prior to Manmohan Singh’s visit, had laid out a broad vision for US-India relations, in a paper entitled “India as a Global Power”. In it he had written: “If the US is serious about advancing its geopolitical objectives in Asia, it would almost by definition help New Delhi develop strategic capabilities so that India’s nuclear weaponry and associated delivery systems could deter the growing and utterly more capable nuclear forces Beijing is likely to possess by 2015.”

Tellis and his mentor, the former US ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, made no secret of their strong belief that the only possible potential threat to US interests in Asia arose from China and that there could be no better countervailing force to it than India.

During a long session with Tellis at his place in suburban Washington in May, I expressed my doubts as to whether he could pull off the ambitious agenda he was advancing, especially on issues such as the transfer of nuclear technology. He admitted that there were still people in Washington who believed in non-proliferation as the gospel truth, and that the battle with them would be difficult, but he was confident of success, because of growing appreciation of common interests and values between India and the US.

So in the space of a less than a month, we have had two major developments that should cause us great concern. First, the US-India defence pact, on which I have already written. And now, the understandings reached between Bush and Singh. It is important not only for what it says but also for the message it conveys. Out in the open, the two countries are not only defence allies, committed to close cooperation on some of the most sensitive and controversial issues, that includes action on terrorism, (outside the UN) and nuclear proliferation; they have now agreed on a series of steps that represents major departures by each side against established policies.

Apart from many important areas that they have decided to cooperate on, the most critical, of course, relates to the American promise to sell nuclear material and equipment to India. To this end, Bush pledged to “adjust US laws and policies” and to “work with friends and allies to adjust international regimes”, to enable nuclear transactions with India. In other words, India can keep its nuclear weapons and also obtain international help for new and existing nuclear facilities.

In return for India getting “secure nuclear materials and technology through comprehensive export control legislation”, it would adhere to the missile technology control regime (MTCR) and the nuclear supplier group (NSG) guidelines, although it is not a member of either. India also agreed to extend its nuclear testing moratorium. Further, India would allow international inspections and safeguards on its civilian nuclear facilities, though the Indians admit that their civilian facilities cannot be separated from the military ones. This agreement therefore provides India de facto and near de jure membership of the exclusive club of recognized nuclear weapon states.

The reaction within the US has been muted and better than what the administration expected. Most major papers appear to accept the administration’s rationale, with the notable exceptions of the Post and the Boston Globe. Congressional leaders have also chosen to refrain from giving negative comments, Edward Markey being the exception. He called the understanding “a dangerous proposition and a bad non-proliferation policy”.

Criticism within India has come primarily from the left parties and surprisingly from Atal Behari Vajpayee, though he had sought a similar relationship with the US, when in power. Some have lamented that it amounts to an abandonment of Nehru’s principles, which it does. Others are alarmed that India has now bound itself to an institutional arrangement where turning down American requests would not be easy. That, too, appears to be the case.

Most observers agree that it was the China factor that tilted the scales in India’s favour, especially in the estimation of the neo-cons. As the Washington Post stated: “it was an important part of the White House strategy to accelerate India’s rise to a global power as a counterweight to China”. Another well-known analyst, Joseph Cirincione commented that “the US is preparing for a grand conflict with China and constructing an anti-China coalition”. In this scenario, “India is even more reliable as a nuclear power than as a non-nuclear power,” he added.

Strobe Talbott, President Clinton’s deputy secretary of state and a self-acknowledged fan of India, was nevertheless critical of the administration for agreeing to give India virtual membership of the nuclear club. Writing in the Herald Tribune on July 23, Talbott observed that both India and the US have “shown a penchant for going it alone, and if their versions of unilateralism reinforce each other, it will work to the detriment of institutions like the UN and risks turning agreements like the NPT into increasingly ineffectual ones”. He was also critical of the notion of building up India against China.

Such strategic agreements do not reveal their true intent right away. But in the case of the newly-established Indo-US strategic relationship there was no such wait. In fact, Prime Minister Singh was already a changed man when he went to address the US Congress. While extolling India as a responsible nuclear power, he took a totally uncalled for swipe at Pakistan, though he refrained from naming it. However, in the CNN interview, Singh abandoned all restraint, indulging in serious and baseless accusations against Pakistan, on both the nuclear and anti-terrorism fronts.

There was another no less important shift in his interview to the Washington Post on July 21, when he volunteered that he had serious reservations with the IPI gas pipeline project, because of the “uncertainties of the situation in Iran”, an obvious reference to Ahmadinejad’s election as president of Iran. This must have been music to the ears of the administration that has long opposed the project. Even Singh’s cabinet colleagues were caught offguard. Is the IPI pipeline project the first victim of the new Indo-US strategic ties?

It is quite obvious that no bilateral relationship has improved as much under President Bush as the US-India relationship. Nicholas Burns, with brutal candour, explained the rationale of the new understandings: “What we have done is to develop with the Indian government and this administration a broad, global partnership of the like that we have not seen with India since India’s founding in 1947. This has consequences for American interests in South Asia but also has far larger consequences for what we are trying to do ourselves”.

Burns is right when he talks of larger consequences, flowing from this relationship. Among other things, it is likely to damage the non-proliferation regime, renew Sino-Indian rivalry, encourage India’s hegemonic tendencies, introduce a new arms race in South Asia and reduce the prospects of Indo-Pakistan rapprochement.

In this situation, what options does Pakistan have? Sadly, not many. But we need to remove the blinkers. Our relations with the US have historically been based on a single item agenda, though it may be cloaked in flattering rhetoric and diplomatic niceties. The government’s first action has been the right one — cancelling the prime minister’s visit to the US. The contrast with Singh’s visit would have been too unflattering. As regards India, we need to reiterate our commitment to the normalization process, but with no expectations, nor offers of unilateral concessions. We also need to have a summit level exchange with the US, to convey our concerns, with clarity and candour, over this development. And, finally, we need to inject greater substance into the only strategic relationship that we have — with China.

We should also make fresh efforts to improve relations with Moscow, notwithstanding earlier disappointments. But, as now acknowledged by political observers, strategic initiatives are required on the internal front as well. The country is facing critical times. There is no room for personality oriented confrontations. The president should take the initiative to bring about a national reconciliation, to forge a consensus based, harmonious domestic political climate. This will immediately improve our image and strengthen our bargaining position vis-a-vis both friends and foes.

The writer is a former ambassador.

This just in

NEWSPAPERS are so worried about attracting new readers that they keep thinking up schemes to boost circulation. I just read that the Greensboro News and Record will permit readers to write their own editorials and contributions on the paper’s website. With the readers blogging their stories, the newspaper is truly a “voice of the people.”

I have given much thought to this. Suppose a reader wants to write a column like this one. I can help him. Just fill in the blanks and you can make it anything you want it to be.

Exclusive! This column has just learned from a source high in the government, who told me not to use his name, that —. This is the first time anyone would admit it. The — Party was overjoyed, but the — Party wanted to know who the source was and demanded an apology. Sen. — said it would not be forthcoming, because when Sen. — said, “ —,” he refused to say he was sorry.

So the chairman of the — Committee demanded an investigation. All Washington is talking about it. This is one of the biggest scandals since —. Top-secret papers may or may not have been destroyed, depending on whose side you’re on.

The FBI is investigating where the leak came from. They are looking at Robert —, a syndicated columnist. He was called in front of a grand jury. Rumour has it that if he refused to talk he would go to jail for — days and be fined — thousand dollars.

The Supreme Court, by a — vote, refused to hear the case and sent it back to the lower court. This is a frightening threat to the press, because reporters can no longer protect their sources. This will scare off whistleblowers.

Where do I stand?

I take the position that __.

I believe I would/would not (choose one) reveal my source to avoid being locked up. The public has a right to know. In this case, as I said so courageously in previous columns, there is a serious cover-up somewhere and someone has to be held accountable.

This much I can tell you: —.

But that’s not the whole story. There is a lot more, and I promise I will get to the bottom of it.

I can now reveal that —. My source told me he would suffer irreparable harm if the FBI discovers who he is. The left wing considers it a right-wing conspiracy, and the right wing considers it a left-wing plot.

The White House says it’s just more politics.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. When all the facts are in, we will know how big an iceberg it really is.

My source is not Deep Throat. For one thing, he has laryngitis; for another, we have never met in a garage. Most of our meetings have taken place in a topless bar on F Street.

Someday the identity of my source will be revealed, and he will be judged as a hero/traitor. (Pick only one.)

There you have it, dear reader, and you thought writing a column was a lot of work. —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Bombings: who is to blame?

THE July 21 failed bombing in London sharply intensified the fierce war of words that has raged in Britain for the past two weeks over who was to blame for the original attacks. Now, claims by the Blair government that Pakistan is somehow involved in the crimes has resulted in a nasty spat and a lot of finger pointing between Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Pervez Musharraf.

Blair has been insisting that the young British Muslim men who staged the first bombings on July 7 were motivated by a rabid, misguided view of Islam, and incited by fanatic imams preaching a cult of hatred against the west. President George Bush and Australia’s prime minister John Howard, repeat similar claims: terrorism is caused by evil Muslims who hate the West because of its values, religion, freedoms and selfless efforts to bring the light of democracy and civilization to the benighted Islamic world.

The three western leaders insist attacks by Muslims have nothing whatsoever to do with their military actions in the Muslim world, their efforts to control or plunder its oil, or to support the corrupt, despotic regimes installed by them across the Muslim world.

Pakistan is increasingly being portrayed in the West as the fount of Islamic terrorism. Pro-Israel neoconservatives, quietly aided by their new ally, the increasingly powerful Indian lobby in the US, have turned their media fire away from Saudi Arabia on to Pakistan. Pakistan’s madressahs (religious schools) again came under heavy criticism for, it is claimed, churning out young fanatics. Almost every Islamist group is being called ‘terrorists’ by the US and Britain.

President Musharraf fired back at the British, rightly pointing out the latest terrorist incidents originated in Britain, not Pakistan. He ordered security services to round up the usual Islamic suspects. A ‘key Al Qaeda terrorist’ was suddenly arrested, Islamabad’s standard response whenever Washington and London turn up the heat and blame Pakistan for terrorism. Hapless Waziri tribesmen may get another spate of bombings to appease the US and Britain.

Sometime ago, I said that the underground bombings, however despicable, were inevitable retaliation by angry young Muslims for Britain’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Unsurprisingly, I received a good deal of angry criticism for this heresy. Recently, an leaked report from MI-5, Britain’s security service, and a study by Chatham House, a leading UK non-partisan research group, both confirmed the attacks may indeed have been linked to Muslim fury over Afghanistan and Iraq. Polls show a majority of Britons agreed.

London’s popular mayor, Ken Livingston, spoke for this silent majority, blaming “80 years of western intervention in Arab land because of our need for oil.”

The always controversial Livingston went on to accuse the US and Britain of double standards over terrorism. If Britons were as oppressed as Palestinians were by Israel, he added, they too would resort to suicide bombers.

Though Livingston is way to the left of many Britons, his words, echoing those of courageous British MP, George Galloway, reflected what many Britons think but what Americans dare not say: US political policies and wars in the Mideast are responsible for 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.

By playing Jeeves the butler to George Bush in the so-called war on terrorism — seen by most Muslims as a western crusade against Islam — Tony Blair imported Mideast violence to Britain.

Blaming Islam allows Bush and Blair to decouple their aggressive policies in the Muslim world from counter-attacks by tiny groups of violent extremists practising private enterprise violence. Israel initiated this policy of denial, long insisting its brutal repression in the occupied territories had nothing to do with Arab terrorist attacks.—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2005

Secrets and spies

GARY BERNTSEN, a retired CIA officer, is having problems publishing his book about the Afghanistan war because his former employees are withholding their approval. Mr Berntsen reveals how US commanders knew Osama bin Laden was hiding in the remote Tora Bora mountains, apparently contradicting the White House’s version of how the Al Qaeda chief was able, fatefully, to escape.

Mr Berntsen is unlucky. Several other one-time CIA men have written their memoirs recently: one is entitled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. But in Britain, the only spy stories we have heard are from renegades such as Richard Tomlinson of MI6, and Peter Wright of Spycatcher fame, or from the ex-MI5 chief, Stella Rimington, whose dreary and heavily vetted memoirs spilled very few clandestine beans.

But sensitivities abound outside the secret world too, as Sir Jeremy Greenstock, our man at the UN in the run-up to the Iraq war, has found to his cost. Sir Jeremy has called the war “politically illegitimate” and his book is being blocked. Now Craig Murray, the former envoy to Uzbekistan, is facing difficulties printing his indiscreet but well-known objections to the use of intelligence obtained under torture.

Surprisingly, there have been no problems for Sir Christopher Meyer, ambassador to the US after 9/11, whose DC Confidential records the undiplomatic order from Downing Street to “get up the White House’s arse and stay there”.

— The Guardian, London