Oct 16, 2002 op eds

October 16, 2002 Opinion Editorials

Gulf News, 15-10-2002

"We cannot ignore the development of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons," Former United States President Jimmy Carter and last week's winner of Nobel Peace Prize wrote (September 5) in the Washington Post, "but a unilateral war with Iraq is not the answer."

There is an urgent need for United Nations action to force unrestricted inspection in Iraq. But perhaps deliberately so, this has become less likely as we alienate our necessary allies.

Apparently disagreeing with the president and secretary of state, in fact, the vice president (Dick Cheney) has now discounted this goal as a desirable option."

Strong words from "a weak" president, as he was labelled by right-wing conservatives during the 1980 presidential campaign. In fact, men in power in today's Washington, such as Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, worked hard to get right winger Ronald Reagan elected in his place.

Now, more than two decades after his unceremonious defeat, Jimmy Carter's legacy was finally salvaged last week when he was awarded the highly prestigious Nobel Peace Prize for tirelessly efforts in ending wars, eradicating disease and defend human rights.

All those who have generously donated, including some Gulf personalities, over the years to his Carter Center in Atlanta, which he established in 1982 with his wife Roselyn, should also feel proud of this achievement.

Armed only with extensive background research from his Center's excellent network team, Jimmy Carter would fly to areas which others would never dare to set foot on, such as North Korea, Bosnia, East Timor or Cuba, with a sole aim: sorting out bloody conflicts.

Expressing his personal views, the awards committee chairman, Gunnar Berge said the award "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current administration has taken."

Nevertheless, the awards committee said in its official citation that "Carter has, in a situation currently marked by threats of the use of military power, stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development."

On his part, one of the 20th century's great leaders, the former South Africa's president Nelson Mandela praised Carter for being one of the few U.S. Democrats to criticise President George Walker Bush policy.

"He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize," Mandela said, "at a time when President Bush has taken that belligerent attitude, Carter has condemned him."

In fact, Carter went further in his Washington Post article and criticised the Bush administration's policy in the Middle East, and showed the decency and courage to speak out against the brutal Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.

"Tragically," he said, "our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestin-ians and Israelis." "Our apparent policy is to support almost every Israeli action in the Occupied Territories and to condemn and isolate the Palestinians as blanket targets of our war on terrorism, while Israeli settlements expand and Palestinian enclaves shrink."

He was even bold enough to show the division within the U.S. administration over defining a comprehensive Middle East policy.

He wrote: "The president's clear commitments to honour key UN resolutions and to support the establishment of a Palestinian state have been substantially negated by statements of the defence secretary that in his lifetime 'there will be some sort of entity that will be established' and his reference to the 'so-called occupation'.

"This indicates a radical departure from policies of every administration since 1967, always based on the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories and a genuine peace between Israelis and their neighbours."

Having paid so heavily as a result of similar division in his own administration between his hawkish national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and secretary of state Cyrus Vance, Carter is well placed to understand the dangers emanating from the division within Bush's administration.

Rivalry between Brzezinski and Vance, who later resigned, undermined Carter's détente with the Soviet Union, aborted his peace efforts with Cuba and led to the hasty U.S. moves in the Horn of Africa and Zaire.

Brzezinski's influence also led to the disastrous decision to try to rescue the 52 U.S. diplomats held hostage in the embassy in Tehran for 444 days. Operation Eagle Claw was the only aggressive move in the Carter presidency. Eight airmen died when a helicopter and a plane collided in the desert.

Apart from that fatal disaster, Carter is the only U.S. president since the World War II who has never ordered American soldiers into combat overseas.

He managed to beat a record 155 candidates for the most prestigious prize which has been won in the past by Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Yasser Arafat, Willy Brandt and Burmese human rights campaigner, Aung San Suu Kyi.

One of the nominees, Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was tipped by American media as the firm favourite to pick up this year award. Carter was the best choice. The Americans who voted this "quiet" president out of office in 1980, should be proud of Carter for showing the world, through his hard work as an ex-president, the best of America's values: human rights, freedom and democracy.

In a statement posted on the Carter Center's website, he said: "My concept of human rights has grown to include not only the rights to live in peace, but also to adequate healthcare, shelter, food and to economic opportunity. I hope this award reflects a universal acceptance and even embrace of this broad- based concept."

I am confident the $1 million award Carter merited will be well spent.

Mustapha Karkouti is the former president, Foreign Press Association in London.

Understanding the political process in the US
By James Zogby

Politics in America is like a game, a deadly serious game with very real consequences. There are rules to the game and there are things you must do to play. The stakes are high and the rewards great. If you win, you have the ability to shape policy and priorities you can bend them to meet your needs.

Those who don’t understand the realties of US politics, falsely assume that policy and politics are unrelated. They see policy purely as a function of interests. In fact, policy is shaped by both interests and politics. Our elections are about power — the power to define the policy agenda. And the reason why special interest groups spend so much money and do so much work is precisely because they want to influence the policies and priorities of those whom their money and work helped to elect.

With regard to the Middle East, for more than 50 years now, one side has played the game of politics as if their very lives depended on its outcome. The other side has largely sat on the sidelines, alternately watching and criticizing as the side that played won match after match. Over the long haul, the side that played not only won, but they so entrenched themselves in the very process of the game that they have been able to dominate it, to rewrite its rules in order to make it more difficult for any potential competitors. They began to treat the game as their own exclusive field of play.

I remember how difficult it was twenty years ago when, under the umbrella of the Jesse Jackson for President campaign, Arab-Americans first began to play in US politics as an organized team.

The political parties did not want to recognize us. Some candidates returned our contributions; some sought to silence, isolate and exclude us.

At an especially dark moment in the early part of this struggle Jesse Jackson said to me, “Don’t ever quit, that’s what they want you to do. The biggest threat you pose is not the threat to walk away, it’s the threat to stay and fight.”

We did stay and fight, winning friends and little victories along the way. During the past two decades we’ve defined our community, empowered it and seen it become recognized and respected in the US political process. And we’ve done it on our own terms.

We’re playing now. We still lose some, but we’ve also shown that we can win. The challenges we face are enormous and growing, especially after Sept. 11, 2001. But Arab-Americans can point with pride to what we’ve been able to accomplish and, because the process is now more open and inclusive, we can see how it is possible to win even more significant victories in the future.

Politics is also like a business. The competition is severe. But if you continue to invest time, capital and intelligence, you can compete in the marketplace and reap long-term profits. There is no instant success. Success requires understanding the market, developing a strategic approach and making a long-term commitment.

There are lessons Arab-Americans are learning. Too many Arabs in the Middle East on the other hand still don’t get it. Out of their own sense of frustration and powerlessness, or out of a lack of understanding, they have mystified US politics and policy.

Failing to understand how policy in the US is shaped by politics, they project that policy as immutable and impervious to change. This, in turn, only serves to reinforce their sense of passivity and powerlessness. It even justifies it. One way this view is expressed is that US policy is what it is and, therefore can’t change. A dangerous corollary to this view is that the only recourse is to violently confront the US. Following that course has led to tragic violence with deadly consequences.

Passivity and surrender are not an answer, nor is foolish anger. There is no short way to victory or change. Success and change will only come through a clear-headed understanding of the political processes at play and a commitment to hard work over the long-term. Politics is not won through whining or self-pity, nor is it won by a temper tantrum. The game of politics will also not be won by standing on the sidelines (or even in mid-field) and complaining that it’s not fair or asserting in a loud voice the justice of one’s case. If politics were based on fairness or justice, American Indians would be running America. No, politics is about power. It is about organizing power to win power — the power to define yourself and achieve your goals.

I write this because these are the lessons of my life’s work. I write it, as well, as my contribution to a debate that is brewing in Lebanon, over these very same issues.

A few weeks ago, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafik Hariri delivered an address at an American University of Beirut Alumni event. In his remarks, Hariri observed that the Arabs had failed in their responsibility to engage in the politics of the United States. There was, he noted, a campaign being waged in the United States against the Arabs.

In an effort to respond to this campaign, Hariri laid out a strategy of empowerment to work for political change in America. He proposed, in part, the mobilization of supportive resources and friends in America who could engage the US system from within.

He said, “We have to join the existing system and not remain on the periphery. It is easy to blame others (and say) Israel is responsible. The Zionist lobby is strong in Washington. This is true, but what have we done ourselves. Nothing

It is not wrong to learn from our enemy, but it is wrong to believe that we we’re defeated in the battle and continue in this defeat while our enemies continue to score victories. What about us? We (too) are capable of being strong and having an effective presence.

We can work, defend our rights, prove this right and reach a conclusion. We should not consider the American enmity toward Arabs and Muslims as final. It will (only be) final if we allow it to be.”

Not surprisingly, Hariri’s critics leapt to attack. Like the know-nothings that they are, they deliberately misstated his views and accused him of surrendering to the US or absolving the US of blame for its policies.

The solution proposed by the critics was confrontation against America and, by implication, abstention from politics within America.

Needless to say, Hariri is right. His critics are wrong.

The path he has proposed is not surrender to America but active engagement in a sustained effort to change America. They want to quit, he wants to stay and fight. His path would lead to change. Theirs leads only to more death and despair and, even, a potentially devastating clash of civilizations.

Hariri’s message should be heard by Arabs everywhere. It’s the same message I brought to the AUB Alumni last June and the same message I delivered to the Arab League foreign ministers meeting this September. The only road to change is the road the Arabs have yet to make a firm commitment to walk on. It’s a long road, but the only road to victory.

The prime minister is right. He should be supported. His critics are wrong. Their arguments are self-defeating and should be rejected.

— Dr. Zogby is president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute. For comments or information, contact jzogby@aaiusa.org or http://www.aaiusa.org.

Congress abdicates as Bush obfuscates

Jordan Times, 10/15/02

THE US Congress officially surrendered its constitutional powers in foreign policy with the House of Representatives 296-133 and Senate's 77-23 votes granting President George W. Bush wide, and largely unaccountable powers to wage war against Iraq.

The abdication by Congress runs contrary to the intents of the founding fathers of the US. Voting to support a president who has yet to make clear his intentions or long-term strategy violates the separation of powers, so integral to the American constitution.

When gathering in Philadelphia, the framers of the constitution were concerned with both separating powers between the branches of government, while at the same time encouraging collective decision making. Consequently, the president was responsible for conducting foreign policy, “with the advice and consent of Congress.” Congress, on the other hand, was responsible for declaring war.

Congress' vote to hand over full war-making authority to President Bush also violates the individual responsibilities of representatives and senators as regards their roles as the “voices of the electorate.” Most polls show Americans lukewarm at best concerning waging war against Iraq, as evidenced by public demonstrations. According to some polls, at the most, 50 per cent of the public supports attacking Baghdad, and the general populace has not bought Bush's hard sell regarding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

However, both Houses of Congress overwhelmingly voted to sanction any and all actions the president deems necessary to protect American interests. If these representatives were attuned to their constituencies, one would have expected much closer votes, reflecting public opinion on the issue.

Bush continues to play a fast and loose game regarding the aims of his administration. While publicly stating this past week that no decisions have been made regarding Iraq, leaked memorandums confirm that a decision had been made months ago to remove Saddam.

In-fighting continues at the executive level, primarily between hardliners Paul Wolfowitz and Eliot Cohen in the Department of Defence (supported by National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice) and Secretary of State Colin Powell. The United Nations has been brought into play by the president, in an effort to provide a facade of legitimacy to US actions, which now appear inevitable, no matter what concessions Saddam is prepared to make.

There are dissenters in Congress, most notably veteran Senator Robert C. Byrd, who wrote a column in The New York Times on Oct. 11. Senator Byrd states that after listening to the president and questioning members of his war cabinet, “I remain unconvinced. The president's case for an unprovoked attack is circumstantial at best.”

Byrd goes on to lament Congress' abdication of responsibility. “How have we gotten to this low point in the history of Congress? Are we too feeble to resist the demands of a president who is determined to bend the collective will of Congress to his will — a president who is changing the conventional understanding of the term `self-defence'?”

Once before in recent history the Congress abdicated. In response to an attack on the USS Maddox, a surveillance ship spying off the coast of North Vietnam in 1965, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon Johnson all-encompassing powers to prosecute the war against North Vietnam.

Fortunately, in 1973 Congress thought better of what it had done, and passed the War Powers Act, which reinstated their constitutionally-mandated authority over the conduct of foreign policy and war-making. Let us hope the current Congress also reconsiders what it has done. In the words of George Santyana, “those who do not study history, are doomed to repeat it.”

Tony Blair's conference call

Rosemary Hollis

Jordan Times, 10/15/02

ON TWO occasions recently, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called publicly for a resumption of the Middle East peace process. His reasons for doing so can be understood in the context of his current endeavour to galvanise British support for confrontation with Iraq over the issue of weapons of mass destruction. However, the link between the two issues and international legitimacy is more than just one of public diplomacy.

In addressing an emergency debate of the British parliament on the Iraq crisis, on Sept. 24, the prime minister said: “We need a new conference on the Middle East peace process based on the twin principles of a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state.” On Oct. 1, addressing the British Labour Party conference, Blair stated: “By this year's end, we must have revived final status negotiations and they must have explicitly as their aims: an Israeli state free from terror, recognised by the Arab world and a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967.”

On both occasions Blair's remarks were reported in the British press as having the approval of Washington. However, on Oct. 5, The Guardian newspaper ran a story claiming that the prime minister had been privately cautioned by Washington to back off. The explanation for these conflicting theories could stem from divisions in the Bush administration itself.

Most likely, the State Department is at one with the British prime minister in wanting to resume the peace process, if only as a mechanism for conflict management while the focus is on Iraq. Officials there have taken President Bush's own call for a “two-sate” solution to the conflict as a policy goal. They are also understood to have cautioned the president against calling specifically for the replacement of Yasser Arafat, as apparently did Blair. Having failed in that respect, they are nonetheless working through the mechanism of the Quartet, comprising the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, to sketch out some steps along the way to realising the president's proclaimed vision.

However, some of the hawks in the Pentagon, one of whom let slip his personal understanding of the situation when he referred to “the so-called occupied territories”, are known to think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not amenable to resolution under the present circumstances. For them, there can be no negotiations with the Palestinians as long as terrorist attacks continue, as that would be conceding to a terrorist cause and counterproductive to their overall strategy in “the war on terrorism”.

For the US hawks, the priority is Iraq and thereafter a new regional order. In the meanwhile, they want the Palestinians contained, which is apparently also Sharon's near-term strategy. In any case, Sharon appears to have more or less a free hand, except when he does something that clearly intensifies the conflict and attracts international opprobrium, as was the case with the latest assault on the Muqata.

Blair's call for resuming negotiations by year-end, not to mention his reference to the 1967 borders, were probably too specific for the liking of the hawks in Washington. Certainly he outraged the hardliners in the Israeli government, even if the remnants of the Israeli peace camp expressed some interest in his potential as a mediator.

So, the bottom line appears to be, it is alright to call for a negotiated peace, but not so clever to raise expectations for real progress in the near term. The problem, of course, is that what happens now is critical to the prospects of a two-state solution in due course. As Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad recently put it to the Bush administration, if Israeli road and settlement building continues on its present course, the realisation of a Palestinian state on what land remains to them will be rendered non-viable. Forget waiting for a Palestinian leadership that the Israeli government deems fit to negotiate with. Palestinian prospects will soon be reduced to “the Middle East equivalent of a native American Indian reservation”.

This is not the only reason why Palestine cannot be put on hold while attention is focused on Iraq. In referring to the peace process Blair was signalling to critics of the slide towards war with Baghdad that he understands that UN resolutions should apply to Israel and the Palestinians as much as to Iraq. Indeed, Blair's whole case for confronting Iraq is based on upholding the requirements of the UN pertaining to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

It was in the name of recruiting international support that Blair sought to persuade George W. Bush to take the Iraq issue to the UN Security Council. And it is in the cause of UN legitimacy that the French have been endeavouring to make the option of renewed weapons inspections a real one, and not just a cover for the US goal of regime change in Baghdad. If the inspections do go ahead and somehow succeed in disarming Iraq without resort to war, the Washington hawks will have been out-manoeuvred. They did not want the issue to go to the Security Council in the first place, for fear of this very eventuality. According to the hawks, inspections would not solve the problem posed by Iraq, only regime change would.

However, Washington may yet outmanoeuvre the UN. The administration now has the go ahead from Congress to resort to force irrespective of whether this has multilateral support, through the UN, or not. The fate of Palestine will depend on what transpires. If US action on Iraq is underpinned by UN sanction, then the Palestinians can hope for their cause to be addressed in accordance with UN resolutions too. But if international law is flouted on Iraq, international resolve to uphold UN resolutions with respect to Israel and the Palestinians will also be undermined.

As some would have it, in calling for consistent application of UN resolutions in the cases of both Iraq and Palestine, Blair may have intended to do no more than appease his critics and smooth the path for the confrontation with Iraq to proceed. A more charitable interpretation is that he genuinely does see the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the interests of regional peace. Yet, without Washington's cooperation Blair cannot even deliver on his call for resumed negotiations by the end of the year. More to the point, without Washington's cooperation on proceeding through the UN on Iraq, the expectation that it will do so on Palestine thereafter will also be jeopardised.

US Vetoes!

BY Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim

SyriaTimes, 10/15/02

On September 30, 2000, President George W. Bush of the States signed the State Department Authorization Act (House of Representative 1646) which recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Even the US President rejects to begin measures moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as State Department's spokesman, Mr.Boucher, noted, the president slapped every Moslem and Christian worldwide on the face. Jerusalem since time immemorial has been an Arab land with a unique example of religious co-existence among every religion whether it be Judaism, Christianity or Islam. It is not the cancer of the Middle East as the other side claims, but the shrine of God for every believer. Actually President Bush signature came as a surprise taken into consideration the 10's of UN Resolutions passed regarding Jerusalem as considered ' corpus separatus', a separate body where East Jerusalem, occupied in 1967, is considered occupied territory and West Jerusalem, occupied in 1948, is not recognized under the rule of Israel. Among the said resolutions, UN Security Council's 252, 267, 271 and 298 stipulating the preserving of the legal and demographic status of Jerusalem and Resolutions 465, 476 and 478. The States recent slap and heavy-stick proved without fail the stark flagrant bias to Israel at the expense and in violation of UN Charter and Resolutions. Actually the signing by President Bush of the said act came in less than two weeks after his address to the UN General Assembly. In this address, president Bush said on Sept. 12, 2002: ' We created the United Nations Security Council, so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes,'' " Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequences? ""We want the resolutions of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced'' If so your Excellency, with all respect to you, we beg to differ. The signing of the said Act contradicts every UN related resolution. It is the US veto, threats and blind bias which stimulate the more of hatred, tension and unrest in this very region.

With this in mind, it is of great relevance to mention but some of the US vetoes in support of Israel in the UN Security Council: 1. .... condemned Israel's attack against Southern against southern Lebanon and Syria..." 2. ....affirmed the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, statehood and equal protections..." 3. ...condemned Israel's air strikes and attacks in southern Lebanon and its murder of innocent civilians..." 4. ....called for self-determination of Palestinian people..." 5. ....deplored Israel's altering of the status of Jerusalem, which is recognized as an international city by most world nations and the United Nations..." 6. ....affirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people..." 7. ....endorsed self-determination for the Palestinian people..." 8. ....demanded Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights..." 9. ....condemned Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and its refusal to abide by the Geneva convention protocols of civilized nations..." 10. ....condemned an Israeli soldier who shot eleven Moslem worshippers at the Haram al-Sharif in the Old City of Jerusalem..." 11. ....urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Lebanon..." 12. ....urged sanctions against Israel if it did not withdraw from its invasion of Beirut..." 14. ....urged cutoff of economic aid to Israel if it refused to withdraw from its occupation of Lebanon..." 15. ....condemned continued Israeli settlements in occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, denouncing them as an obstacle to peace..." 16. ....deplores Israel's brutal massacre of Arabs in Lebanon and urges its withdrawal..." 17. ....condemned Israeli brutality in southern Lebanon and denounced the Israeli 'Iron Fist' policy of repression...." 18. ....denounced Israel's violation of human rights in the occupied territories..." 19. ....deplored Israel's violence in southern Lebanon..." 20. ....deplored Israel's activities in occupied Arab East Jerusalem that threatened the sanctity of Muslim holy sites..." 21. ....condemned Israel's hijacking of a Libyan passenger airplane..." 22. ....deplored Israel's attacks against Lebanon and its measures and practices against the civilian population of Lebanon..." 23. ....called on Israel to abandon its policies against the Palestinian Intifada that violated the rights of occupied Palestinians, to abide by the Fourth Geneva Conventions, and to formalize a leading role for the United Nations in future peace negotiations..."

24. ....urged Israel to accept back deported Palestinians, condemned Israel's shooting of civilians, called on Israel to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention, and called for a peace settlement under UN auspices..." 25. ....condemned Israel's... incursion into Lebanon..." 26. ....deplored Israel's... commando raids on Lebanon..." 27. ....deplored Israel's repression of the Palestinian Intifada and called on Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinians..." 28. ....deplored Israel's violation of the human rights of the Palestinians..." 29. ....demanded that Israel return property confiscated from Palestinians during a tax protest and allow a fact-finding mission to observe Israel's crackdown on the Palestinian Intifada..." 30. ...called for a fact-finding mission on abuses against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied lands..."...

In recent years, the United States has pulled away from international law by disavowing treaties--particularly in the area of disarmament--and by withdrawing its support from the International Criminal Court. Without U.S. leadership, force rather than law will remain the international norm. Relying on force may be tempting to the most powerful country on the planet--but it portends disaster, not least for the United States itself. David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation said to this effect. The United Nations is indeed urged, as Minister of Information, Mr. Adnan Omran noted to Reuters on Sept. 23, 2002, to "salvage" its resolutions; "It is extremely urgent and necessary that the Security Council shoulder its responsibility and salvage the dignity of the resolutions it has taken, particularly since we now hear the U.S. administration justifying its decision to attack Iraq by saying it is to force Iraq to respect UN resolutions." "Israel ought to be the priority since it is the one that violates and rejects the implementation of a number of resolutions, and should be held accountable in the Security Council," Minister Omran concluded.

Abdo88@ureach.com

Foreign policy factor has strong impact on Pakistan's elections

By Mushahid Hussain

Khaleej Times, 10/16/02

THE election results in Pakistan mark the first direct impact on politics of a major Muslim country, of the post-September 11, 2001 US foreign policy. In a remarkable coincidence, on October 10, as political tremors were being felt over the triumph of the religious parties in Pakistan's polls, the US Congress was handing a virtual carte blanche to President Bush to strike at Iraq.

And the very next day, The New York Times was reporting that among plans being considered by the Pentagon for Iraq were for a Japan-style military occupation under an American general. If the policies of the Bush administration towards the Muslim world helped the religious conglomerate, Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA - United Action Front) garner the largest number of votes for a religious party in Pakistan's history, the split in the PML [Pakistan Muslim League] and the consequences of the military regime's political strategy of virtually going-it-alone also contributed to the electoral outcome.

The election results need to be examined in three broad contexts: impact on Pakistan's political landscape, the opportunity for the political forces to fashion a new political culture and the responsibility of the Establishment to respect the mandate of the people.

While much is being made of the MMA victory, the reaction, particularly in the West, need not be alarmist. Most of its components are experienced in government and parliament, and have been past fellow travellers of the Establishment. They represent an important segment of Pakistani opinion, which will express itself vocally in the corridors of power and parliament.

And most important of all, they will now be stakeholders in the system, rather than outsiders trying to destabilise it, as was the case during most of the 1990s. The MMA could also hold the key to sectarian harmony since the grouping includes all the denominations among Muslims. Pakistan's biggest security threat is not external but internal, emanating from the extremism and bigotry that spawns sectarian terrorism which has claimed countless lives in the last 15 years.

The foreign policy factor has an abiding impact on Pakistan's domestic politics. In the 1970 elections, the PPP [Pakistan Peoples Party] ran a successful campaign on the basis of a hawkish line towards India, a strategy duplicated by the Establishment-backed Islamic Democratic Alliance against the PPP during the post-Zia period.

If despite General Musharraf's labelling of Benazir Bhutto as a "security risk", her party has made major inroads into the Punjabi heartland, this shows that the India factor now has less of an electoral appeal in the majority province unlike the past. Instead, the Afghan factor has replaced it, as evidenced in the MMA victories in the Pakhtun belt.

And since Pakhtun politics have always straddled across the Durand Line, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the impact on the Pakhtuns within Afghanistan will be equally important. Probably Hamid Karzai's Pakhtun detractors like Gulbadin Hekmatyar and Taleban remnants will certainly feel emboldened by this development. Even during the American bombing of Afghanistan, the biggest demonstrations were in those areas, which are now the MMA's political power base.

Since no single party can claim a 'heavy mandate', the era of coalition politics has now been injected into Pakistan as well. This provides a historic opportunity for Pakistani political forces to bury the hatchet, particularly the politics of polarisation and vicious infighting, and seek national reconciliation through a 'grand coalition' government, which would be truly representative of the diverse mandate in this election.

Pakistani politicians could take a leaf out of the book of next door India whose experience since 1997 in running coalitions is exemplary. The key to future stability lies in the Pakistan Establishment. If there is a desire for khaki supremacy seeking to subordinate the civilian politicians, then this election will just be another interlude in Pakistan's elusive quest for rules of the game governing a democratic order.

For instance, President Musharraf will now have the pleasure of the company of at least two chief ministers of provinces in the National Security Council, representing the MMA, whose foreign policy world view may conflict with his, particularly on Pakistan's policy towards any American invasion and occupation of Iraq.

And with a third of the Senate and a large chunk of the National Assembly representing the MMA, there would be intense debate and dissent from the officially certified truth. But that is what an elected parliament in a functioning democracy is all about. Even in the American Congress, before the passage of the Iraq resolution, there was a heated debate, with senators and Congressmen taking strong anti-administration positions.

Basically, the Pakistan Establishment can opt for either of two paths that would determine whether elections lead to stability or result in subterfuge of the system from outside.

It could act like the Indonesian military did after Suharto - accepting the election results, letting the politicians to rule without fetters or monitors, and taking a back seat so that the democratic system is allowed to work for a change. Democracy is one key reason why a diverse nation like Indonesia has held together. Or the Establishment could follow the disastrous course of Algeria, when a religious party was cheated of victory and martial law imposed in January 1992, resulting in a debilitating civil war that has cost 100,000 lives. It was the Bush (sr) administration which proclaimed that "martial law in Algeria is constitutional".

Take the case of Turkey. Despite three bans, the Islamist party is still poised to win the November 3 elections, although its leader - Turkey's most popular politician - has been barred from participating in the polls.

The Establishment should learn from mistakes in Pakistan's political past made by both military and civilian rulers. If General Yahya Khan had respected the electoral mandate of the Awami League in East Pakistan after the 1970 elections, the country would have been spared the humiliation of December 1971, when a military defeat led to Pakistan's partition and emergence of Bangladesh.

Similarly, had Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto respected the mandate in the provinces of Balochistan and the Frontier in 1973 - by not dismissing their elected governments, banning the main opposition party, and declaring the Leader of Opposition a 'traitor', events that led to an unwinnable guerrilla war in Balochistan - the political history of Pakistan would have been different.

Pakistan is today truly at the crossroads, and the country needs a healing touch, that rises above personal or partisan interests. This is a moment testing the mettle of leadership both among the political forces and the armed forces.

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.