Dignity is earned, not given
By Reem Mohammed Al-Faisal

I have been silent for a few months, tired of returning to the same old issues in my articles and despairing of ever finding any echoes of hope. It is very debilitating mentally when you see that everything we say or do in the Arab and Muslim world comes to nothing. We have become little more than a bit of headline news repeated over and over until the world is bored to death with us.

(Reem Al-Faisal is a Saudi photographer. She is based in Jeddah.)

Anathema to Americans
Gulf News,  17-10-2002

Russian President Vladimir Putin remains obdurate. He is unconvinced of the necessity of drafting additional UN resolutions at this time, calling for automatic use of force against Iraq, should it fail to comply with UN demands. However, the Bush administration, aided and abetted by the beguiling Blair is equally adamant: one resolution to cover all and any exigency, come what may. Such a dangerously free hand to operate is seen by both Russia and France as tantamount to declaring war before any weapons inspectors have set foot in Iraq. It is, they believe, a foregone conclusion that war will break out soon after a UN resolution of the type being demanded by Bush and Blair, is passed. For, assuredly, one way or another, an excuse will be found by the British and American governments to "prove" non-compliance on the part of Iraq.

   At the time of the Cold War, during the Cuban missile crisis, which 40th anniversary is being recognised this week, much talk was made about the fear of whose finger would be on the nuclear button. Many Europeans feared that "some ignorant, red-necked Texan" would not be in charge of such a dangerous weapon, the night when push came to shove. For that could spell the end of the world.

   Now, some 40 years later, almost as if that fear was a prophesy of some kind, former Texas governor, now American President, appears almost eager to take his country to war, and to do so on a "first-strike" basis – something that historically is anathema to most, if not all, Americans. What is particularly invidious is that young American men and women, and likely British as well, will be fighting a war based on such insubstantial grounds. For as yet, there are very few people convinced of the need for that extreme measure. And that includes the presidents of Russia and France.

Clash of traditionalists and empire-builders
By George S. Hishmeh , Gulf News,  17-10-2002

Most Americans, certainly those opposed to the hawkish policies of the Bush Administration, were delighted with the announcement that ex-President Jimmy Carter has won the Nobel peace prize.

And many of those opponents of the ongoing U.S. war plans against Iraq, who are increasing by the day, were particularly joyous over the slap-in-the-face that U.S. President George W. Bush received from the head of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee Gunnar Berge, when he unexpectedly declared that in addition to honouring Carter, the 2002 prize should also be interpreted as "a criticism of the line that the current (U.S.) administration has taken."

Neither Iraq nor the Palestinian Question were identified in his remarks.

The citation read in part: "In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has 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."

Although the award to Carter pleased most people, there are many Arabs who were not entirely happy with his singular achievement during his tenure at the White House, namely the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which he shepherded at Camp David for 13 long days and nights in 1978.

The net effect of the treaty, to the dismay of many Arabs, was the elimination of Egypt, the most influential and powerful Arab country, from the Arab-Israeli equation, leaving each Arab party diminished and weakened to fight its own battle singlehandedly.

Witness the current case of the Palestinians; and the Syrians, who are still unable to get the Israelis to withdraw from the Golan Heights to the 1967 armistice lines.

Nevertheless, Carter is deserv-edly honoured for his achievements as an ex-president rather than president, since he has devoted his time (accompanied by his wife Rosalyn) unselfishly to promoting democracy and humanitarian causes all over the world.

He, for example, refereed the first Palestinian national elections after Israel withdrew in compliance with the Oslo Accords from Palestinian cities (which have been re-occupied since last June).

His mettle was evident in the verbal whiplashing that the former president gave the Bush administration in a column published last month. It was memorable for its forthrightness and honesty.

He lamented that "fundamental changes" are taking place in U.S. policies "without definitive (public) debates" on such issues as "human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process." 

He continued: "Our country has become the foremost target of respected international organisations concerned about these basic principles of democratic life. We have ignored or condoned abuses in nations that support our anti-terrorism effort, while detaining American citizens as 'enemy combatants,' incarcerating them secretly and indefinitely without their being charged with any crime or have the right to legal counsel."

The former president took jabs at Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the latter for declaring that the several hundred captured Taliban held at Guantanamo Bay would not be released even if they were someday tried and found to be innocent. "These actions are similar to those of abusive regimes that historically have been condemned by American presidents," Carter stressed.

The former president took note of the vigorous emphasis of "foreign allies and ... responsible leaders of former administrations and incumbent officeholders, (that) there is no current danger to the United States from Baghdad."  

As far as the Middle East process, he sounded despondent: "Tragically, our government is abandoning any sponsorship of substantive negotiations between Palestinians 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 once again took Rumsfeld to task for negating presidential pronouncements about the establishment of a Palestinian state because the defence secretary had said "there will be some sort of (a Palestinian) entity that will be established" and his reference to the "so-called occupation."

The "belligerent and divisive voices" that Carter condemned have in the past few weeks prompted several anti-war demonstrations in the country. Two full-page ads in the same issue of the New York Times appeared last Tuesday (October 14) blasting the war on Iraq. One of the ads displayed head photos of Rumsfeld, Bush and Vice President Cheney with the headline: "They're Selling War. We're Not Buying."

This ad was sponsored by "Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities" whose president is, interestingly, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's, an ice cream firm which earlier this year was chastised by Palestinians for utilising waters from the occupied Golan Heights for its plant in Israel.

The reasons for the drive behind the Bush administration against Iraq has long been debatable but without any firm conclusions. A couple of weeks ago, however, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution published a well-documented article by its deputy editorial page editor, Jay Bookman, which provided startling facts.

Bookman thought the connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and Al Qaida has always seemed "contrived and artificial." He argued that "the pieces just didn't fit" and that "something else had to be going on, something was missing."  

His search led him to this conclusion: "This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman.

"It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years ago or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the 'American imperialists' that our enemies always claimed we were."

Bookman went on to underline that "the lure of empire is ancient and powerful, and over the millennia it has driven men to commit terrible crimes on its behalf."

He reported that the new National Security Strategy, which outlined the Bush administration's approach to defending the U.S., was inspired by a report issued in September 2000, a year earlier than the tragic events of 9/11, by the Project for the New American Century, a group of conservative interventionists "outraged by the thought that the United states might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire."  

Among the contributors to the 2000 report were Paul Wolfowitz, who is now deputy defence secretary; John Bolton, the undersecretary of state; Stephen Cambone, head of the Pentagon's Office of Programme, Analysis and Evaluation; Eliot Cohen and Devon Cross, members of the notorious Defence Policy Board which advises Rumsfeld.

More intriguing is the fact that the 2000 report, according to Bookman, acknowledged its debt to a still earlier document, drafted in 1992 by the Department of Defence. The defence secretary then was Richard Cheney, and the document was drafted by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defence undersecretary for policy.

"That (1992) document," wrote Bookman on September 29, "had also envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power."

Bookman said that "when leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush." There's certainly more here than meets the eye in this battle underway between the traditionalists and the empire builders.

An election that threw up the unexpected
By Husain Haqqani, Gulf News,  16-10-2002

General Pervez Musharraf may have learnt the hard way that there is only one thing worse than fixing an election. It is fixing an election without getting the desired results. Pakistan's October 10 election has resulted in a hung parliament, something Musharraf and the military establishment has always sought.

But the voters have also enhanced the leverage of Pakistan's religious parties who had, until recently, been dismissed by Musharraf as representing a minuscule minority.

Musharraf must now give due deference to Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of the Jamaat-e-Islami, whom he had singled out for criticism as "having psychological problems" not long ago. The religious parties' success will also have implications for Musharraf's dependence on, and support for, the United States.

In many ways, the biggest loser on polling day was the intelligence-military establishment of Pakistan, which feels it has a monopoly over defining the national interest. The establishment did everything in its power to keep out the mainstream political parties – the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Muslim League led by Nawaz Sharif.

It helped create the PML's Quaid-e-Azam (QA) faction, nicknamed the King's Party, and toyed with election rules to help it gain a majority. The establishment's manoeuvres disillusioned a majority of voters, resulting in a low turnout.

But those who did bother to go to polling stations also cast a vote against the establishment and its prescriptions for the country. The combined votes of the opposition parties outnumber those of the King's party and other pro-Musharraf factions.

The alliance of religious parties, Mutahhida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), benefited from the anti-American sentiment among the Pashtuns in the provinces bordering Afghanistan.

Musharraf would have been able to cash in on this fact in Washington if his own policies had not contributed to the MMA's success. The state's relentless propaganda against the main parties and their leadership, coupled with the public's lack of empathy with the King's Party, left the religious groups as the only untried group for the people to turn to.

The PPP and PML-N had to overcome a new hurdle almost every day of the already shortened campaign. Their leaders, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, were barred from the election and could not campaign for the parties.

The MMA, on the other hand, had no hurdles put in its path by the military regime. None of its leaders faced disqualification, none were in exile and none could be described on state TV as 'looters and plunderers' for having been part of previous regimes.

The establishment had created a political vacuum but its fantastic dream that the King's party should fill it was unacceptable to the people. The religious parties offer the 'new faces'  Musharraf so much wanted from the political process.

Islamic identity

While the vote for the MMA should alarm Musharraf and his associates, it need not bother the world that much unless the Pakistani establishment manipulates it for strategic advantage. Pakistan's religious parties have been around for a long time and their leaders have, at different times, shown flexibility in political matters.

Unless they are pushed in the wrong direction by the establishment, the Islamic groups can be expected to be pragmatic in parliamentary politics. The Islamic groups were in politics long before Jihadi militancy was introduced in the aftermath of the anti-Soviet Afghan operation and the Kashmiri militancy.

Politics of Islamic identity, rather than violence and militancy, were the hallmarks of the religious parties until the Eighties. It may be in Pakistan's interest to help the religious parties revert to the political, as opposed to the militant, phase of Islamic revivalism.

If, however, Musharraf and his colleagues try to gain advantage in Washington by using the MMA's success as an alarm bell, there could be increased militancy fomented by covert groups.

The October 10 election was not the first time that the people surprised a Pakistani military leader at the ballot box. In 1970, General Yahya Khan's plan for a hung parliament was foiled by the clear victories of the Awami League in East Pakistan and the PPP in West Pakistan.

In 1985, General Zia's appeal to return more pious parliamentarians was not heeded and most of his cabinet ministers seeking election were defeated in the same way as those on Musharraf's short-list for the future cabinet lost last week. The Pakistani electorate, it seems votes in the opposite direction of the "guidelines" given to it by its military rulers.

Zia wanted the election of more religious people while Musharraf sought a secular parliament. On both occasions, the people's wisdom ran contrary to that of the self-imposed patriarchs. Perhaps it is time for the establishment to learn the real lesson from all elections it has conducted and accept that the Pakistani people resent its model of manipulated politics.

The European Union Chief Election observer, John Cushnahan, summed up Pakistan's political problem when he declared, "The holding of a general election does not in itself guarantee the establishment of a democracy".

After methodically listing the many ways in which the election was manipulated, the EU regretted that: "The Pakistan authorities engaged in a course of action, which resulted in serious flaws in the electoral process."

The government spokesman's response to the EU's report has been, typically, unimaginative. Instead of a letter of resignation from the Chief Election Commissioner (who as Supreme Court Chief Justice had legitimised Musharraf's military takeover), we got "the statement is baseless" comment that has become the hallmark of official statements in Pakistan.

Having been in the unhappy position of a government spokesman in Pakistan myself, I know the limitations of the job well.

Weak response

But denials and cliched statements are hardly a response to political realities. Pakistani officials have, over time, described Bengali political activists as 'miscreants' (during the 1971 Bangladesh crisis); denied that the country was being used as a base of operations for Afghan Mujahideen (during the anti-Soviet resistance); denied that the country was developing nuclear weapons (throughout the 1980s and early 1990s); and denied that there are any restrictions on free expression or free politics (through much of the country's independent existence).

It is unlikely that the spokesman's statement will enhance the credibility of the electoral exercise and diminish the value of the EU's findings.

Musharraf can draw some comfort from the lack of criticism of the Pakistani election by the Bush administration. But it is only a matter of time before the U.S. joins the European Union in recognising that the election was seriously flawed.

The patterns of conduct of Pakistan's intelligence-military establishment are predictable for those of us who have observed them for several decades and many in the U.S. also know them. U.S. concern for the war against terrorism, rather than a genuine optimism about democratic conduct on the part of  Musharraf, is the reason for Washington's refusal to criticise him.

But soon the general and his colleagues will start manipulating the new assemblies to suit some 'strategic design' and civil-military relations will once again become the central issue in Pakistani politics. There may also be implications for India-Pakistan relations, which in turn will invite U.S. concern.

Musharraf had expected to settle the issue of civil-military relations on the military's terms through his package of constitutional amendments and the election results. But with the results being what they are, that expectation has not been fulfilled. If Pakistan is to avoid further political crises, maybe the establishment needs to take a different view of its role.

Instead of drawing up imaginary maps and strategic designs about Pakistan's politics and then imposing them on the nation, the military leaders should be content with doing their own job well. And leave politics to politicians, however flawed and allegedly incompetent they might be.

After all, the generals and their class-fellow bureaucrats chosen to set the system right have not shown themselves to be particularly competent either.

Husain Haqqani is a Visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. He served as adviser to Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and as Pakistan's Ambassador to Sri Lanka.