Jan 2, 2003 Op Eds

Jan 2, 2003 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info

It was always a boast of the Israelis that they were an isolated island of democracy surrounded by a dangerous ocean of reactionary Arab states. For the well-meaning, but ill-informed, American voter, whose country’s treasury has been the wellspring of Israel’s financial survival, Israel’s democratic credentials reinforced the sentiment that it deserved his support.

How will it seem now that Israel’s Election Commission has seen it fit to ban two Arab deputies from standing for re-election, because it does not agree with their political views on the plight of their fellow Palestinians? The decision to bar Azmi Bishara and his Balad party from contesting his seat in the Jan. 28 elections comes a day after it disqualified another Israel Arab MP, Ahmad Tibi. The charge against them is the catch-all "seeking the destruction" of the Jewish state. It is an accusation that doesn’t need to be proved in Sharon’s Israel. If it is an Arab, accusation is proof.

When it comes to specifics, Bishara is accused of supporting the intifada and the suicide bombings. He is also charged with helping Israeli Palestinians visit relatives in Syria, with whom Israel is still officially at war. This last charge is clearly a ruse since it is unthinkable that the Shin Beth, Israel’s secret service, did not know of the visits. However, it probably suited the authorities to ignore what was happening until it needed to use the information to discredit Bishara.

The more serious accusation however concerns Bishara’s support for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The politician has made no secret of his sympathy for the struggle against this naked oppression. However, he insists that he has never condoned the suicide bombings.

But Israelis seem in no mood to listen to his arguments. Just as their patron, President Bush, is throwing subtlety to the winds, so the Israelis are prepared to abandon the fig leaf of running a truly representative democracy and throw Bishara out of the political process. The Arab deputy was right in describing the ban as "a step toward apartheid, at least in the political culture."

Yet even if his view really were extremist, it is notable that the Jewish ultranationalist politician Baruch Marzel of the Herut party has been allowed to stand, despite his organization’s declared belief that all Palestinians should be expelled from within the borders of a greater Israel. That view is, without question, extremist. But it takes some imagination to believe that Bishara is Marzel’s Palestinian counterpart.

However, a mature democracy, which Israel claims to be, ought to be capable of listening to contrary views. What this would seem to demonstrate is that Israel is increasingly unsure of itself and its doubts are generating fear. Only a frightened man will refuse to listen to his opponent.

The violence that Ariel Sharon has unleashed on the Palestinians appears to have scarred the Israeli psyche. They are treating Palestinians with the same cold cruelty that the Nazis treated the Jews with. There may be no death camps, but there are ghettoes and trigger-happy soldiers free to murder at will and an administration that is increasingly dehumanizing the Palestinians. And yet, US voters are happy to pay for this.

Conflict and unilateralism
By Fawaz Turki, Arab News, 1/2/02
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President Bush is known to be an admirer of Teddy Roosevelt, the man who felt that the United States should speak softly and carry a big stick — a not altogether lofty maxim, but one nevertheless that has guided American foreign policy for a very long time indeed, and certainly since the early 1950s.

Before El Salvador, before Chile, even before Vietnam, the boys from Langley had engineered a coup in Guatemala that resulted in the ouster of the elected populist reformer Jacobo Arbenz in 1952; put in place something called Operation Ajax that brought about the overthrow of the greatly revered Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953; and saw to it that in the Congo, the allegedly "left-leaning" Patrice Lumumba was ignominiously dispatched to his grave through torture and later execution by his rivals in 1962. And where in other places the boys failed, the Marines, or indigenous proxies, went there to do the job — a job well done in pursuit of the noble cause of fighting communism.

Why, you ask, dredge up all this now? The times have changed. We live in a different world. Let’s move on.

In reality, no past is independent of a people’s archetype or a nation’s character. The past, as they say, is prologue.

Now enter, after Iraq, another card-carrying member of the "axis of evil" to present President Bush with a crisis that he does not need at this time: North Korea pushing its nuclear confrontation with the US to the limit by announcing that it will reopen a long-closed plutonium processing plant that may enable it to possess, we are told, enough fissile material to build a half dozen nuclear bombs within six months.

So far — and only so far — the administration has adopted a deliberately low-key posture in handling the crisis, but clearly in its escalating conflict with Washington, Pyongyang could aggravate the situation beyond the current dispute over the reactivation of the mothballed nuclear reactor complex.

Would the US then play hardball? Go out there, as it were, and show those uppity Orientals — as it is about to equally show those uppity Middle Easterners — a touch of American steel, the splendor of its musketry?

Your guess is as good as mine. But the issue that concerns us today is the Bush administration’s dangerous tilt toward unilateralism, which it has evinced even before Sept. 11 when the US, for example, withdrew from the Kyoto accord on climate change, vehemently opposed the International Criminal Court, took a pass on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and imposed high tariffs on imported steel (forget the president’s rhetoric on "free trade’).

But more importantly, this propensity for unilateralism is seen in the conduct of the war on terrorism and the attendant strategic doctrine that has emerged from it — namely, that the US is empowered with a carte blanche to act against perceived rogue states when, where and how it chooses. Indeed, even on those occasions where it made overtures to the international community to seek consensus, say, at the UN Security Council, Washington did so with the understanding that it reserves the right to pursue its chosen course.

In other words, the UN does not, in the end, count, nor for that matter does NATO, the security arm of Western Europe. Decisions over war and peace belong to the US, and the US alone, by virtue of its pre-eminent power.

Yet power needs restraint. This is a lesson that imperial nations (which had torn at each others’ throats in two world wars during the first half of the 20th century) learned the hard way.

It is to the enduring credit of American statesmen, after World War II, that they took in that lesson, insisting on a new world order where restraints were put upon powerful states to act in concert with the international community and in accordance with international law. That is, multilateral decision-making.

It did not take long, however, for all that to become water under the bridge.

Writing in the Fall 2002 issue of World Policy Journal, organ of the World Policy Institute, David C. Hendrikson, professor of political science at Colorado college, said: "At no time in the last 50 years has the United States stood in such antagonism to both the primary norms and the central institutions of international society. The reason is not difficult to find. These rules and institutions convey a simple message to the Bush administration: by right you should not do what you want to do (invade Iraq, wage preventive wars, etc.). Hence these normative and institutional restraints have been belittled and demeaned by the administration, as relics of a former age."

Thus, by opting to raise the specter that it might develop nuclear weapons, North Korea is gambling (with a very weak hand indeed) that the Bush administration, busy with the "Iraq thing," may decide to deal with one international confrontation at a time, which presumably would give Pyongyang the opportunity to develop a credible nuclear deterrent as fast as possible — since, its leaders must have concluded, not altogether improbably, that their country is next on Washington’s hit list.

This is dangerous brinkmanship because we live in unilateralist times, dominated by a unilateralist superpower convinced that, to get its way in the world, whether in Iraq, Palestine, North Korea and Iran, it is best not to work with others.

(disinherited@yahoo.com)

Chances of talks over Kashmir remote as parties toughen stance
By Izhar Wani

Arab News, 1/2/02

SRINAGAR, 2 January 2003 — As all parties in the Kashmir dispute toughen their stands, the chances of immediate negotiations over the future of the disputed Himalayan region seem remote.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani said during a tour of Indian-administered Kashmir last week that New Delhi was ready to talk to elected representatives and others, including those who chose to stay away from state elections held in September-October. All pro-India groups in Kashmir, including the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) headed by the new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed welcomed Advani’s gesture.

"Nobody except those working against the restoration of peace in the state could oppose the dialogue process," Sayeed said. "The bullet has no role where dialogue can resolve the problem," he said, describing Advani’s offer of talks as "unconditional

Muslim militant groups and separatists have rejected the offer saying it has nothing new in it to solve the problem of Kashmir, where a Muslim anti-India rebellion has cost 37,500 lives since 1989. "The Kashmir issue can be resolved through trilateral talks involving India, Pakistan and the representatives of Kashmiris," said Salim Hashmi, the chief spokesman for region’s dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedeen.

Omar Farooq, Kashmir’s leading Muslim cleric and one of the top leaders of the main separatist alliance the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) also stressed the need to engage Pakistan in talks over the future of the region. But on Monday, Advani said New Delhi would not talk to any Kashmiri separatists who "reflected Pakistan’s voice."

"We are ready to talk to elected representatives and to others as well but not with those who only reflect Pakistan’s voice and consider that country to be their master," Advani said.

New Delhi says it will not resume talks with Islamabad over Kashmir until the latter stops backing what it says is "cross-border terrorism" in Kashmir. "We do not want to talk to Pakistan or their proxies. If we have to talk to Pakistan, we will not require any intermediary," he said.

Advani’s remarks have left the prospect of negotiations even less likely. Farooq, 29, Tuesday hit out at Advani saying if he thought the Hurriyat was a "proxy of Pakistan he is highly mistaken." "We are neither the proxy of India, nor the proxy of Pakistan," he told AFP, "we are representatives of the aspirations of the people of Kashmir."

Advani’s remarks were "unwarranted," Farooq said. "Today or tomorrow India will have to talk to all the parties involved in the Kashmir dispute, including Pakistan." he said.

Kashmir’s new chief minister has also been advocating "unconditional" talks between New Delhi, Kashmiri separatists and Muslim rebels. However, last week he also backtracked from the pre-poll commitment, saying rebels will have to lay down their arms before negotiations start. The plea was rejected outright by the rebels.

There is growing international pressure on both India and Pakistan to resume talks over Kashmir, stalled since July 2001 when Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf made a landmark trip to India. The talks broke down over Kashmir, and since then separatist violence in the region has gone up.

India blames Pakistan for arming and funding the militants, but Islamabad, which has been calling for dialogue, says it is doing its best to stop Muslim rebels crossing into Indian Kashmir. Indian officials say the cross-border infiltration has come down, but not completely stopped. (AFP)

Musharraf using alibi of imperfect society

By Husain Haqqani, Gulf News, 02-01-2003

In a recent speech General Pervez Musharraf attempted to justify the duplicitous policies of his government on grounds of pragmatism. "Pakistan is an imperfect society," he told the annual dinner of the Pakistani American Physicians Political Action Committee, adding, "Idealistic solutions will not work in an imperfect society. When idealism and pragmatism clash, pragmatism will be followed for the sake of the country". In effect he was saying that he and his colleagues in the ruling oligarchy know what is best for the country and if they seem unethical or self-serving in their conduct, it is simply their pragmatic response to imperfect conditions.

Musharraf is, of course, a soldier not an intellectual. His effort to intellectualise his regime's now almost universally criticised conduct reflects the lack of knowledge of politics and history that has been the characteristic of most of Pakistan's military leaders. During his visit to India for the Agra summit in 2001, the general had reportedly turned to his Indian hosts and asked how Gandhi died, making it obvious that knowledge of political history was not his forte. One must, therefore, excuse him for arguing that Pakistan's difficulties are attributable to its "imperfect society", and implying that countries with advanced and effective political systems are somehow perfect societies.

The fact is there are no perfect societies and if Pakistan has imperfections, that is not sufficient reason to run it as a cross between a medieval monarchy and a praetorian state. Like previous military rulers, Musharraf only focused on the election of not-so-good politicians to parliament as the country's major imperfection. He reiterated his claim of having braved external threats and of having improved the economy. He blamed the lack of economic progress on "loot and plunder". Not once did he pause to consider that the real cause of Pakistan's political and economic backwardness might lie with the absence of institutional balance, which in turn is attributable to the overwhelming role of the Pakistani military in national life.

Let us take the economy. Is it alleged loot and plunder, or over five decades of unsustainable military expenditure that has prevented investment in infrastructure and the building of the social elements of economic development? Can there be investment in a country where legitimacy of governments is constantly in question and the investor welcomed by one regime is imprisoned by the next? Is economic growth attainable in the midst of conflict and militancy?

How can the public sector be productive when it is managed mostly by generals trained in the art of warfare rather than business management, or by bureaucrats uninitiated in enterprise? Where in the world, from Latin America to Myanmar to Nigeria to Indonesia, has military rule been able to generate self-sustaining economic growth, notwithstanding the temporary fulfillment of IMF criteria?

Moreover, one may well ask, what did imperfection of Pakistani society have to do with the military adventurism of 1965, the debacle of 1971 that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh or the strategic delusions of the last two decades that made Pakistan the patron of Afghanistan's Taliban. How are ordinary Pakistanis to blame for the consistent fallacy of periodically joining the U.S. in its global plans as a means of maintaining military balance with India?

The imperfections that ail Pakistan are not those of its society but rather those of its state. Societies are an organic entity that undergoes evolution and periodic change. Pakistan is no exception. With all its imperfections, Pakistani society can continue to evolve, absorbing and dealing with the many shocks that are inevitable in such evolution. It is Pakistan's state apparatus that must free itself of its militarist fixations.

Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons and maintains an impressive military capability. But it does not have the structure of a state under rule of law, and its economic and institutional foundations are far weaker than its military capability. Its judiciary is subject to manipulation by the executive. Its constitution is at the mercy of its army chief. Its decisions of friendship with other countries are made not through open discussion but as a result of secret deliberations.

Its national interest is defined not by its people or their representatives but by an oligarchy that often miscalculates only to cover up its miscalculations. For example, Pakistan is paying a heavy price today for becoming part of the Jihadi adventurism of the 1990s. Extremists continue to threaten peace and tranquility in Pakistani cities, where terrorist attacks have become a regular feature. Pakistani citizens are being humiliated in the United States by being asked to submit themselves to fingerprinting like criminals, even though their country is ostensibly allied to the U.S. Yet not once has Musharraf or any of his colleagues thought of analysing why their Jihadi policy led to this state of affairs and whether a more fundamental rethinking in Pakistan's worldview is necessary. Accepting responsibility and saying "Sorry, we made a mistake" for them is out of the question.

The success of a nation lies in unleashing the energy of its people for productive purposes. The function of the state must be to create the enabling environment for the people's productivity to manifest itself. But in Pakistan, individual talent and ability is considered a liability. Soldiers with no training in statecraft run the country. Intelligence officers trained for limited tasks make strategy and confer certificates of patriotism.

The secretive nature of the state gets the nation involved in matters it has not even contemplated. For example, the Soviet Union was angered by the flight of American U-2 spy planes from Peshawar in 1962 and in 1971 by Pakistan's role in facilitating U.S. contacts with China in the form of Henry Kissinger's secret Beijing trip. But the people of Pakistan knew nothing about Field Marshal Ayub Khan's decision to allow the U-2s to operate from Pakistan or of Chief Martial Law Admini-strator General Yahya Khan's diplomatic adventure.

While trying to pass blame for his regime's failings to the imperfections of Pakistani society, Musharraf once again spoke disparagingly of the Pakistani media. "Sometimes I ask myself whether I should have given freedom to this extent because the newspapers distorted the facts," he said while describing journalists as irresponsible. "The enemy lies within", was his way of suggesting that those who do not see things the way he does are somehow enemies of the country. But freedom of the press has come to Pakistan after a long struggle by journalists and it is absurd to talk of it in terms that England's King John could have spoken of having granted the Magna Carta. (Even the Magna Carta was wrested by English nobles, not granted by a benign king).

For the second time in three months, he singled out "Pakistani journalists living abroad" for criticism. Several observers have pointed out that some of his remarks were personally aimed at this columnist. According to Musharraf, my criticism of him is somehow related to the fact that having served as an adviser in the governments of Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto I expected to have similar status in the Musharraf regime. Since he did not confer it on me, his reasoning goes, I have started publishing criticism of his regime in my column and in articles appearing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the International Herald Tribune. Firstly, it is important to bear in mind that I left both civilian governments of my own volition and was critical of the military regime from its earliest days. Second, shouldn't Musharraf and his team be answering the arguments of his media critics instead of making personal attacks against them?

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

The fall and potential rise of liberalism
By Joshua Zeitz, Gulf News, 02-01-2003

"There are usually two general schools of political belief," Franklin D. Roosevelt said in 1941, "liberal and conservative." Liberals, the president continued, understood that "as new conditions and problems arise beyond the power of men and women to meet as individuals, it becomes the duty of the government itself to find new remedies with which to meet them." Conservatives, he said, believed "that there is no necessity for the government to step in."

Rounding out his lecture on political theory, Roosevelt noted that "the clear and undisputed fact is that at least since 1932, the Democratic Party has been the liberal party, and the Republican Party has been the conservative party."

With those words, Roosevelt fundamentally reinvented the American political lexicon.

Before the Great Depression, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" were rarely used to describe political ideology or party politics. It was other things that divided the parties. Electoral contests had pitted "individualists" against "paternalists," "radicals" against "progressives." Then came the 1930s with their unprecedented policy crises, which prompted FDR to manufacture new labels better suited to the politics of the day.

Roosevelt didn't view the terms as value-neutral. Conservatism was something to be shunned; liberalism was to be celebrated. Yet in the 60 or so years since the New Deal, Republicans have turned the tables on the Democratic Party. They have embraced the word conservative, turning a pejorative into a positive. And for at least 15 years, Democrats have aided this effort by running fast from the liberal tag. History suggests that there is another way.

Democratic presidents haven't always quaked at the mere mention of liberalism. Harry S. Truman insisted that it was the only truly effective bulwark against communism. John F. Kennedy boasted that, "Liberalism seeks not only the negative challenges of communism and survival, but the far more searching challenges of our own ideals."

As president, Lyndon B. Johnson freely described himself as a liberal and argued that government could and should do "a lot of things" for the public. Even Jimmy Carter, who was not beloved by the left wing of his party, proudly characterised the 1976 Democratic platform as "very liberal, very socially motivated."

Surprisingly, given FDR's intention that conservative should be a shameful label, Republicans gradually came to embrace the term. Although he lost badly in his 1964 run for the presidency, Barry Goldwater celebrated himself as a conservative and encouraged a rising generation of party activists to do the same. In 1968, Richard M. Nixon ran a campaign that gave further definition to this conservative synthesis - one that galvanised popular opposition to taxes, inflation, government spending and regulation, and minority rights.

Although Nixon governed closer to the centre than his rhetoric might have suggested, his ideological heir, Ronald Reagan, captured the White House in 1980 and completed a process that made liberalism a near-expletive. "The masquerade is over," Reagan exclaimed shortly before leaving office. "It's time to use the dreaded L-word; to say the policies of our opposition are liberal, liberal, liberal." His successor, George H.W. Bush, expressed the same sentiment with equal vigour, if less clarity. "The liberals don't like it when I talk about liberal," he taunted.

And they didn't. Battered by their losses in 1980, 1984 and 1988, most Democratic Party strategists began running from the term. Under the spiritual guidance of the Democratic Leadership Council, the self-styled centrist wing of the party, Democrats over the last 15 years have issued a subtle mea culpa for liberalism's mistakes and excesses.

Bill Clinton was a primary beneficiary of the strategy. Many observers credit his rejection of the liberal label as a primary factor in his 1992 presidential win. In a bid to salvage his political fortunes after the Democratic party's monumental losses in the 1994 election cycle, Clinton embraced the advice of his ideologically ambidextrous guru, Dick Morris, who counselled "triangulation." That is, by claiming the centre for himself, Clinton implied that congressional liberals and conservatives were equally extreme. He banked on the electorate's seeming affection for moderation, and his strategy worked.

Aided by then-Rep. Newt Gingrich and his archconservative supporters in the congressional class of '94, Clinton was able to convince a critical number of Americans that radicals on the conservative right were more immediately dangerous than radicals on the liberal left.

The president won re-election in 1996. But at his party's expense. He might have made voters leery of extreme conservatism, but he also unwittingly convinced them that there is something fundamentally wrong with liberalism.

Triangulation was never a permanent fix, and in 2000 George W. Bush threw the Democrats a curveball. He redefined conservatism. Instead of running to the rhetorical centre, as the Democrats have done for more than 15 years now, he stood by the conservative label. Moreover, he successfully made the case that conservatism could be compassionate. It was safe, soft, embracing.

The strategy worked. Public opinion surveys reveal that about three-quarters of Americans agree that Bush is conservative. Yet on the eve of his inauguration, at the height of partisan division over the disputed 2000 election, a resounding 58 per cent believed the new president would "govern in a way that is truly compassionate." Liberalism remains discredited. But conservatism is once again a respectable tag.

Democrats are faced with two options: They can seek to redraw the political landscape and invent a new rhetorical dichotomy, as Roosevelt did in the 1930s. Or they can try to resuscitate liberalism.

Some Democrats have opted for the former strategy. They prefer the term progressive to liberal and hope to sidestep the old Roosevelt terminology altogether. The problem is, history suggests that the winners dictate the terms only after they've gained critical momentum. And right now, the Democrats are flailing.

Moreover, the electorate is sensitive to the appearance of redefinition. The news media and public alike belittled Al Gore for abandoning Washington Beltway blue in favour of earth tones. It seemed a telling metaphor for his frequent ideological metamorphoses. Democrats run much the same risk should they try to adopt new labels.

A bolder strategy would be to reclaim the liberal tag. Just as President Bush saved conservatism by making it "compassionate," Democrats could recoup liberalism by making it "common sense." They could take a cue from Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty, who explains to Alice: "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

On taxes, Democrats could say: If liberalism means that tax cuts should be targeted to working Americans rather than the very rich, then yes, we're liberals.

On fiscal responsibility, Democrats could say: If liberalism means managing government spending with the same discipline that families manage their household budgets, then yes, we're liberals. They could say: Bill Clinton, a common-sense liberal, balanced the federal budget; Reagan and both Bushes, conservatives all, racked up the largest budget deficits in the nation's history.

On Social Security, Democrats could say: If liberalism means guaranteeing a dignified retirement for senior citizens, then yes, we're liberals. Common-sense liberals invented Social Security in the 1930s; conservatives opposed it. Common-sense liberals extended Social Security to cover most American workers in the 1940s and 1950s; conservatives opposed expanded coverage. Conservatives want to invest Social Security revenues in the stock market; common-sense liberals want to shield Social Security from the vicissitudes of the Dow Jones industrial average.

On the environment, Democrats could say: For decades, the federal government gave away millions of acres of land and billions of dollars in precious metals, lumber and fuel to private interests. Common-sense liberals like Roosevelt, Carter and Clinton insisted that vital national resources like the Alaskan wilderness be preserved for public, rather than private, use; conservatives still want to allow private companies to exploit the public domain for profit.

The recent selection of liberal San Francisco Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi as minority leader of the House of Representatives suggests that the Democratic congressional caucus intends to highlight its differences with the administration. If so, the party might do well to embrace the liberal tag rather than hide from it.

This is no easy task. It demands equal faith in the electorate and the basic logic of the party's central ideas. But most of all, it requires leadership.

Originally published by The Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service

Zeitz is a visiting assistant professor of history at Brown University.

Pakistan's leaders must keep track of its national interests

By Mushahid Hussain, Khaleej Times, 1/2/03

SOME recent developments in Pakistan's foreign policy with respect to the region are heartening, since these are pointers to reversing wrongs of the past and injecting a much-needed economic component in foreign policy.

These developments include the Kabul Declaration on non-interference and friendship signed by six neighbours of Afghanistan on December 22; the visit of President Khatami - his first - to Pakistan and the Trans-Afghan Pipeline that will link Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

Together with the new project for building Gwadar Port with China's help, and the proposal for a gas pipeline from Qatar, these initiatives will help Pakistan regain what it lost during the era from 1989 to 2001. Then its flawed foreign policy, largely driven by an obsession for 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan, actually undermined the national interest as well as relationships with neighbours.

Pakistani officialdom's thinking was far removed from ground realities even after September 11. When General Musharraf first met President Bush in New York on November 10, 2001, he made a public plea to the Americans not to allow the Northern Alliance to conquer Kabul. Three days later, with American blessings, the Northern Alliance entered Kabul in triumph after Taleban had fled.

It is amazing how Pakistani policymakers seemed to be caught unawares about the nexus between Washington and the Northern Alliance, forged covertly in 1998. These policymakers had also forgotten that the US goal in Afghanistan was nothing short of toppling the Taleban and replacing it with its opponents, primarily the Northern Alliance.

By seeking to forge a strategic economic partnership with Afghanistan, Iran, China and the Central Asian states, Pakistan will be in a position to exploit its unique location, human capital and infrastructure. It will also be able to seek a genuine convergence of interests, since these initiatives are not driven by any hidden agenda. This opportunity provides for long-term benefits to Pakistan and rewards that will be enduring because the interests of neighbouring states are recognised and respected and they too have a stake in such a budding economic bond. Pakistan's policymakers would do well to examine how others defend their national interest. Some examples:

In the last few weeks, elections in three countries which are close allies of the United States have resulted in victories for parties and leaders, whose views are at variance with Washington on key issues. In Turkey, a neo-Islamist government has emerged, in Brazil, a leftist President and in South Korea, a president critical of the US approach towards North Korea and Iraq. In all three cases, putting aside any political differences, President Bush personally invited these leaders to the White House because he saw it as vital to US interests.

In return for allowing use of its territory for the war against Iraq, Turkey sought and got full American support for membership of the European Union, with Bush even resorting to lobbying European leaders in this regard. It also demanded a $5 billion write-off regarding its military debt, for which negotiations are still underway.
On December 17, the US government announced that three new countries, which included Armenia, were being added to those listed for registration because of potential terrorist connections.
Immediately, the Armenian ambassador in Washington told the American media: "We are a Christian country, and we have nothing to do with these terrorist groups." And he also orchestrated a quick campaign of lobbying the White House and political mobilisation of Armenians in the US, with the result that his country was off the 'black list' while Pakistan and other Muslim countries remain there.
This also means two other things: the 'black list' is based on political compulsions, and not national security considerations as the US has been claiming because political considerations forced Armenia off the list. Armenia apparently has more political clout in Washington than Pakistan or Arab countries, or so it would seem. The reference to religion by the ambassador of Armenia was published on December 18 in The Washington Post.
And this is happening to Pakistan at a time when it is supposedly a key coalition partner of the United States in the 'war on terror', which American commentators and policymakers now publicly admit could not have been successful in Afghanistan without Pakistan's 'linchpin' role.
Obviously, this would lead to the sad but inevitable conclusion that Pakistan bargained badly with the United States yet again, giving much more, but getting far less in return. What are the reasons behind the failure to truly promote, preserve and protect the national interest? At least three are relevant.
First, it is often not the national interest but the narrow vested interest of a regime or a ruler that is sought to be promoted. The interests of the nation or the people are far down on the list of priorities. 'Me first' takes precedence over 'Pakistan first'.
Second, there is a cultural problem that rises in Pakistani rulers while negotiating with Westerners. Since most of them are not cognisant of how the Western system functions, they operate from the same mindset that determines a superior's relations with a subordinate in the Pakistani officialdom's framework. Disagreement of a subordinate is thus tantamount to earning displeasure of the superior. Unpalatable truths and critical views are withheld and the result is a quest for a convergence of views that are sometimes phoney.
Finally, the absence of a system of institutionalised decision-making hurts the national interest, since decisions are not arrived at through discussion and deliberation. In a one-man show, an all-powerful individual can be easily pressured to give a definitive 'yes' or 'no' without thinking through the ramifications of the decisions. The pros and cons or the quid pro quo are never really debated threadbare. - Inter Press Service

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