By Shireen M Mazari

Wednesday,August 08,2007

Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington once again brought the usual whining rhetoric from him regarding Pakistan even though he has far greater issues with civilian collateral damage within his own country. And, of course, the US Administration, including Condoleezza Rice showed their increasingly hard line posturing vis-a-vis Pakistan – a trend that is spreading rapidly across the US polity. As discussed last week, there is the intrusive and highly negative Congressional effort to stack up conditionalities for aid to Pakistan, going far beyond the Pressler requirements. But this is just one of many negative bilateral moves on the part of US policy makers in relation to Pakistan.

At other levels, we are seeing the US moving fast on the nuclear track in ways that directly threaten to undermine the credibility of Pakistan's nuclear deterrence, even as India's nuclear weapons' capability is being bolstered. There is the Indo-US nuclear deal which has now been revised to accommodate the Indian demand that no conditionalities be put on future testing by India in terms of assurance of nuclear fuel supplies. Now an even more ominous development is threatening to come to the fore.

This is the US effort to fast track an international Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) in the multilateral UN forum of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, and India is committed to working actively with the US on the FMCT as one of the conditions of its nuclear deal with the US. The problem that has arisen is due once again to the US efforts to contravene the norms that have been agreed to in this very forum in connection with such a Treaty. The arrangements agreed to in terms of the content of a fissile material treaty were embodied in the Shannon Report of March 1995. The parameters laid out for a future FMCT and the mandate provided to the Ad Hoc Committee for this purpose were reflective of Resolution 48/75L of the UN General Assembly and so the Committee was directed to negotiate a "non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally verifiable treaty" while the issue of existing stockpiles and Prevention of a Race in Outer Space (PAROS) was to be part of the discussions within the Committee as it evolved an acceptable FMCT.

Unfortunately, the US is seeking to alter all these parameters in order to get a half-baked FMCT that, like the NPT, has an in-built discriminatory clause because of the US refusal to include the issue of reductions and eventual destruction of existing stockpiles of fissile materials within the FMCT. Nor is the US prepared to include international verification procedures -- something that is an intrinsic part of the Chemical Weapons Convention and of the CTBT (still-born, thanks to the US Congressional rejection). As for PAROS -- a major issue for countries like China -- the US is at the very least not interested and at worse is actively opposed to the notion given its efforts to develop Missile Defence which has a space based component.

So if the US is attempting to fast track its distorted version of a FMCT, why should countries like Pakistan worry given that the international consensus reflected in the Shannon Report runs counter to this US design? Unfortunately, the US has managed to bully the international community once again by threatening to make the CD redundant if it failed to fast track the US FMCT draft. The draft itself was introduced before the CD in May 2006 in a most arrogant fashion, so reflective of the Bush Administration, in which it was made clear that the "challenge to effective multilateralism" was for international bodies like the CD to accept "US priorities" and focus on these issues which were important to "US security" -- or else the US would bypass these legitimate organisations and opt for the "coalitions of the willing" model. So, effectively, the US was holding the CD hostage to its demands even though these were in direct contravention to an international consensus already arrived at on the FMCT negotiations.

Following this arrogant approach to the FMCT, we have seen the CD renege on its own mandate on the FMCT even as its March 2007 Presidential Draft Decision tries to offer a poor sop to member states by suggesting the formulation of four coordinators to discuss separately the previously linked issues of disarmament, PAROS, negative security assurances and an internationally verifiable FMCT. While the Coordinator for the FMCT was given a mandate for negotiating, "without any preconditions", an FMCT -- with no mention of international verification provisions -- the other Coordinators were merely to preside over "substantive discussions" on the remaining issues! So once again the rest of the world was being duped by the US and its allies in duplicity.

For Pakistan, the form of a FMCT is crucial on two counts: First, if there are no provisions for reductions in existing stockpiles of fissile material, it will be at a permanent disadvantage in terms of its nuclear deterrence vis-a-vis India. Worse still, eventually this deterrence capability will be compromised especially in the face of the Indo-US nuclear deal which will allow India to use its "liberated" and unsafeguarded nuclear fuel form its civil reactors for weapons production -- given that the US will now be supplying the fuel for Indian civilian reactors. Second, without international verification provisions, and with existing trust deficits, who will ensure the provisions of the FMCT are indeed being enforced? Can Pakistan forget how it was deceived by India on the issue of Chemical Weapons in a bilateral agreement when it declared it had no such weapons; and only when it became a party to the internationally verifiable multilateral Chemical Weapons Convention it had to admit to possessing these weapons which were subsequently destroyed!

So the new US ruse on the FMCT must be countered and in time since the CD has begun meeting on this issue in Geneva. There is too much at stake for Pakistan in the long term in terms of the FMCT. We were strangely sanguine, despite warnings, on the Congressional Bill and this is going to be costly for us over the next few years. But the US-sponsored FMCT will be even worse, since it will directly undermine our nuclear capability and the credibility of our deterrence over the long term. Even if we are the only ones holding out -- and the CD does work on the consensus principle -- we must do so without flinching. To compromise on this would be to compromise on our security and eventually our very existence as a state. If we still needed proof of Pakistan and the US having intrinsically divergent strategic interests even on global issues of arms control and disarmament, the present FMCT debate should be a stark reality check.

Additionally, while national cohesion is critical to the stability and development of our state, so is our ability to hold our own externally. Neither can be compromised and although we are rightly so drawn towards our internal dynamics presently, we cannot afford to ignore vital external developments impacting our well-being in the long run. Here, the insidious designs of the US portend to be our major source of threat for the future.



The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=67434

Shireen M Mazari

These are intense times. We are besieged from within our own and from our external detractors. So it was not surprising to find 14th August an exceptionally emotive occasion and amid the forebodings and bleakness of the macro environment, it was the little events that provided the joy and gave hope that our nation will move on and ride out the storms it seems destined to face. But first to the major developments that threaten us and astonishingly seem to elicit no appropriate and determined response from us.

The threat of the extremists as they move increasingly towards violence and terrorism continues to become ever more exacerbated and central to the lives of all citizens. Worse still, we are again seeing the rising tide of violent sectarianism -- and that too in public institutions. Punjab University seems to always take a lead in such affairs and so we find a bizarre issue now being created over Shia students not being allowed by officialdom, to pray as they wish on the campus. Even more tragic is the fact that we have allowed sectarianism legitimacy within the educational system by acknowledging the sectarian-based Wafaqul Madaris to formulate exams and so on. This is a first for the public education sector. So, from a time in the sixties when your sect was never an issue for conflict or even identity, we are now creating yet another divisive identity-definer. Given the heterogeneous nature of our Muslim population, it was Jinnah's wisdom that led him to decree that religion was to be a matter of personal faith and not a "business of the state". Certainly Pakistan was created for the Muslims of India and no law repugnant to Islam was to be formulated in this new state -- and this was the defining parameter of this new state. Beyond this, Jinnah and his supporters, who fought for and created Pakistan were very clear that after August 14, 1947 all Pakistanis would be equal regardless of cast, creed or sect -- so no separate electorates and certainly no sectarian creeds within the state structures.

Yet, in these dark times of sectarian divides, religious bigotry and extremist violence, there are those attempting to reassert the predominance of the national green and white and the spirit of Jinnah's Pakistan. When the younger generation makes an effort, it is all the more heartening because it gives hope for a rejuvenated nation. For instance, this 14th August I was privileged to be part of a young group's celebration, which centred on deghs for the poor (especially the Christian population living in the slums amid the privileged sectors of Islamabad) and a distribution of food/sweet packages to the local police on duty. The initiative and exuberance, as well as the savings used were all theirs, and it moved one beyond the mere superficiality of "celebrating" Independence Day.

But the feelings had been building up much earlier, especially with the viewing of the remarkable film, Khuda Key Liye. The hypocrisy and cruelty of the zealots on both sides has been brought out with a clarity and realism that one has not seen post-9/11 -- certainly not from Hollywood or Bollywood. If the religious extremist's evil is there, we are also made to see the evil of the US state post-9/11 and how it can destroy an innocent Muslim. For those who have found all manner of excuses for the way Muslims have been targeted in the US, this film is a must-see.

Which brings me to our main external detractor -- that supposed ally of ours, the US. Some of us have been seeing and highlighting the negative approach of the US towards Pakistan for some time now and also warning that at the end of the day their strategic target is the nuclear capability of Pakistan since their end goal is to see a weakened and submissive client state here. That is why when Ms Bhutto, in an effort to please the US media, declares to the Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needs to cooperate more with the US military and NATO in the war on terror, one begins to wonder whether our ruling elites will ever rid themselves of the American yoke.

For all our troubles post-9/11, when we became a frontline state for a US-led war for the second time in this region, what have we gained? Certainly some economic sops at the tactical level but look at the costs within our own domestic polity. But dealing only with the US approach to Pakistan as a result of our cooperation, what do we have now?

First: A law that makes all aid to Pakistan conditional on US presidential certification on a number of issues mentioned in detail in previous columns.

Second: US presidential candidates suggesting that the US military attack Pakistan (that will certainly awaken even the most loyal American supporters in this country to the deeply-embedded US hostility towards a nuclear Pakistan).

Third: US think-tanks and the media creating deliberately conjectured scare stories about Pakistan's nuclear assets falling into the hands of extremists in case an anti-US dispensation comes to power in the country.

Fourth: America letting it be known that it knows where our nuclear assets are placed and therefore the logic that follows is they can access these assets and, if they so desire, can destroy them. That is meant to scare us into appropriate submission. Of course, given the disastrous US intelligence over Iraq -- although the general assumption is that that was a deliberate lie -- our fear is of a similar disaster the US may commit here too. After all, rationality and respect for non-US, non-European lives is not a priority within the prevailing American mindset.

In between these developments, we have had the US administration deliberately undermine the Pakistani leadership by trying to show that it was their interventions rather than any logic or rationality on the part of the Pakistani leaders that prevented the imposition of the emergency and led the president to participate in the joint jirga. Certainly such public positioning does little to bolster the credibility of the state within the country -- and it seems that is the US end-game. Perhaps it is time to show some backbone and limit the access of Mr Boucher when he arrives here yet again. After all, the American government has just given India a carte blanche for the development of its nuclear arsenal and nuclear testing in the final form of the India-US nuclear deal and where are we for all the support we have been giving? Of course we have to fight terrorism for our own interest, but we must fight it within our own ground realities, not in the blundering fashion of the US.

Finally, to further add to the negativity of the external detractors, our domestic polity is being agitated also by the growing hysteria against Islam. We have seen a Dutch MP calling for a ban on the Holy Quran and a US legislator demanding that the US attack Islam's holy cities of Makkah and Madina. Imagine the outcry in Europe and the US if any Muslim politician had demanded that the Bible be banned in his country? Yet hardly anyone has raised their voices against the latest Dutch Islamophobia -- barring a small statement rejecting this call from the Dutch government.

These are the deepening fault lines between Them and Us externally; and they play into the domestic fault lines between Them and Us within our own polity. Intense passions are invoked all around. The challenge for us is whether we can channelise them positively.



(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=68308

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

As Pakistan faces up to all manner of political and other challenges domestically, in the US and Britain it is open season on the Pakistani state and nation. Supposedly respectable newspapers and television channels have launched critical blitzkriegs against Pakistan and the issue is not simply the President and his uniform or democracy -- although these two issues have provided the façade for the present anti-Pakistan diatribes. What is important to note is the deliberate manipulation of facts or even outright lies to condemn Pakistan with.

Take the case of The Times of London and its editorial of August 14, 2007. Reflecting the British imperialist mindset's still unreconciled trauma over the partitioning of British India and the historic antagonism for Pakistan that has been there from Mountbatten down, the newspaper chose to print an outright lie in order to try and justify its assertions. This lie claimed: "today there are 120 million Muslims in India, more than the population of Pakistan". According to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2005-06 the total estimated population of Pakistan at the time was 153.96 million -- it has surely grown since -- out of which the total number of Muslims was 96 per cent or 147.80 million. Now one assumes The Times cannot be ignorant of basic facts so obviously there was a deliberate attempt to tell a big lie and hope to get away with it!

Nor is this all. Following the hysterical calls by US politicians to attack Pakistan and accusations flowing from Washington that somehow Pakistan was the global centre for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the US National Security Archives have released an unnamed and undated "US intelligence document" entitled "Pakistan: The Taliban's Godfather?" The allegation contained in this document is that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with financial and military assistance and the documents used to support this allegation are freshly declassified documents relating to Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban pre-9/11. Of course, Pakistan was one of the three Muslim states to have recognised the Taliban regime in Afghanistan so there was nothing clandestine or underhand about the Pakistan government's support over the seven-year period leading up to 9/11. But even here, the reliance is primarily on declassified State Department cables, US intelligence reports, a few statements by Pakistani officials and a report produced by Pakistan's Interior Ministry warning President Musharraf of a Taliban-inspired militancy in the tribal belt -- a report that, interestingly, was "obtained" by the International Herald Tribune in June 2007. Surely an investigation is needed to find out how such a sensitive document went to a foreign media publication.

However, coming to the main issue, that of US State Department and US Intelligence reports, we all know how credible they have been in the past in the case of Iraq. While the extent of the aid given to the Taliban both overtly and covertly by Pakistan is an issue of debate, it is the conclusions arrived at in this Taliban File project that are contentious and do not reflect all the facts, including some that are cited in the published cables themselves. For instance, there is the US Embassy Cable of February 17, 1997, which reports that there is little evidence of direct military aid from Pakistan to the Taliban "as Pakistan only admits to sending flour and fuel". Interestingly, amongst the cables included in this document are some that also point to Russian and Iranian aid to the Northern Alliance. The fact that India's known links to the Northern Alliance leadership (many of whose families were supported by New Delhi in India itself) are glossed over should not come as a surprise given the person who in 2003 initiated and compiled the Taliban File for the National Security Archives was one Sanjit Gandhi.

In short, to rely on Pakistan's past relationship with the Taliban regime to condemn it now on such contentious and dated documentation, as well as the timing of the Report's release shows a mala fide intent by US institutions -- which should not come as a surprise in the present anti-Pakistan environment dominating the US political and media landscape. This is like saying that the US, because it supported the Saddam regime for decades including supplying it with WMD, must still have maintained links with this regime through the CIA even though it officially did an about-face! But then there has never been much rationality in the US cyclical hostility towards Pakistan especially in the wake of its nuclear capability. That is why new surveys are now coming out where US experts see Pakistan as a leading future proliferator and so on!

Of course part of the blame rests with our ruling elites also since we are zealous in not only showing our divisiveness domestically to the world at large but also seeking external interventions. Of course, we have issues but these should be resolved by us without interventions from outside -- especially from inherently hostile powers like the US and Britain. After all, the people of Pakistan provided the moral force for the judiciary in the crisis it confronted. Yet we have certain political leaders seeking US "guarantees" to underwrite political deals. Worse still, the same leadership also seeks to exploit the terrorist problem in Pakistan by simplistically declaring that terrorism will disappear with President Musharraf's exit! Such simplistic and dangerous assertions can only appeal to the irrational American political mindset. Mercifully not all our mainstream political leaders are seeking to exploit such dangerous issues to garner Western support.

Whatever our domestic political battles, let us be clear that the US is now on a course aimed at undermining the Pakistani nation and state. Our nuclear capability is one of their strategic targets. A tactical target is our relationship with Iran since undermining that would totally destroy the IPI project and isolate Iran in the neighbourhood. That is why Pakistan's recovery of 21 Iranian nationals kidnapped from Sistan and brought to Balochistan needs to be appreciated. The abductors were said to be linked to Jundullah, a terrorist group being used by the US to destabilise the Iranian regime through Sistan province. Condoleezza Rice, at the start of her "Middle East" tour in July 2007, had declared that Iran was the most important challenge to US interests. Given how threatening these interests are, Pakistan needs to interact more actively with Iran to ensure that they (the interests) are thwarted.

The latest move, which needs to be countered, is US efforts to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organisation. This is simply one more effort to squeeze Iran but it bodes ill for the region's stability. Similarly, the efforts by the US to create an anti-Iran Arab block will only create further cleavages within the domestic polities of the Arab World, especially in the Gulf. It was ironic to hear US Administration members bemoan the fact that Iran is seeking a greater influence in Iraq when the US along with Britain have occupied that country and are already exercising a deathly influence over the beleaguered Iraqi people!

All in all, we need to separate our domestic issues from external machinations so that we can see the threatening impact of the deliberate lies being churned out by external powers in a bid to undermine Pakistan.

In a lighter vein, is it not time the British monarch stopped holding two offices simultaneously -- that of head of state and head of the Church of England. After all Britain is a multi-religious society and the latter office being held by its head of state negates its claimed "secular" character.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=69164

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

The week began tragically for Pakistan with the beheading of one of its soldiers by a youthful terrorist. The brutality of the act should have evoked a strong reaction from all Pakistanis regardless of their political affiliations or proclivities. Yet, one barely heard a murmur of condemnation and that reflects our present national malady where political divisiveness dominates everything across the national landscape while the declared struggle for civilian supremacy and democracy is fast generating into multiple layers of deal-making and amnesty-seeking against past corruption. As usual, the US is busy trying to engineer the democracy script for Pakistan -- lest the Pakistani public pull a Hamas-like electoral result! Already, we have learned of US NGOs not only sitting in on Parliamentary Committee meetings but also taking minutes of the proceedings!

It is absolutely unacceptable for anyone believing in national sovereignty to accept that three foreign funded NGOs are at work in the Parliament and that one of them has even been provided an office within the Parliament. Why do our legislators need NGOs to train them in democracy, democratic institutions and legislation procedures -- especially US NGOs, given that in the US a candidate acquiring a minority of the public votes can still be elected President of the country -– through the indirect electoral format of the Electoral College. In any case, given the level of money that comes into play in the US democratic system, the last thing the Pakistani public would want is to have our legislators exposed to this form of learning! What is surprising is that our legislators are putting up with what is a clear affront to their own political abilities by tolerating these foreign-funded NGOs in their midst. While Pakistanis may not have access to Parliamentary Committee proceedings, it seems US citizens have that access. Is this what our democracy is going to be all about?

More seriously, our domestic problems are now casting a debilitating shadow over our ability to respond forcefully to external challenges and threats -- including the one coming across from Afghanistan in the form of increasing violations of our sovereignty.

The Pakistan government has officially stated that it has given no understanding to the US to violate its territory or conduct military actions within Pakistani territory. Yet the US once again conducted military attacks against targets in Pakistan, killing 19 -– for which, according to the Foreign Office and the Military spokesman, no Pakistani authorisation was given, despite US claims to the contrary. Of course, given the US record for sheer lies in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and the strong statements coming out from Islamabad, the GoP position seems closer to the truth.

However, the issue then arises as to what the Pakistanis now intend to do against this clear violation of Pakistani sovereignty by the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. Worse still, even Afghan forces, belonging to a state still occupied by foreign forces, felt emboldened enough to fire across the international border into Pakistani territory. Clearly, Pakistan's continuing tolerance for such attacks on its sovereignty are sending the wrong signals to the Americans and Afghans -- unless we have decided to throw in the towel as far as assertion of national sovereignty and defence of border territory are concerned. If that be the case then what has been the purpose of decades of sacrifice for acquiring a strong conventional military capability alongside a nuclear capability? Hence, there is a need to show a strong, even if symbolic, response to the latest attack against Pakistan's sovereignty if there is to be any credibility to the State's capability to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

As it is, sensing a certain give in Islamabad on external matters, even states that are normally cautious in their conduct of external diplomacy are being fairly reckless in their statements on Pakistan. A case in point is the Japanese Foreign Minister's demand, on Pakistani soil, that we sign the NPT. This demand came at a time when the Japanese Prime Minister was in India requesting India to become part of the Asian "arc of freedom". Prime Minister Abe uttered not a word on the NPT nor was he interested in commenting on the Indo-US nuclear deal -- so much for Japan's commitments to nuclear disarmament! Instead, Pakistan was singled out for the NPT demand and soon after conveying this to the Pakistani leadership, the Japanese Defence Minister joined her leader in India.

As for this so-called Asian "arc of freedom", it seems to be more of a military alliance initially involving the US, India, Japan and Australia and now also including Singapore -- all of whom will begin joint military exercises. Ostensibly, this is a club of "democratic" states, but Singaporean democracy is a uniquely engineered model! These joint exercises to be held in the Bay of Bengal seem more for the purpose of targeting China and Muslim states of the region -- otherwise why would the largest Muslim democracy, Indonesia, have been ignored.

The point is that Japan is moving away from its military restraints which is why its preaching to Pakistan on the NPT should have aroused a strong and unequivocal response from Pakistan. But once again, we absorbed the criticism with an unnecessary level of tolerance. No one publicised the fact that in an air exercise with the US in June 2007, Japan practiced dropping 500-pound live bombs on a small island in the western Pacific. Japan has also been acquiring weapons that cannot be classified as purely defensive and has developed a joint fighter plane, the F-2, with the US. Japan is also, along with India, a US partner in the development of the missile defence shield and their planes have been transporting US troops and "cargo" to Iraq -- no one knows whether the "cargo" was of a military nature but obviously troops are transported with their weapons. It is within this growing Japanese militarisation that one must examine Japan's extensive and so far peaceful nuclear capability. And it is within this new Japanese mindset that Pakistan should have found the Japanese demand of signing the NPT at least a trifle offensive.

Unfortunately, as I had bemoaned last week also, we are so caught up in our internal problems that we have allowed ourselves to become vulnerable to external pressures and threats -- or at least we seem unable to assert our national interest as forcefully as we should against outright provocations.

Some analysts of Pakistani origin living in distant parts of the world bemoan the fact that we are not relevant to the strategic concerns of states like Australia, but how relevant strategically is Australia to us in terms of our strategic goals? More relevant is our more immediate regional environment and it is here that we do need to reassert our national priorities and sovereignty. It is here that the political elites need to evolve a national consensus regardless of their factional political interests and while the civil-military divide and confrontation may be a central political theme presently, does that allow us to ignore the violence and abuse being perpetrated on our soldiers by terrorists? And does it absolve the political elites of their commitment to our national territorial integrity and national sovereignty? Of course, if external brokers are being sought to write our political script, then the centrality of national interest is moot.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

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__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

It is becoming rather sickening to find that anyone wanting to make a quick buck or gain cheap publicity can do so simply by creating "revelations" relating to Muslim states like Iran and Pakistan. For us, the nuclear programme is the favourite whipping boy of the Western media and analysts since the Western world now clearly seems to be suffering from the trauma of having to deal with Pakistan possessing nuclear capability -- and that too a Muslim state which appears to outsiders to be constantly going through internal crises and which is still within the fold of the developing rather than the developed world.

It is interesting to note that whenever Pakistan faces domestic upheavals, along comes another attack on the nuclear front from some Western source or the other. Honestly, there is a ridiculous absurdity to these shenanigans from opportunistic Western sources. The latest trash -- for that is what it comes down to finally -- in this context has come in the form of a book entitled "Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons: Pakistan's Nuclear Programme" which will come on the market next week.

Of course, if ever there was a deception in terms of nuclear trading it was the US assistance to Israel -- which still continues. The only nuclear trade that has been more secret has been India's acquisitions of, for example, krytrons, flash x-rays, maraging steel and so on, especially in the early sixties and seventies when India did not have the capability to produce all the nuts and bolts for its 1974 nuclear tests. But these are not topics for making a quick buck or for arousing the latent anti-Muslims sentiments still dormant within the souls of the Christian West!

As for the authors of this latest piece of trashy propaganda -- Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark -- their previous foray into writing books had nothing to do with nuclear or remotely related issues since the two books to their credit are entitled, The Amber Room: The Fate of the World's Greatest Lost Treasures, and The Stone of Heaven: Unearthing the Secret History of Imperial Green Jade. But that hardly matters since they are inventing a story that will be bought by so-called Western security experts, a naive Western press and a Western audience that laps up any attack on Pakistan's nuclear programme and on Dr A Q Khan -- who certainly traumatised them by his audacious extrication of enrichment knowledge from within their midst. The truth is that the "facts" presented in the book, as seen in the extractions published in the British press, do not add up, the chronology's off track and the dots do not connect.

Extracts from the book, published in Britain's Sunday Times -- for whom the authors worked before they joined The Guardian -- show the authors asserting that Pakistan's nuclear programme is a threat to the security of the whole world because it can fall into the hands of "Islamic terrorists at any time." Such a tall claim, and with no hint of proof or even a logical argument to back it up. Just for the record, it would be more rational to fear the US nuclear capability since presently nuclear command authority in the US rests with President Bush who in his second inaugural address declared that he received his guidance from "beyond the heavens." Was it this guidance that led him to invade Iraq on false pretexts of WMD? What if this source of guidance becomes his raison d'etre for attacking other Muslim states? In contrast, Pakistan's nuclear command, control and communications are firmly in the hands of professionals.

There are also major contradictions including on the one hand claiming that President Musharraf had already been reducing Dr Khan's role in the nuclear programme and on the other declaring that it was all done under pressure from Bush -- and then going on to state that in fact the proliferation has still not stopped. Yet no proof or even linkage has been cited to support the last claim, except for a reference to a 2006 report by German Intelligence Service -- the BND -- that had declared that proliferation had not stopped. Now one only has to recall the BND being fooled by Iraq's so-called WMD in 2002-2003 to question the credibility of this "early warning" assessment which sounds more like a recycling of propaganda trash put out by the CIA and Mossad to a gullible consumer of such manufactured intelligence. Incidentally, of what crime is Dr Khan guilty apart from perhaps alleged corruption in terms of making personal financial gains? Anyhow, with indemnity perhaps becoming a formal part of our political landscape, will corruption be seen as a crime now?

One of the biggest canards of our time is the claim that Pakistan's arsenal is "unsecured" and vulnerable to terrorists. They cite the views expressed by 100 so-called US foreign policy experts in a poll conducted by the Centre for American Progress and the Carnegie Endowment that Pakistan posed the greatest nuclear threat to the world. Well, would they have been honest enough to admit that their own country posed the greatest nuclear and conventional threat to the globe? But this tirade against Pakistan is a desperate move by Americans to deflect attention away from the US destruction of the non-proliferation regime as a result of its nuclear deal with India. This deal violates US obligations under the NPT and NPT Agreements of 1995 and 2000. Attacking Pakistan also deflects attention away from US failures in Iraq and elsewhere, but especially in Afghanistan.

Even at the level of micro details of the now concluded Libya-A Q Khan links, the authors are unclear or wrong about the facts on the ground. For instance it was Libya that revealed all on its nuclear ambitions to the US in return for a political, economic and strategic deal so there is little for the CIA to claim as its success. But worse is the authors' lack of basic nuclear knowledge. For instance, they refer to the churning out of "cheap centrifuge components" whereas in reality centrifuges are high precision machines and cheap ones will not work. Even India has not yet perfected uranium enrichment and had to go the plutonium route for its tests of 1974 and 1998, nor has Japan.

Perhaps the most ludicrous assertion by the authors is their claim to finding a range of materials and components still being procured by Pakistan that "clearly exceed" what Pakistan needs for its domestic nuclear programme. Now that is presumptuous of the authors to assume that they know what is adequate for Pakistan. Trash at its peak! But then here is a new growth industry in the West that hypes the WMD threat, now diversified into an "Islamic nuclear threat". The reality of Pakistan's cooperation with the international community, including assisting the IAEA on Iran and Libya, and Pakistan's publicly revealed and clear cut command and control mechanisms as well as its export control laws do not sit well with this hype industry and propagandist trash.

We are also to blame. We tolerate this abuse and continue to give explanations in a defensive mode. This must stop. Although presently we are totally immersed in critical domestic issues, let us not allow these to be used by external forces to undermine our capabilities and national assets, including nuclear assets. Perhaps if we looked inwards to our own people rather than to external players to decide our political fate, we would keep the latter's access and influence limited and more circumspect.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=70942

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

With another September 11 approaching, there was a thought that one should examine the disastrous US strategy for the war on terror, which has only succeeded in creating a continually increasing space for terrorists. Then, there was also the new Osama tape, which showed a man barely resembling Osama bin Laden. This led many to really wonder whether Osama was actually alive or whether he was now a creation of Langley, USA, given how the CIA almost immediately asserts the authenticity of such tapes, which also tend to come at interesting and troubling times for Mr Bush. Our domestic absurdities, however, have a more powerful pull –-- dwarfing all other critical issues.

And they truly are absurdities that are draining our energies and destroying our domestic fabric. At a time when we are facing some serious substantive threats, the whole nation has been made hostage to the political shenanigans of deals, deportations and bizarre interventions from external actors. All this, because the people of this country have shown their commitment to a democratic dispensation and rule of law. In the nation's pursuit of the democratic and rule of law ideal, some crucial and debilitating factors are coming into play. The first is to find that despite sixty years as a sovereign nation, external players continue to write our political scripts for us -- because we allow them to. Hence, our path to democracy is littered with deals and political engineering.

As we watched the Sharif versus the State drama unfold at the Islamabad airport, one wondered whether anyone really was interested in even hearing the voice of the people. If Sharif was using the Supreme Court to escape his deal with the Saudis, why was there such an excessive response from the State? Would it not have bolstered the government's image of tolerance and accommodation to have allowed Sharif a populist homecoming, before he faced charges of wrongdoing/corruption filed by the State? After all, the State's accommodation of the massive but peaceful processions of the Chief Justice during the judicial crisis was reflective of the confidence of the State, just as the mayhem of May 12 in Karachi was reflective of a hasty intolerance and perhaps, of a level of political insecurity. After sixty years, we must learn to trust our own people -- certainly more than outsiders who, no matter how friendly, do have their own agendas.

Indeed, we Pakistanis were embarrassed into seeing the image of the visit by the Saudi intelligence chief and Saad Hariri a few days earlier, laying bare the deal brokered by Saudi leaders and Hariri, which allowed the Sharifs to escape incarceration, while their party people stayed on to face the music. Of course, it seems this was not the first time that the Saudis have been brought into the internal machinations of our national politics -- remember Mr Bhutto, the PNA and a Saudi interlocutor, Ambassador Riazul Khateeb? It is not without its irony that Hariri should be visiting us at a time when he would do better to deal with the multiple issues confronting his own country, Lebanon.

Nevertheless, it was sad to see denials to the contrary. There was a deal made by the Sharifs to exit Pakistan. Equally, at the end of the day, as the Supreme Court asserted, all Pakistanis have the right to return to their country and they must face the consequences of their deeds, according to the laws of this country rather than be denied this opportunity -- deals notwithstanding. That is why it was so disheartening to witness the whole September 10 episode at the Islamabad airport. And why must officialdom always resort to the abuse and humiliation of their target?

It seems as though deals brokered from outside are going to be our fate, unless the people show their rejection of this – but for that, a new leadership is needed and that does not seem to be emerging on the horizon. Perhaps, that is part of our tragedy – that we cannot find anyone beyond the tested and failed leaders of the past, whenever we move towards unhindered democracy. Or is it because the democratic trail must perforce recommence from where it was truncated?

So, we now face the truth of one leader being made to pay the price for a deal, which allowed for an exit from the country, while another one makes a deal to ensure her return to the country in a position of power. This is surely the worst of all motivations, and to seek a hostile power's intervention makes it even worse. After all, no one in Pakistan is blind to the negative Pakistan agenda of the US; but those who ostensibly seek to lead the people of this country through a democratic process are, it seems, unwilling to put their faith in the same people. Instead, the wooing of Washington takes primacy and so the US now is attempting to engineer the future democratic dispensation within Pakistan, aided and abetted by its faithful ally, Britain. After all, the US has had a foretaste of what results democracy will bring within Muslim political entities in the form of the Hamas victory, and it cannot live with the results. Hence, democracy must be tailor-made in terms of the "correct" leaders coming to power!

What a farce. Is this what the people's struggle for their democratic rights has been reduced to -- deals and still more deals? This is not to say that political forces do not form alliances for elections -- but the deals we are seeing, involve external players and are intended to pre-empt the form of the political dispensation even before the elections have been held. Already, the US has damaged our body politic immeasurably with its eventual goal to target our national strategic assets. Must we now endure their machinations in our domestic politics? Incidentally, it is a trifle ironic that our lawyers who want to lead a movement for democracy are not prepared to allow democratic dissent within their own ranks. Such dissenters are given a sound beating.

Meanwhile, as we remain so mesmerised by the shenanigans of our political elites, issues that should be focused on are getting lost. For instance, the fact that no head has rolled over the bridge collapse in Karachi and there is no public outcry, which would compel the authorities to pinpoint responsibility and punish the guilty, has taken place. In addition to this, mobs are impeding the judicial process in Karachi and a senior lawyer has become a victim of political terror. Then, we have the growing targeting of our security personnel by terrorists, and the disturbing question of how twenty men could take over a hundred (the exact number being unclear) security personnel hostage. Are our fears of the external forces wishing to undermine the institution of the military, coming true? And should the State not be giving more serious attention to US statements, following the Osama tape, which implied that Osama was in Chitral? Is the US building a rationale for a more excessive military foray into Pakistan than the air violations of our sovereignty?

There are so many issues that require our national focus right now, including some critical external developments. We, however, are almost mesmerised by one political drama after another unfolding on a daily basis to impact our right of free choice – and in all of which, civil society is a mere bystander. The pride and hope that subsumed us with the assertion of the judiciary as a strong and independent pillar of the State is fast being replaced by a cynical weariness. This is a great, generous and forgiving nation, which does not deserve the elite it has to contend with. The question is: will it always continue to be the same or can we make it different this time around?


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=71860

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

Being at the IAEA these days has once again reminded one that US diatribes are not limited to regimes and states that act contrary to US goals or even wishes. In the usual alliance of the government and the media -- clearly the US media has its own interpretations of a "free" media -- the Americans have launched a blitzkrieg against the IAEA and especially its head, El Baradei. The issue, which has aroused a hail of abuse is Iran's nuclear programme. What has irked the US is the fact that the IAEA under its present leadership has proactively sought to resolve this issue peacefully by dialoguing with Iran instead of supporting the American position of seeking confrontation through provocation so that a pretext can be provided for US military action. Remember Iraq and the WMD issue?

Now we have begun to see a spate of articles targeting El Baradai in the US and US-controlled print media. Some have been downright abusive with the Washington Post labelling him a "rogue" regulator. Ah that word which has become so central to the Bush era in the US. If one is not falling in line with the US, then one is a "rogue" of one form or another. The problem arises when heads of international organisations, selected by the international community, are actually abused because they fall out of step with the US. Some UN Secretary Generals also had to suffer a similar fate, but the language now being used by the US media for Baradei goes further than earlier vilifications of international personalities.

Worse still, this time a newly resurgent rightwing leadership in countries like France are supporting this new aggression against US detractors, while British publications like The Economist continue to be predictable in their criticism. Even the EU launched an attack against Baradei in the just concluded IAEA Board meeting, which led to the IAEA Chief actually walking out for some time from the meeting. Such are the antics of the US and its European allies in international organisations today.

Why is El Baradai being abused and vilified with such vigour? What is his crime? Very simply, he has managed to get Iran back into a dialogue with a timeline for resolving the nuclear issue. The IAEA and Iran have recently agreed to operationalise an agreement with specific timeframes for moving from one stage to the next, in terms of ensuring Iran's compliance with non-proliferation requirements under its NPT obligations and international demands as embodied in the UNSC resolution putting sanctions on Iran. And all this has been the result of the IAEA's continuous pursuit of efforts to re-engage Iran in a meaningful dialogue. That has clearly upset the US and its allies like France, where the new rightwing leader, Sarkozy, had threatened Iran with military action if it did not do as the US and its allies demanded.

Nor is this the only disturbing aspect of the new US discriminatory approach towards non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, which is being fast-tracked after the Indo-US nuclear deal. So one can expect many more battles within the IAEA and other disarmament fora for the future also. There is the Indo-US nuclear deal itself, known as the 123 Agreement, which has now been revised to accommodate the Indian demand that no conditionalities be put on future testing by India in terms of assurance of nuclear fuel supplies. The result is an American commitment to build up India's strategic reserves of nuclear fuel and to ensure that if the US is unable to continue its supplies of nuclear fuel, allies of the US will step in. The 123 Agreement's final stage of fruition will come after India has evolved a Safeguards Agreement format with the IAEA, and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) has put its support behind the Agreement. Clearly, the non- proliferation regime reflected in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which is now being contravened across the board by the US itself.

The first multilateral forum, which will face the follow up from the 123 Agreement will be the IAEA, since India has to evolve safeguards agreements for its civilian nuclear installations with this Agency before the US Congress can ratify the Agreement. The IAEA has a standard Safeguards Agreement for non-NPT states, signed for instance by Pakistan for its Chashma plant, which does not have a limited timeframe or any preconditions for enforcement of the safeguards -- that is, no escape clause. But countries can try to add their own clauses in such an agreement, which is finally put before the IAEA Board for approval. The assumption is that India would be seeking an India-specific Safeguards Agreement with preconditions and with a limited timeframe. Another step India has to cross is approval from the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) for the 123 Agreement, which would require the NSG to make India-specific exceptions in their export controls. It is expected that India will get what it is seeking from the IAEA and the NSG.

That is why the IAEA is a critical forum for the US and India right now and one can see the US and a number of European states having intense discussions with India on the sidelines of the ongoing IAEA Annual General Conference. It is at this conference that the IAEA Chief once again, in his inaugural speech, reiterated Iran's cooperation with the IAEA and the IAEA's conclusion that it had verified that of the declared nuclear materials by Iran none had been diverted, even as El Baradei continued to bemoan the fact that Iran has shown no inclination to stop production of its Heavy Water facility at Arak and there were still outstanding issues the IAEA had with Iran. He referred to the positive development of the time bound agreement between the IAEA and Iran to resolve all outstanding issues.

That is why one should expect the US diatribes against the IAEA Chief to continue. After all, he has not played ball with US designs to up the ante against Iran -- something that will further destabilise the whole region. These are certainly interesting times at the IAEA, with one international organisation proactively engaged in carrying out its internationally-sanctioned mandate in the face of a US that is increasingly oblivious to international laws and norms of behaviour. The pity is that states in Europe that traditionally stood for such norms are falling in line with the Bush Administration. Perhaps most ironic, India, which had championed an anti-imperial stance and a non-discriminatory approach to international relations has now become a symbol of such a discriminatory approach through its dubious nuclear deal with the US. Such are the ironies of internaitonal politics!

As for Pakistan, despite our vital interest being involved, we have yet to rouse ourselves out of an inexplicable lethargy to counter these developments relating to US non-proliferation policies. Surely, even if we cannot effect change and we remain in a minority, at the end of the day, we must make our position clear on such crucial issues in international fora.

(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)


http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=72753

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

Shireen M Mazari

The cricket twenty twenty world cup final provided a few hours of relief to what is becoming an increasingly beleaguered Pakistani civil society. While the loss hurt, one can only marvel at the resurgence of the cricket team and its youthful new look. Unfortunately, this moment of relief and relaxation passed only too quickly and once more we were confronted to the increasingly unfathomable political circus that is taking its toll on the citizenry, with road blocks, police actions, and histrionics all around. All norms of rational behaviour have long disappeared and the increasingly visible feature seems to be a growing intolerance of "the other" by all and sundry. Even the lawyers, claiming to lead the fight for freedom and democracy, are descending into abusive tirades and mudslinging countered by fisticuffs and paint slinging.

As if all this was not enough to push one either over the edge or into a state of deliberate disconnect from politics, we have had the US now brazenly accepting their interventionist role in our domestic politics to ensure the success of so-called "moderates". Of course, by their very intervention they may well ensure the success of "the other" but one cannot rationalise with an irrational and extremist mindset of the American neo cons lead by Mr Bush. However, rumours now abound that the reason the US favours "the lady" is because she has agreed not only to allow the US an unhindered access to the tribal areas in terms of military action, but also to re-open the file on Dr Khan. One hopes these are only rumours; otherwise we are in for some dangerous times, given that the US long-term intent towards Pakistan has never brought a promise of the positive for our nation. Even a cursory study of the history of US relations with Pakistan can confirm that claim.

However, more disturbing is the growing and very real threat to Pakistan's security interests posed by external players. It is in this context that our domestic dynamics are hindering our ability to protect our interest in a timely and often-needed proactive manner. Although our Foreign Office has finally protested over the joint UK-Indian war games in Ladakh in Occupied Kashmir and the planned joint exercises that may be held by India in Siachen, the issue is: why did we make our protest vis-a-vis the Ladakh exercises after they had already been initiated, on September 17? Did we not know of these exercises in advance, given that such a scale of military exercises can hardly have been kept under wraps? Could we not have launched a diplomatic offensive to prevent this from happening, given the internationally recognised disputed nature of Kashmir? We are told that Pakistan made a demarche, both with Britain and India last week, but why was it done so quietly? Why are we so reluctant to expose British and Indian wrongdoings against us before our nation?

What is absolutely unacceptable is for Britain to be party to this Indian contravention of UN resolutions, given that they are parties to these resolutions -- not to mention their role in the origins of the dispute itself. What is the British intent in deliberately abusing Pakistan in this fashion? It is indeed ironic that both Britain and the US lambaste countries like Iran for alleged violations of international commitments while they themselves break their own international legal commitments as and when it suits them. The invasion of Iraq is simply one case in point; but we also have US and British assistance to Israel's clandestine nuclear programme; and the Indo-US nuclear deal in clear contravention of Articles I and III:2 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, it is Pakistan's growing level of tolerance for abuse by external actors that is distressing.

We have had India declare it is beginning tourist trekking in Siachen and have not been able to use international pressure to prevent it from increasing its illegal activities in this region as well as in Occupied Kashmir. A French trekking team already went on this trek with the Indians on July 30 this year, and two expeditions were already in Siachen when Pakistan protested earlier this month. No wonder an Indian army official, talking to the Kashmir Observer (September 25) merely shrugged off the Pakistani protest. In the face of a defiant India and a Britain unconcerned about giving legitimacy to Indian occupation of Kashmir through the joint exercises, we are strangely subdued and unable to go beyond the mere formalities of protest. Why not suspend the composite dialogue as India does at the slightest provocation? Why not recall our High Commissioner from Britain for "consultations"? It is no wonder that our mere whimpering is sending the wrong message to the world -- that we are fair game for abuse.

In fact, there is clearly a growing malaise creeping into our external relations, with many subscribing to the view that there is no point in doing anything on certain fronts because we cannot effect change. For instance, we have accepted the India-US nuclear deal being accepted by the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG) despite the fact that some states committed to non-proliferation are members of the NSG. It seems we have also resigned ourselves to the fact that India will get the safeguards agreement it seeks with the IAEA when it approaches it in the coming month, even though there is enormous opposition to this internationally, and that opposition is growing even within the US arms control and disarmament community.

Nor are we active in supporting causes, which we had been in the forefront of in earlier times when our diplomacy was a source of pride. At the recent IAEA General Conference, Muslim states ranging from the Arab World to Malaysia and Indonesia spoke in favour of a resolution dealing with Israeli nuclear capabilities and threats with states like Venezuela and Cuba joining in, but we remained silent. It seems that while we still support the Arabs with our vote, we do not express this support verbally -- since we do not want to upset the US! There was a time when we rallied external forces on international issues but now we seem to have been hit with an inexplicable psychological confidence deficit. Equally bizarre, I am told we now tend to "wing it" in international forums rather than having any proactive briefs!

So this is what our internal machinations are reducing us to on the international arena. States like India are brazenly defying international resolutions relating to Kashmir as well as their bilateral commitment under the Simla Agreement and European states like Britain and France are only too willing to give support to India's defiance. Not only are the Brits holding joint exercises in Occupied Kashmir, they are planning to hold joint exercises with India in Siachin also -- if press reports are correct. Pakistani protests hold little value, it would seem, for these countries even as we continue to put up with their interventions in our domestic affairs. The Western states, ironically, are concerned about our tampering with domestic constitutional norms and laws while they merrily break all international laws and norms in pursuit of their agendas. And we are too caught up in our domestic political nightmares to defend our external interests with the vigour that is required. Instead, we are resigned to what we think are inevitabilities, even though in reality they may not be so. As in 1971, we are becoming our own worst enemies.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=73612

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.

A brutalised and surreal polity

Shireen M Mazari

The trauma of Karachi on May 12 was revived on September 29 in Islamabad. Only this time, in full view of the civil society through live coverage, the guilty were the supposed protectors of the very people being beaten and savaged. No condemnation for the police force can be too harsh in terms of what they did to the lawyers and journalists on Constitution Avenue that day. It was not the crowds running amuck but the police force -- which clearly showed not an iota of discipline let alone humanity. Is this what our police academies are now sending into society? No professionalism, only a barbarianism determined to unleash violence and abuse on the intelligentsia of this society. Are these the enforcers of law and protectors of the nation in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan? Where is the accountability and what is their punishment? Merely a limited "suspension" forced upon the bureaucracy by the Supreme Court. What is this farce of "inquiry committees" to establish who did what when documented evidence is on tape after tape showing the inspector-general of police himself along with other police officials beating up the civilian protestors. Inquiry committees are certainly needed to establish the "who" and "why" aspects. After all, why did the police lose control of any professionalism they may have had? And who gave the orders? Or was it simply that the police chief let his murderous streak run free and led his men in a surreal battle with peaceful, if verbally aggressive protestors and even more peaceful journalists who were simply trying to do their job?

But why are we not surprised by such violence anymore? We are filled with intolerance at all levels. If things go the way we want, we become effusive in our praise and laurels, but if things go against our expectations, then the same laurels turn to abuse. Thus, swinging from one extreme to another, civil society is being suffocated from all sides. It is threatened by extremist doctrines and intolerance from one side, acts of terrorism from another, and increasingly endangered from the very forces created for our protection. Thus making us into a brutalised polity dominated by hatred, suspicions and cynicism. Was it not an irony to see people express their scepticism about lawyers and politicians in the wake of the September 28 Supreme Court decision and the mayhem of the following day. Unfortunately, the media have become victims in this bizarre crossfire at multiple levels.

Amid all this violence and political jockeying for power, no one is looking to the very real threats to the nation. Women abuse is on the increase; extremists are destroying the future of our youth by closing down schools; our cultural diversity is being threatened by the same militants; and every day existence is becoming difficult for the ordinary citizen in the wake of spiralling prices, especially of basic food items. Despite a bumper wheat crop, wheat shortages abound because the political elite is busy amassing money through wheat smuggling and hoarding. The sugar mafia has now been joined by the wheat mafia. We all know who they are, but who will move to bring them to book? After all, presently, we are in the process of seeing past corruption slates also being wiped clean.

What are our political elites doing? Making deals, playing musical chairs with "resignations", doing everything but seeking to ameliorate the suffering of the nation at multiple levels. Extremism and violence are becoming endemic; security for the ordinary man is non-existent with the police themselves acting as a source of threat; and those depriving the people of their basic food items -- the mafias – are not being brought to book. No wonder people are expressing a growing cynicism -- as witnessed, to the surprise of many, in the set of TV interviews conducted in Karachi by Geo television post September 29.

Yet, the political landscape continues to become ever more surreal. Alliances and counter alliances; promises of "shariah"; promises of unfettered democracy by those who themselves have shown an inability to tolerate any form of dissent; and, perhaps most dangerous, efforts by some to dance to the US tune in the belief that the US will decide our political fate. No one is going that extra mile for the US as much as Ms Bhutto and Mr Farhatullah Babar, a sincere man for whom I have nothing but respect, who is having a difficult time in trying to provide rational explanations within a nationalist context of his leader's bizarre outbursts. On the A.Q. Khan issue, the real issue is not one of the Pakistani government cooperating with an international organisation but of a Pakistani political leader reopening an issue which has been effectively closed. Already, the present government went an extra mile -- some of us felt it was unnecessary -- in cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) including sending our old centrifuges for inspection to the Agency. We were under no international legal obligation to do so, but in the spirit of cooperation on non-proliferation, the Government of Pakistan chose to do so. That is why the head of the IAEA stated categorically to the agency's board, in June 2006, that the IAEA had received all the cooperation it had sought from Pakistan and the issue was now closed. It is keeping this fact in mind that one is suspicious of why Ms Bhutto would want to resuscitate this issue at this particular time. The suspicions become stronger when one listens to her response to a question asked in a CNN interview on September 26. She was asked whether she would ever allow Dr Khan to be handed over to the US and her response is telling. It was not a clear cut "no" as it should have been. Instead, she declared that she would not be handing him over "to anyone unlawfully." So here we have her keeping that dangerous option open for the US to gain physical access to Dr Khan.

As if that was not enough, she has now declared that she will allow the US to enter Pakistani territory -- within certain ifs and buts of course -- in its pursuit of Bin Laden. So effectively, this implies that the US will be allowed to violate or undermine Pakistani sovereignty if it sought to do so within the context of the war on terror! Clearly, it is this "moderation" that endears her to the US as the only "acceptable" political option for Pakistan. Too bad for the US that the people of Pakistan may not agree to that -- if given a chance at truly fair and free elections.

The real tragedy is that as a result of the brutalisation of civil society, we as a people are in danger of losing our humaneness and tolerance. The savagery that filled the faces of the police force on September 29 was only too evident. But we need to also look at the faces of those decrying the Supreme Court judgement on September 28; look into the eyes of those who suffered violence on September 29; and look at the marchers across the country on September 30. It is as sad as it is terrifying. The Pakistan so many of us love passionately is receding in a haze of brutal surrealism.



The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=74427

__________________
_____________________________________________

A Man Would Do Nothing,
If He Waited Until He
Could Do It So Well
That No One Would Find Fault
With What He Has Done.

Shireen M Mazari

Clearly, as the polity struggles against polarisation, divisiveness, violence and a growing hatred towards "the other", national reconciliation is perhaps the most critical balm the nation needs. Through a process of national reconciliation, we can evolve an acceptance of the diversity that defines the richness of this nation. We can begin the process of healing what is tearing our polity apart and leading to death and destruction. Perhaps we can even set our political psyche and processes on a more positive course of cooperation rather than collision, with a greater respect for differing perspectives. Equally important, we can begin to reach out to the marginalised within our polity so that they can become part of the mainstream. Perhaps most critical, we can begin to extricate ourselves from the murderous policies and agendas of both the born-again American neo-cons and the Al Qaeda-extremist combine. If the Al Qaeda leadership has openly avowed destruction for the state of Pakistan, the US is leading us down the same path through more covert ruses and designs. The result of the manner in which the US-led war on terror is being conducted has been to not only create more space for terrorists across the globe but to directly undermine the security edifice of Pakistan.

Look at what is happening to our troops in Waziristan and our civil society in not only the tribal belt but also in and around the cities of the NWFP. Terrorists are kidnapping our security personnel and murdering the poor soldiers in a blood-letting so contrary to the religion they allege to be upholding. Even more distressing are the constant reports of 'disappearances' and 'kidnappings' of soldiers and security personnel in FATA. It is as puzzling as it is sad to hear of a hundred plus armed soldiers falling prey to a dozen or so terrorists. But perhaps finding the answer to the puzzle may be a greater source of sorrow. And what of the daily threats unleashed by the extremists against the population around the cities and villages of NWFP? Women are under a state of siege, as are educational institutions and music/video shops. While the rest of urban Pakistan has been caught up in the political and judicial confrontations at the centre, a dangerous extremist wave has continued to gain momentum in NWFP.

Equally threatening has been the creeping intrusion of foreign business interests into our public enterprises. Privatisation has acquired a whole new meaning today in Pakistan -- almost becoming a bargain basement sale of public entities! In some cases, we have managed to alienate our most stable and constant ally, China, in the process -- something the US has been seeking for some time and using a not-so-subtle indirect approach on this front. As for the poor citizenry, they are engulfed in a spiral of increasing prices, wheat and sugar mafias, and an unresponsive state. No wonder, then, that civil society has shown its distaste for taking to the streets to protest for the cause of any political leader, even as it has come out in the thousands to lend support for the cause of the judiciary.

Amidst these trying times, one has seen a growing disconnect between the State and nation. That is why when national reconciliation became the buzzword within the power corridors of the State one hoped it would lead to a reaching out to all the diverse factors within the polity for a dialogue and an accommodation of 'the other', so that the marginalised are mainstreamed and political dissent becomes part of an all-accepting democratic culture that prevents the use of violence and spread of hate and polarisation which seem to have become part of our political discourse post the Zia dictatorship. After all, 'reconciliation' literally means 'harmonisation', 'making friendly again' and 'inducing acceptance'. So there was the hope that the state would take the lead in accepting the rich diversity of the Pakistani nation and of 'the other' – taking the lead which the nation could follow.

After all, if the diverse and opposing forces within the nation could gain acceptance within the political landscape, they would be compelled to function within the law. If certain laws were found wanting, then a consensus could be developed to alter them. Certainly, national reconciliation could never be thought of to mean condoning criminal acts and corruption. Alas, the nation's hopes of a grand national reconciliation have been torn asunder. The National Reconciliation Ordinance states that "it is expedient to promote national reconciliation, foster mutual trust and confidence amongst the holders of public office and remove vestiges of political vendetta and victimization", and what it seems to be doing is to condone the alleged corruption and killings by holders of public office. The use of the word 'expedient' is interesting and the fact that what is being sought is 'trust' among holders of public office. What has been found wanting is trust between the holders of public office and civil society, and this is certainly nowhere in sight. Of course, many holders of public office have yet to be convicted but does that prove their innocence? If the holders of public office, charged between January 1, 1986 and 12 October 1999, not yet convicted are to be pardoned, then is national accountability going to be only for civil society? Also, knowing how the powerful manage to flee before they can be nabbed (ouch!), why should a conviction in absentia be void ab initio (treated as invalid from the outset) given that states across the globe pass sentences against people who may have fled the country. That is presumably why Interpol exists -- to bring the guilty to book.

President Musharraf's takeover in 1999 was welcomed by so many in civil society because it brought with it the promise of accountability for the holders of public office and the hope that those who had robbed the nation or had indulged in killings and violence would now be removed from ever having access to public space again. With all the issues and conflicts that have arisen between the State and the people, the latter have never sought to take on the former to bring back the nightmares of the past. Certainly, the call for democracy and civilian rule has grown louder but not for a return to the loot and plunder and political terrorism that was our past.

Ironically, the loudest applauders for sanctifying the allegedly corrupt are those self-appointed guardians of democracy -- America and Britain. And this is perhaps our greatest tragedy: that those external powers which bode ill for our country's well-being are being allowed to indulge in political engineering in Pakistan. We recognise the threat Al Qaeda poses to our country, but the US is simply the flip side of the same coin -- as we will discover if we read our history carefully. Having found some nationalist red lines within the Pakistani state, the US has sought to seek out a far more compliant political leadership. As for democracy, having suffered a major trauma within the context of the democracy agenda in Palestine which brought Hamas electoral victory, the US is committed to preventing any successful populist electoral result. So the people of Pakistan now have to watch aghast at the thought that they may be given a US-approved political road map rather than unfettered democracy.

At the very least, if we are going to forgive and forget the alleged misdeeds of our past public office holders, we should have the South African model of truth and reconciliation so that those forgiven should at least have to confess their errors and seek forgiveness from the nation before being allowed back into public space. Now that would truly be a substantive national reconciliation.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=75385

__________________
The Me you have always known, the Me that's a stranger still.