Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Hebarmas & Derrida

BOOK REVIEW:

The Two Gentlemen of EuropePhilosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida,

edited by Giovanna Borradori.

reviewed by Piyush Mathur [from Asia Times]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FE15Aa01.html

I would have been grateful if Giovanna Borradori had titled this book more reasonably, and called it, instead, "9/11: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida". Then, I would not have had to remind us, as I must now, that no two European gentlemen, topmost philosophers as they might be, can (be made to) represent philosophy any more than Osama bin Laden can (be made to) represent all the terrorists in the world, or September 11 to symbolize or even epitomize all the terror since the attacks on the twin towers or through history.

Likewise, much of humanity has not seen a time without terror for a very long time; so, those cognizant of that interminable terror world-wide are apt to chuckle at the inherent claim in the book's title to an onset of terror. Terror has been far too pervasive for far too long for one to come up and declare the contemporary times as a time of terror - and then pretend to offer some new philosophy strictly responsive to it.

The politics of representation are rather important to this book; had they not been, I would have perhaps stopped short of being so brusque for a start as above or nit-picky with the title. As a manufactured intellectual product, Philosophy in a Time of Terror embodies a sweeping normative claim to knowing what constitutes philosophy, terror and philosophy in a time of terror. As a collection of interviews with Habermas and Derrida, the book has us encounter the most authoritative representatives - the mutually dissenting founding fathers - respectively, of the streams of thought called the Second Frankfurt School (in Germany) and Deconstruction (in France). Through her interviews and their explanations, Borradori also frames Habermas and Derrida as spokesmen for philosophy, Europe and European philosophy.

The representative character of the book is strengthened by the fact that Habermas and Derrida have previously taken it on themselves - with sufficient legitimacy, I believe - to represent and address Europe on the level of philosophy and to articulate its composite conceptual or intellectual futures. (Perhaps more often that that, they have been called on by concerned communities to do the same.) Finally, Borradori has brought out the book as a follow-up to a concerted popular-press offensive by leading European philosophers against American foreign policy and in response to the global cultural-political scenario post September 11. (That line of action was spearheaded by Habermas and had received the attention of significant sections of the global literati.)

Of course, these noble, clearly aggrieved individuals - these traumatized members of the European academic noblesse, if you will - had bigger issues in mind as well: the possible political role and cultural identity of Europe, America and the West; the future effects of the American empire; the future of human rights, peace, democracy, citizenship, globalization, capitalism, Islamic politics, and so on. Insofar as most academics - elite, European, or otherwise - do not condescend to the journalistic sphere to share their wisdom with the rest of the literate populace, or are not allowed into that sphere thanks to the "quality-conscious" editors of the popular press, a joint surprise by these philosophers and their pop-editors had then felt nice!

Now, insofar as "an awful lot of" academic work is clerical (per Noam Chomsky's cynical estimate), and the larger part of journalistic analysis world wide is little more than propaganda on behalf of the powerful and the ethically misguided (in my view), it is, yet again, a welcome scenario whereby we could read these influential philosophical figures in this book on issues of immediate public relevance. For all that, Borradori has to be complimented for orchestrating these interviews even though my first advice to the reader would be to ignore all the entries in the book by Borradori herself (excepting the brilliantly phrased questions). Besides being insipid and shallow, Borradori's entries - the preface, introduction, and two lengthy "explanations" -are pointless and, in many ways, misleading.

Habermas' standpointAs for the responses by Habermas: I regret to say that his regular-academic-fans are unlikely to find much new; those who keep up with the popular press shall have a similar experience as far as thinking about the global situation post September 11 is concerned. The banality of Habermas' observations is particularly evident in the sections on the interconnections between "the West" and the rest (especially the Islamic world). In those sections, he reiterates the conventional belief in the internal cultural cohesiveness of the West, characterized as a "materialist" and "secularizing force" (pg 33) - and as a "scapegoat for the Arab world's own, very real experiences of loss, suffered by populations torn out of their cultural traditions during processes of accelerated modernization" (pg 32).

Habermas contrasts that "accelerated modernization" of the Arab world with the modernization of Europe "experienced under more favorable circumstances as a process of productive destruction" (pg 32). Missing are any references to the protracted history of colonialism and slavery - the two factors that fueled the economics of European modernization in the main and were anything but productive as far as world history is concerned.

Coupled with the preclusion of those two factors from Habermas's view of modern, contemporary Europe is his erroneous belief that "We in the West do live in peaceful and well-to-do societies [which] contain a structural violence that ... we have gotten used to [such as] unconscionable social inequality, degrading discrimination, pauperization, and marginalization..." (pg 35). As far as I am concerned, Habermas defaults there by exercising the we/they logic, pre-securing a highly selective, comfortable strata of an industrialized region for the denomination of "the West", and continuing to be convinced about peace and welfare within that region even beyond September 11 - presumably, also, at the exclusion of a variety of prior, rather sustained, experiences in both large-scale and sporadic violence in Eastern Europe, (the former) USSR, Italy, Spain, and, for that matter, Greece and Turkey.

In any case, World War II did not occur that long ago to be erased already from the image of modern Europe/the West/the world. Furthermore, within the so-called homeland of the United States (presumably included in Habermas' West), no accounting of terrorism or peace in the contemporary times could be complete without reference to the deaths and injury from regular gun violence.

We are also at a complete loss as to whether Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Singapore and Hong Kong are included in Habermas' West - and, if not, why not. The mixed cultures and racial histories of the Caribbean islands and Latin America further complicate any preclusive, peaceful picture of the West. For all the above reasons, Habermas' West, entirely in line with the standard populist notions about the same, is at least twice fictitious - once, on the level of geographical, racial, and cultural identities; and, again, on the level of its own civic and political image.

Realizing the fallacious foundations of Habermas' political vision allows us to grasp why he would also seek an ultimately evangelical role for "the West" in the post-September 11 scenario. As such, what "the West could learn" from September 11, according to Habermas, is "how it would need to change its politics if it wants to be perceived as a shaping power with a civilizing impact" (pg 36).

There is a great deal of self-centrism tucked inside the syntactical layers of the above statement - very little of which points to any genuine learning agenda. So here we have a philosopher who sounds like a diplomat or a public relations officer worried about how others perceive his own: somebody needs to remind him that a civilizing power does not itself need to be either civil or civilized, and it matters only that much as to who perceives what and whether. Indeed, many a civilizing power through the history has been something other than civil or civilized: perhaps some compromise with one's own civility is a precondition to one's participation in any civilizing mission.


Derrida's confessions

I call Derrida's responses "confessions" because, while being incisive, they point inwardly and are otherwise calibrated well cognitively, idiomatically and politically. He invites us to question the meaning of "9/11" and to wonder about why it has become such a universal term of reference. He reasons that the significance attached to September 11 has to do with the fact that "the world order that felt itself targeted through this violence is dominated largely by the Anglo-American idiom" - which in turn dominates "the world stage ... international law, diplomatic institutions, the media, and the greatest technoscientific, capitalistic, and military power" (pg 88).

For all that, but also for a number of other reasons - such as the endlessness of the American territory and interest, the prior training of the September 11 attackers within the US, "the formation of Arab Muslim terrorist networks equipped and trained during the Cold War", and the "politico-military circumstances" perpetrated by the United States that favored the "emergence" and "shifts in allegiance" of the ilk of bin Laden - Derrida deems September 11 as suicide rather than homicide (pg 91-95). Since September 11 was a literal suicide attack, Derrida calls it a "double suicide" - but he deems it less than an event insofar as it did not fulfill the criterion of surprise or incomprehensibility (pg 95). "It was not impossible," he correctly argues, "to foresee an attack on American soil by those called 'terrorists' ... against a highly sensitive, spectacular, extremely symbolic building or institution" (pg 91).

In general, then, Derrida persuades us to view September 11, its fall-out, and world affairs on the whole from this resolutely internalized, internalizing perspective - in which, insofar as American interests know no end, the discursive comprehension of the attacks can only be a domestic responsibility for everybody. The present-day global terror thus turns out to be "an autoimmunity terror" - rather than an attack from the outsiders - especially for the Americans and Europeans. "The United States and Europe," Derrida stresses, "are also sanctuaries, places of training or formation and information for all the 'terrorists' of the world. No geography, no 'territorial' determination, is thus pertinent any longer for locating the seat of these new technologies of transmission or aggression" (pg 101).

Because contemporary global terror is an internal matter, its "repression ... whether it be through the police, the military, or the economy - ends up producing, reproducing, and regenerating the very thing it seeks to disarm" (pg 99). In such a scenario, Derrida argues, "the 'bombs' will never be 'smart' enough to prevent the victims (military and/or civilian, another distinction that has become less and reliable) from responding, either in person or by proxy, with what it will then be easy for them to present as legitimate reprisals or as counterterrorism. And so on ad infinitum ..." (pg 100).

The relationship between territory and terrorism remains a central issue to Derrida's formulations. He underlines that the popularization of the word "terrorism" in political history is traceable to "the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, a terror that was carried out in the name of the state and that in fact presupposed a legal monopoly on violence" (pg 103). He also points to the "terrorism carried out by the Algerian rebellion", which "was long considered a domestic phenomenon insofar as Algeria was supposed to be an integral part of French national territory", whereas "the French terrorism of the time (carried out by the state) was presented as a police operation for internal security" (pg 104). He notes: "It was only in the 1990s, decades later, that the French Parliament retrospectively conferred the status of "war" (and thus the status of an international confrontation) upon this conflict so as to be able to pay the pensions of the 'veterans' who claimed them" (pg 104).

As such, the criteria for defining "international terrorism" remain "obscure, dogmatic, and precritical" (pg 103). Citing the hasty post-September 11 authorization by the United Nations to the United States "to use any means ... to protect itself against this so-called 'international terrorism'", Derrida argues that "the more confused the concept the more it lends itself to an opportunistic appropriation" (pg 103-104).

As if to address that problem, and in response to Borradori's questions, Derrida normatively defines the future philosopher - "philosopher-deconstructor" - as someone who would reflect responsibly on the definitional questions related to terrorism and "demand accountability from those in charge of public discourses [and] the language and institutions of international law" (pg 106). Such a philosopher would also articulate the effective relationship between "our philosophical heritage and the structure of the still dominant [and mutating] juridico-political system"; she/he would also seek "a new criteriology to distinguish between 'comprehending' and 'justifying' [terrorism]" (pg 106).

Of course, and even if by default, Derrida sets himself up as a prototype of precisely such a philosopher. Having called into question the standard perceptions of (international) terrorism, he asserts: "One can thus condemn unconditionally, as I do here, the attack of September 11 without having to ignore the real or alleged conditions that made it possible" (pgs 106-107). Blaming "the technoeconomic power of the media" for reinforcing the "narrow meaning" for terrorism, he points out that terrorism does not always depend on a "conscious subject" - but may gain its own, independent operative momentum (pg 109).

As a corollary, Derrida argues that "maximum media coverage was in the common interest of the perpetrators of 'September 11', the terrorists, and those who, in the name of the victims, wanted to declare 'war on terrorism' "(pg 108). "In both cases," he observes, "certain parties have an interest in presenting their adversaries not only as terrorists ... but only as terrorists, indeed as 'international terrorists' who share the same logic or are part of the same network and who must thus be opposed ... not through counterterrorism but through a 'war', meaning, of course, a 'nice clean' war" (pg 110). Derrida's verdict is that "these distinctions are lacking in rigor, impossible to maintain, and easily manipulated for certain ends" (pg 110).

Regarding a long-term response to the post-September 11 scenario, Derrida urges respect for international law and institutions (pg 114); advocates resisting "American hegemony" rather than the United States (pg 117); accepts the necessity of "a unified [and autonomous] military force" for Europe (pg 119); underlines his personal utopian trust in the perfectibility of the ever-imperfect world (pgs 113, 114, 115); argues in favor of the ethic of "hospitality" rather than mere "tolerance" (pgs 126-129); rallies support for human rights (pg 132); recommends using Europe's Enlightenment experience "in the relationship between the political and ... the religious" on a world scale (pg 117); and puts forward his idea of "democracy to come" - as an advance over state - and polity-centered prior notions such as cosmopolitanism and world citizenship (pg 130).

That said, Derrida does not advocate anarchy nor does he seek to dilute or negate the political. "We must," he insists, "be dutiful beyond duty, we must go beyond law, tolerance, conditional hospitality, economy, and so on. But to go beyond does not mean to discredit that which we exceed" (pg 133).


Concluding remarks

Derrida's reflections are unquestionably worthy for their stress on conceptual reformulation of terrorism, as is Habermas's leadership of fellow European philosophers to their famous journalistic intervention past the September 11 attacks. The drama of this entire intervention, however, actually points up the duo's erstwhile neglect of vital and long-standing issues in global politics as played out within the public, activist, and journalistic spheres. So, at best, these two individuals make an arduously late pop-up on the effective global public stage (contrast them, for example, with Noam Chomsky and Edward Said); at worst, they are academic tigers now determined to get out of their jungle.

For all that, I am not so confident of Derrida's confident responses to Borradori's questions related to the role and place of philosophy in a time of terror. The philosophizing of terror and terrorism - their sophisticated defining and redefining - took place elsewhere and was done by a whole host of other intellectuals, writers, activists and politicians.

Dating back to the 1960s are of course the political and strategic analyses - an elaborate contention against standard notions about terror and terrorism - by Chomsky and Said. In addition are Ashis Nandy's direct and rather insightful reflections on terrorism in the early 1990s - well before bin Laden was picked up by the press - as is his brilliant essay in the wake of the September 11 attacks in "The Romance of the State" (2002). Likewise, James Der Derian provided cogent theoretical formulations on the topic in his book Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War (1992). In most ways, Vandana Shiva's ecofeminist exposes, dating back to the 1980s, are de facto philosophical treatises on various kinds of terrorism as are the political tracts brought out more recently by Arundhati Roy - and, far prior to that, by Hannah Arendt.

Then, we have such political stalwarts as Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr and Aung Sang Su-Ki, to mention just a few. Almost each one of the above has directly "questioned" terror and terrorism. However, Habermas and Derrida - unlike Chomsky, Said and Nandy (also academics) - do not even acknowledge them as such and the cosmopolitan traditions of thought and action of which many of them are a part.

So long as Habermas and Derrida - and their associates - stick to their intellectual provincialism and academic and textual purism, they shouldn't expect to make much more than the "embarrassing" splash of a latecomer through such occasional public interventions as the present one.

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Piyush Mathur, PhD, an alumnus of JNU, New Delhi, and Virginia Tech, USA, is an independent observer of world affairs, the environment, science and technology policy, and literature.

Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, edited by Giovanna Borradori, Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003; ISBN: 0-226-0664-9 (cloth); 208 pages; US $25.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

Monday, March 28, 2005

India-Pakistan Arms Race

The US Comes Out Fighting with F-16s

by Kaushik Kapisthalam [from Asia Times]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC29Df03.html

Islamabad is elated, India is miffed: the decision by the United States to sell F-16 strike fighters to Pakistan involves much more than a simple sale of arms - important geostrategic undercurrents are at play involving not only the Indian sub-continent, but also China.

Last Friday, Sanjaya Baru, spokesman for India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, announced that US President George W Bush had informed Singh of the American decision to go ahead with the sale of nuclear-capable Lockheed-Martin F-16 strike fighter aircraft to Pakistan. The spokesman also noted that the Indian leader conveyed to Bush India's "great disappointment" and a message that this move could have "negative consequences for India's security environment".

A few hours later, Bush administration officials in Washington and elsewhere added more details to the report, confirming that the mandatory notification to Congress had been sent. Washington sources say that Congress is unlikely to object to this deal. Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed announced in Islamabad that the US had essentially offered an unlimited number of F-16s, and that the aircraft would be the newer C and D versions (Block 50/52) which are more than a generation ahead of Pakistan's current F-16 fleet. Ahmed also noted that the Pakistan Air Force leadership would soon decide on the quantity to request. Industry sources say that Pakistan may initially order about 24 planes, with an option to buy a significantly larger number in a few years. Pakistan's current fleet of about 32 F-16s is also likely to be upgraded.

To most South Asia observers, this decision was not a surprise. Getting advanced F-16s and a package to upgrade its existing old F-16 fleet has always been on the Pakistani wish list since President General Pervez Musharraf joined the US-led coalition against terrorism in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. With intense media speculation in the preceding weeks, most news watchers felt a sense of inevitability about the F-16 sale.


India 'disappointed'

As noted above, India's official reaction has been one of disappointment. However, the Indian Foreign Ministry convened a midnight press conference on Friday night to spin the F-16 story. Spokesman Navtej Sarna noted that during his conversation with Singh, Bush offered a significant upgrade of India-US strategic ties. Reports indicate that the US has offered F/A-18 Hornet fighter planes to India, which are considered to be more advanced than F-16s.

But many Indian strategists and former senior officials are not so sanguine. Some note that the US has essentially offered a tangible weapons system to Pakistan, while offering some nice-sounding promises to India, which may or may not develop into real gains. Noting that one of the items seemingly on offer was the sale of American nuclear power plants to India, one observer asked - "Will Ms [Condoleezza] Rice and her staff be willing to do the heavy lifting in Congress and within the numerous non-proliferation agencies within the American bureaucracy to get approval for this? I don't think so." India has energy needs now that cannot be fulfilled by mere talks, he added.

Some reports also suggest similar feelings in private in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). The Hindu newspaper quoted unnamed MEA officials as saying, "It is possible that some of the promises may be transformed into reality. But at this point, one cannot give them the benefit of the doubt. Only tangible outcomes count, and that is the transfer of the [F-16] planes to Islamabad."

Interestingly, wire reports mention that the US had offered the F-16 fighters to India as well, though a State Department official speaking on the background said that it was up to India to decide if they wanted to buy the F-16s, F/A-18s or aircraft from other countries. Few Indian defense specialists believe that there is any chance of India buying fighter aircraft from the US, however. A report in the Times of India earlier in March quoted Indian Air Force officials as saying that there were too many logistical and political barriers for the F-16s to be considered seriously, even though they are officially on the list of choices for the purpose of a transparent tender process.

There are others in the Indian strategic community, however, who reject this type of reaction. G Parthasarathy, former Indian ambassador to Pakistan, was quoted as saying, "India cannot ignore the first-ever US offer of co-production of a major weapons system and platform and expanding cooperation in nuclear energy and space." Dr Anupam Srivastava, executive director of the South Asia Program of the Center for International Trade and Security at the University of Georgia and an expert on India-US relations, concurs with this view, noting that the very fact that an American administration had offered to discuss the sale of nuclear energy technology was significant, and that such a move would have been nearly impossible in recent years.


Strategic signaling

Some Indian and American observers feel that announcing the approval of F-16s to Pakistan sends ambiguous signals to the Pakistani leadership. They note that given the track record of Musharraf, it is likely that he will harden his stance in the ongoing peace negotiations with India.

Dr Peter Lavoy, director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California, cautioned against reading too much into the F-16 sale announcement. He commented that there was an increasing sense within the US administration that the Pakistan Air Force was far behind India in terms of military capability, and bolstering it with a small number of F-16s could create more stability in South Asia. It can be argued that a Pakistani military that feels more secure with conventional weapons is less likely to resort to using nuclear weapons, he maintained. Lavoy also noted that at a political level, the sale of F-16s brought closure to a long chapter of mistrust and disappointment in Pakistan, referring to the American move to block a contracted transfer of F-16s in 1991 over suspicions of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

Indian and some Western strategic analysts have a different take on this point. One former senior Indian official noted to this correspondent that he did not agree with the American position that 30 to 40 F-16s were unlikely to upset India's military position vis-a-vis Pakistan. He said that such an argument missed the point: "When it comes to provoking a war with India, Pakistan has depended more on what it perceives it can get away with rather than what its war-fighting abilities really are." The argument here is that the F-16s need not arrive in Pakistan for Musharraf and other Pakistani military leaders to consider taking aggressive military actions in the disputed Kashmir region. Observers caution that Pakistani leaders are unlikely to interpret the F-16 deal in any manner other than as a reiteration of Pakistan's indispensability to Washington.

Another Western analyst, who has visited Pakistan many times, noted to this author that soon after Indian troops backed off war threats in 2002, Pakistani officials were thankful for the American role in diffusing the crisis without Pakistani loss of face. However, he was shocked that during a later meeting with senior Pakistani army officers he found that they had coaxed themselves into believing that it was India's "cowardice" that led to their pull-back. The analyst also noted with alarm that many senior Pakistani military strategists still subscribe to the theory that Pakistanis are a "superior martial race" as opposed to the largely Hindu Indian army, which they perceive to be innately weak in resolve. The expert noted that with such attitudes, all the Pakistanis need is a small fillip to their morale and a perception of their being indispensable to American interests in order to start another military adventure with India. "At the very least, major weapons sales could spur the Pakistanis to be more aggressive with the use of jihadi groups in Kashmir," the expert maintained.

There are already signs of this hardening of Pakistani stance. Speaking to Pakistani Air Force cadets within hours of the F-16 announcement, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz stated that while Pakistan wanted peace with its neighbors, "peace can be achieved through force". On Sunday there were reports that Musharraf had noted in response to an email query to his website that India had to resolve the Kashmir dispute "if it wants to avoid more Kargils", referring to the 1999 Pakistani intrusion into Indian-controlled Kashmir that brought the region to the brink of full-scale war.

Some Indian observers expressed their anger that the American government displayed poor timing, either inadvertently or by design, in announcing the F-16 sale at this juncture. "We have Musharraf visiting New Delhi for talks and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on a planned state visit that is set to herald a new era in Indo-Chinese ties. Couldn't the Americans have waited a few more days, especially given that they had seemingly made up their mind a good while ago regarding the [F-16] sale?," fumed a former Indian diplomat.


The China angle

Interestingly, there are indications that the US decision to offer F-16s to Pakistan may affect that country's close ties with China. Pakistan watchers have long pointed out the existence of "pro-US" and "pro-China" lobbies within the Pakistani military establishment. "For decades, Pakistani military leaders, especially in the air force, have considered American weapons as the only ones good enough to be the spear-tip of Pakistani military capability," a Pakistan-watcher asserted, and added further, "Since the American sanctions, the pro-American officers had been losing the argument with the China-friendly ones within the Pakistani Air Force. This [F-16] gift turns the situation on its head."

As if to confirm this, in a radio program on Friday, Pakistan's Information Minister Ahmed noted that the JF-17 fighter that China was developing in cooperation with Pakistan had recently faced uncertainties regarding its engine and other components. Officially, the JF-17, or the FC-1 as it is known in China, is equipped with an engine from Russia's Klimov Corporation. But reports from authoritative sources like Jane's Defence Weekly note that Russia has not granted permission for China to equip export versions of the FC-1 with Klimov engines. Other reports have noted that Pakistan Air Force officials expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of Chinese avionics and radar systems, preferring European-made systems. However, given the uncertainty in the lifting of the European Union's weapons embargo on China, it is not clear if China will be able to obtain source codes for European sub-systems to be able to integrate them with a Chinese plane.

On India's part, the F-16 deal could lead to a sidelining of those who are favorable to the idea that India could be part of an American-led alliance in Asia to contain China's rapid rise to superpower status. There are reports that India will sign a "friendship treaty" with China where premier Wen makes his four-day visit to the country, with verbiage "to ensure that New Delhi does not become part of any anti-China alliance". Wen's visit is also expected to result in a treaty to set the framework for resolving the lingering India-China border dispute, and also some significant trade-related agreements, including a free trade agreement, which would be unprecedented in terms of the sheer commercial volume between the two Asian giants.

This is bound to displease the conservative elements in the Bush administration, who are slowly coming around to the idea to treat China as a strategic competitor, and who have embarked on efforts with the European Union and Japan to contain China's military expansion. "India has nothing to gain by ganging up against China, when the US is insensitive to India's security interests," an Indian analyst said. The analyst added that India would be under no illusion that Pakistan's "evergreen friendship" with China would weaken, but pointed out that the Chinese were not going to miss the significance of closer Pakistan-US ties and the potential negative implications for China. "Beijing is not going to like the idea of permanent American bases in Pakistan, maybe even near Chinese territory. Also, China is bound to be suspicious of a permanent American naval presence at a time when it is trying to get a foothold in that region with its participation in the construction of Gwadar port in Pakistan."

By this dramatic offering of weapons to Pakistan and increased strategic ties with India, the US may have displayed its "high card" in terms of the geopolitical poker game in the region. But it appears that India can still one-up this move if it plays its cards right.

[Kaushik Kapisthalam is a freelance defense and strategic affairs analyst based in the United States. He can be reached at contact@kapisthalam.com]

[Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.]

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Tariq Ali's appeal

Letter To A Young Muslim

by Tariq Ali [from 'Outlook']

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20020508&fname=tariq&sid=1&pn=1


Dear friend,

Remember when you approached me after the big antiwar meeting in November 2001 (I think it was Glasgow) and asked whether I was a believer? I have not forgotten the shock you registered when I replied "no", or the comment of your friend ("our parents warned us against you"), or the angry questions which the pair of you then began to hurl at me like darts. All of that made me think, and this is my reply for you and all the others like you who asked similar questions elsewhere in Europe and North America.

When we spoke, I told you that my criticism of religion and those who use it for political ends was not a case of being diplomatic in public. Exploiters and manipulators have always used religion self-righteously to further their own selfish ends. It's true that this is not the whole story. There are, of course, deeply sincere people of religion in different parts of the world who genuinely fight on the side of the poor, but they are usually in conflict with organised religion themselves.

The Catholic Church victimised worker or peasant priests who organised against oppression. The Iranian ayatollahs dealt severely with Muslims who preached in favour of a social radicalism. If I genuinely believed that this radical Islam was the way forward for humanity, I would not hesitate to say so in public, whatever the consequences. I know that many of your friends love chanting the name "Osama" and I know that they cheered on September 11, 2001. They were not alone. It happened all over the world, but had nothing to do with religion. I know of Argentine students who walked out when a teacher criticised Osama. I know a Russian teenager who emailed a one-word message - "Congratulations" - to his Russian friends whose parents had settled outside New York, and they replied: "Thanks. It was great." We talked, I remember, of the Greek crowds at football matches who refused to mourn for the two minutes the government had imposed and instead broke the silence with anti-American chants.

But none of this justifies what took place. What lies behind the vicarious pleasure is not a feeling of strength, but a terrible weakness. The people of Indo-China suffered more than any Muslim country at the hands of the US government. They were bombed for 15 whole years and lost millions of their people. Did they even think of bombing America? Nor did the Cubans or the Chileans or the Brazilians. The last two fought against the US-imposed military regimes at home and finally triumphed.

Today, people feel powerless. And so when America is hit they celebrate. They don't ask what such an act will achieve, what its consequences will be and who will benefit. Their response, like the event itself, is purely symbolic.

I think that Osama and his group have reached a political dead-end. It was a grand spectacle, but nothing more. The US, in responding with a war, has enhanced the importance of the action, but I doubt if even that will rescue it from obscurity in the future. It will be a footnote in the history of this century. In political, economic or military terms it was barely a pinprick.

What do the Islamists offer? A route to a past which, mercifully for the people of the seventh century, never existed. If the "Emirate of Afghanistan" is the model for what they want to impose on the world then the bulk of Muslims would rise up in arms against them. Don't imagine that either Osama or Mullah Omar represent the future of Islam. It would be a major disaster for the culture we both share if that turned out to be the case. Would you want to live under those conditions? Would you tolerate your sister, your mother or the woman you love being hidden from public view and only allowed out shrouded like a corpse?

I want to be honest with you. I opposed this latest Afghan war. I do not accept the right of big powers to change governments as and when it affects their interests. But I did not shed any tears for the Taliban as they shaved their beards and ran back home. This does not mean that those who have been captured should be treated like animals or denied their elementary rights according to the Geneva convention, but as I've argued elsewhere, the fundamentalism of the American Empire has no equal today. They can disregard all conventions and laws at will. The reason they are openly mistreating prisoners they captured after waging an illegal war in Afghanistan is to assert their power before the world - hence they humiliate Cuba by doing their dirty work on its soil - and warn others who attempt to twist the lion's tail that the punishment will be severe.

I remember how, during the cold war, the CIA and its indigenous recruits tortured political prisoners and raped them in many parts of Latin America. During the Vietnam war the US violated most of the Geneva conventions. They tortured and executed prisoners, raped women, threw prisoners out of helicopters to die on the ground or drown in the sea, and all this, of course, in the name of freedom.

Because many people in the west believe the nonsense about "humanitarian interventions", they are shocked by these acts, but this is relatively mild compared with the crimes committed in the last century by the Empire. I've met many of our people in different parts of the world since September 11. One question is always repeated: "Do you think we Muslims are clever enough to have done this?" I always answer "Yes". Then I ask who they think is responsible, and the answer is invariably "Israel". Why? "To discredit us and make the Americans attack our countries." I gently expose their wishful illusions, but the conversation saddens me. Why are so many Muslims sunk in this torpor? Why do they wallow in so much self-pity? Why is their sky always overcast? Why is it always someone else who is to blame?

Sometimes when we talk I get the impression that there is not a single Muslim country of which they can feel really proud. Those who have migrated from South Asia are much better treated in Britain than in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States. It is here that something has to happen. The Arab world is desperate for a change. Over the years, in every discussion with Iraqis, Syrians, Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and Palestinians, the same questions are raised, the same problems recur. We are suffocating. Why can't we breathe? Everything seems static: our economy, our politics, our intellectuals and, most of all, our religion.

Palestine suffers every day. The west does nothing. Our governments are dead. Our politicians are corrupt. Our people are ignored. Is it surprising that some are responsive to the Islamists? Who else offers anything these days? The US? It doesn't even want democracy, not even in little Qatar, and for a very simple reason. If we elected our own governments they might demand that the US close down its bases. Would it? They already resent al-Jazeera television because it has different priorities from them. It was fine when al-Jazeera attacked corruption within the Arab elite. Thomas Friedman even devoted a whole column to praise of al-Jazeera in the New York Times. He saw it as a sign of democracy coming to the Arab world. No longer. Because democracy means the right to think differently, and al-Jazeera showed pictures of the Afghan war that were not shown on the US networks, so Bush and Blair put pressure on Qatar to stop unfriendly broadcasts.

For the west, democracy means believing in exactly the same things that they believe. Is that really democracy? If we elected our own government, in one or two countries people might elect Islamists. Would the west leave us alone? Did the French government leave the Algerian military alone? No. They insisted that the elections of 1990 and 1991 be declared null and void. French intellectuals described the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) as "Islamo-fascists", ignoring the fact that they had won an election. Had they been allowed to become the government, divisions already present within them would have come to the surface. The army could have warned that any attempt to tamper with the rights guaranteed to citizens under the constitution would not be tolerated. It was only when the original leaders of the FIS had been eliminated that the more lumpen elements came to the fore and created mayhem. Should we blame them for the civil war, or those in Algiers and Paris who robbed them of their victory? The massacres in Algeria are horrendous. Is it only the Islamists who are responsible? What happened in Bentalha, 10 miles south of Algiers, on the night of September 22, 1997? Who slaughtered the 500 men, women and children of that township? Who? The Frenchman who knows everything, Bernard-Henri Levy, is sure it was the Islamists who perpetrated this dreadful deed. Then why did the army deny the local population arms to defend itself? Why did it tell the local militia to go away that night? Why did the security forces not intervene when they could see what was going on? Why does M Levy believe that the Maghreb has to be subordinated to the needs of the French republic, and why does nobody attack this sort of fundamentalism?

We know what we have to do, say the Arabs, but every time the west intervenes it sets our cause back many years. So if they want to help, they should stay out. That's what my Arab friends say, and I agree with this approach. Look at Iran. The western gaze turned benevolent during the assault on Afghanistan. Iran was needed for the war, but let the west watch from afar. The imperial fundamentalists are talking about the "axis of evil", which includes Iran. An intervention there would be fatal. A new generation has experienced clerical oppression. It has known nothing else. Stories about the shah are part of its prehistory. These young men and women are sure about one thing if nothing else. They don't want the ayatollahs to rule them any more. Even though Iran, in recent years, has not been as bad as Saudi Arabia or the late "Emirate of Afghanistan", it has not been good for the people.

Let me tell you a story. A couple of years ago I met a young Iranian film-maker in Los Angeles. His name was Moslem Mansouri. He had managed to escape with several hours of filmed interviews for a documentary he was making. He had won the confidence of three Tehran prostitutes and filmed them for more than two years. He showed me some of the footage. They talked to him quite openly. They described how the best pick-ups were at religious festivals. I got a flavour of the film from the transcripts he sent me. One of the women tells him: "Today everyone is forced to sell their bodies! Women like us have to tolerate a man for 10,000 toomans.Young people need to be in a bed together, even for 10 minutes . . . It is a primary need . . . it calms them down.

"When the government does not allow it, then prostitution grows. We don't even need to talk about prostitution, the government has taken away the right to speak with the opposite sex freely in public . . . In the parks, in the cinemas, or in the streets, you can't talk to the person sitting next to you. On the streets, if you talk to a man, the 'Islamic guard' interrogates you endlessly. Today in our country, nobody is satisfied! Nobody has security. I went to a company to get a job. The manager of the company, a bearded guy, looked at my face and said, 'I will hire you and I'll give you 10,000 toomans more than the pay rate.' I said, 'You can at least test my computer skills to see if I'm proficient or not . . .' He said, 'I hire you for your looks!' I knew that if I had to work there, I had to have sex with him at least once a day.

"Wherever you go it's like this! I went to a special family court - for divorce - and begged the judge, a clergyman, to give me my child's custody. I told him, 'Please . . . I beg you to give me the custody of my child. I'll be your Kaniz . . . ["Kaniz" means servant. This is a Persian expression which basically means 'I beg you, I am very desperate'.] What do you think the guy said? He said, 'I don't need a servant! I need a woman!' What do you expect of others when the clergyman, the head of the court, says this? I went to the officer to get my divorce signed, instead he said I should not get divorced and instead get married again without divorce, illegally. Because he said without a husband it will be hard to find a job. He was right, but I didn't have money to pay him . . . These things make you age faster . . . you get depressed . . . you have a lot of stress and it damages you. Perhaps there is a means to get out of this . . . "

Moslem was distraught because none of the American networks wanted to buy the film. They didn't want to destabilise Khatami's regime! Moslem himself is a child of the Revolution. Without it he would never have become a film-maker. He comes from a very poor family. His father is a muezzin and his upbringing was ultra-religious. Now he hates religion. He refused to fight in the war against Iraq. He was arrested. This experience transformed him. "The prison was a hard but good experience for me. It was in the prison that I felt I am reaching a stage of intellectual maturity. I was resisting and I enjoyed my sense of strength. I felt that I saved my life from the corrupted world of clergies and this is a price I was paying for it. I was proud of it. After one year in prison, they told me that I would be released on the condition that I sign papers stating that I will participate in Friday sermons and religious activities. I refused to sign. They kept me in the prison for one more year."

Afterwards he took a job on a film magazine as a reporter. "I thought my work in the media would serve as a cover for my own projects, which were to document the hideous crimes of the political regime itself. I knew that I would not be able to make the kind of films I really want to make due to the censorship regulations. Any scenario that I would write would have never got the permission of the Islamic censorship office. I knew that my time and energy would get wasted. So I decided to make eight documentaries secretly. I smuggled the footage out of Iran. Due to financial problems I've only been able to finish editing two of my films. One is Close Up, Long Shot and the other is Shamloo, The Poet Of Liberty.

"The first film is about the life of Hossein Sabzian, who was the main character of Abbas Kiarostami's drama-documentary called Close Up. A few years after Kiarostami's film, I went to visit Sabzian. He loves cinema. His wife and children get frustrated with him and finally leave him. Today, he lives in a village on the outskirts of Tehran and has come to the conclusion that his love for cinema has resulted in nothing but misery. In my film he says, 'People like me get destroyed in societies like the one we live in. We can never present ourselves. There are two types of dead: flat and walking. We are the walking dead!'"

We could find stories like this and worse in every Muslim country. There is a big difference between the Muslims of the diaspora - those whose parents migrated to the western lands - and those who still live in the House of Islam. The latter are far more critical because religion is not crucial to their identity. It's taken for granted that they are Muslims. In Europe and North America things are different. Here an official multiculturalism has stressed difference at the expense of all else. Its rise correlates with a decline in radical politics as such.

"Culture" and "religion" are softer, euphemistic substitutes for socioeconomic inequality - as if diversity, rather than hierarchy, were the central issue in North American or European society today. I have spoken to Muslims from the Maghreb (France), from Anatolia (Germany); from Pakistan and Bangladesh (Britain), from everywhere (United States) and a South Asian sprinkling in Scandinavia. Why is it, I often ask myself, that so many are like you? They have become much more orthodox and rigid than the robust and vigorous peasants of Kashmir and the Punjab, whom I used to know so well.

The British prime minister is a great believer in single-faith schools. The American president ends each speech with "God Save America". Osama starts and ends each TV interview by praising Allah. All three have the right to do so, just as I have the right to remain committed to most of the values of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment attacked religion - Christianity, mainly - for two reasons: that it was a set of ideological delusions, and that it was a system of institutional oppression, with immense powers of persecution and intolerance. Why should we abandon either of these legacies today?

I don't want you to misunderstand me. My aversion to religion is by no means confined to Islam alone. And nor do I ignore the role which religious ideologies have played in the past in order to move the world forward. It was the ideological clashes between two rival interpretations of Christianity - the Protestant Reformation versus the Catholic Counter-Reformation - that led to volcanic explosions in Europe. Here was an example of razor-sharp intellectual debates fuelled by theological passions, leading to a civil war, followed by a revolution.

The 16th-century Dutch revolt against Spanish occupation was triggered off by an assault on sacred images in the name of confessional correctness. The introduction of a new prayer book in Scotland was one of the causes of the 17th-century Puritan Revolution in England, the refusal to tolerate Catholicism sparked off its successor in 1688. The intellectual ferment did not cease and a century later the ideas of the Enlightenment stoked the furnaces of revolutionary France. The Church of England and the Vatican now combined to contest the new threat, but ideas of popular sovereignty and republics were too strong to be easily obliterated.

I can almost hear your question. What has all this got to do with us? A great deal, my friend. Western Europe had been fired by theological passions, but these were now being transcended. Modernity was on the horizon. This was a dynamic that the culture and economy of the Ottoman Empire could never mimic. The Sunni-Shia divide had come too soon and congealed into rival dogmas. Dissent had, by this time, been virtually wiped out in Islam. The Sultan, flanked by his religious scholars, ruled a state-Empire that was going to wither away and die.

If this was already the case in the 18th century, how much truer it is today. Perhaps the only way in which Muslims will discover this is through their own experiences, as in Iran. The rise of religion is partially explained by the lack of any other alternative to the universal regime of neoliberalism. Here you will discover that as long as Islamist governments open their countries to global penetration, they will be permitted to do what they want in the sociopolitical realm.

The American Empire used Islam before and it can do so again. Here lies the challenge. We are in desperate need of an Islamic Reformation that sweeps away the crazed conservatism and backwardness of the fundamentalists but, more than that, opens up the world of Islam to new ideas which are seen to be more advanced than what is currently on offer from the west.

This would necessitate a rigid separation of state and mosque; the dissolution of the clergy; the assertion by Muslim intellectuals of their right to interpret the texts that are the collective property of Islamic culture as a whole; the freedom to think freely and rationally and the freedom of imagination. Unless we move in this direction we will be doomed to reliving old battles and thinking not of a richer and humane future, but of how we can move from the present to the past. It is an unacceptable vision. I've let my pen run away with me and preached my heresies for too long. I doubt that I will change, but I hope you will.


[Tariq Ali is an editor of New Left Review and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch where this first appeared and is extracted from his new book The Clash Of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads And Modernity, published by Verso.]

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Pakistan-Iran relationship

'Brothers' in Arms

by Sudha Ramachandran

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC18Df06.html


Pakistan has admitted that the former head of its nuclear weapons program Abdul Qadeer Khan gave Iran centrifuges for enriching uranium. While this is merely confirmation of what the world already knows, it is the first time that Pakistani officials have publicized details of what nuclear materials the scientist passed on to Iran.

But as in the past, the government continues to distance itself from the sale of nuclear technology to Iran and other countries. While admitting Khan's sale of centrifuges to Iran, Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said, "He helped Iran in his personal capacity, and the Pakistan government had nothing to do with it."

Few, however, would accept the veracity of the Pakistan government's claims that it was not aware of/not involved in/did not authorize the sale of nuclear technology. It would have been impossible for Khan to conceal his actions from the government.

Gaurav Kampani, senior research associate at Monterey Institute of International Studies' proliferation research and assessment program, points out Khan "could not have engaged in nuclear transfers for nearly two decades without sanction or tacit acknowledgement from sections or individuals within the Pakistani government".

The military's "tight control over the nuclear weapons program, multiple layers of security surrounding it, the exports of machinery and hardware from Pakistan, as well as rumors, leaks and past warnings about Pakistan's nuclear cooperation with Iran and North Korea by Western intelligence agencies" makes it hard to accept that the military was not aware of the transfer of nuclear technology.

On the face of it, the nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and Iran is not surprising. After all, Pakistan had the nuclear technology and was willing to put it on sale. And Iran had the money to pay for the technology. Both countries have often drawn attention to their "long-standing brotherly relations". Islamabad has often described Iran as a "brother Islamic country" with whom it has "close friendly ties".

Indeed, Pakistan and Iran enjoyed a close relationship up to the late 1970s. They were on the same side during the Cold War. Both were close and crucial allies of the US, part of the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). Things soured, however, with the Islamic Revolution and the fall of the Shah in Iran in 1979.

A close examination of Iran-Pakistan relations reveals differences and many difficulties. Both might be Islamic nations, but Pakistan is Sunni-dominated, while Iran is overwhelmingly Shi'ite. This difference would assume critical importance in their bilateral relations with the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Relations between the Pakistan's military dictator General Zia ul-Haq and Iran's new rulers were poor right from the start. Iran's rulers viewed Zia with deep suspicion. How could they forget the fact that the general had traveled to Iran in 1977-78 to shore up the Shah's regime.

What contributed further to the deterioration in Pakistan-Iran relations was Zia's Islamization initiative that was set in motion in 1979. This drive claimed to have a universal Islamic vision. In reality it was based on a narrow Sunni interpretation of Islamic theology and law. It was therefore unacceptable to Iran's Shi'ite clerics. As Zia's government pressed ahead with its sectarian agenda – it took a series of measures that gave a fillip to Sunni extremism, even encouraging the setting up of Sunni militant organizations –the Iranian government pushed ahead with exporting Shi'ite extremism, encouraging and arming Shi'ite extremism to counter Sunni militancy in Pakistan.

In the process, Pakistan became an important battleground between Sunni and Shi'ite forces in the region. This had serious impact on Iran-Pakistan relations. The impact of this backing of Shi'ite and Sunni extremism by the Iranian and Pakistani governments is felt to date in the region.

This mutual suspicion would deepen as the crisis in Afghanistan erupted and worsened. Zia's cozying up with the Americans and the way he welcomed the American military presence into Pakistan/Afghanistan and therefore the region was deeply resented by Iran's anti-American rulers. While Iran was uneasy with the proximity of the Americans to its borders, it was just as unhappy with the irreligious Soviets' occupation of Afghanistan.

Iran armed and funded Shi'ite resistance groups throughout the 1980s and maintained links with them after the Soviet withdrawal in late 1989. The rise of the Sunni Taliban in the mid-1990s in Afghanistan triggered great alarm in Iran and Pakistan's role in this development naturally plunged Iran-Pakistan relations further. It simultaneously led to a new warming in India-Iran relations, contributing to heightened suspicion in Pakistan of Teheran's intentions towards Islamabad.

With Iran and India backing the Northern Alliance and coordinating its anti-Taliban strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan's wariness of Iran deepened. In August 1998, Iran was enraged with Pakistan for not preventing the killing of several of its diplomats who were captured by the Taliban in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. It did seem for a while that Iran would even militarily retaliate for the death of its diplomats and that Pakistan would not escape Tehran's wrath.

Post-Taliban, Iran-Pakistan ties seem to have improved. Iran's concerns with regard to Pakistan's backing of the Taliban seem to have been allayed somewhat with the Pakistani government reversing its earlier policy of support to the Taliban. Tehran and Islamabad have taken big strides with regard to a proposed pipeline from Iran's oilfields through Pakistan to India and the two have recently agreed to conduct joint naval exercises.

These, however, seem to be incidents of tactical cooperation between Iran and Pakistan. Mutual suspicion persists. Tehran blames Pakistan for the American presence in Afghanistan and Central Asia. It suspects Pakistan of cooperating with the US against Iran.

Pakistan suspects an Iranian hand in the turmoil in Balochistan. It believes that Iran is wary of the emergence of Gwadar port as a serious competitor to the strategic significance to the Iranian port city of Chabahar. And it is wary of Iran's warming ties with its number one enemy, India.

For all their claims of "brotherly ties", therefore, Iran and Pakistan have been deeply suspicious of each other for decades. It is therefore difficult to understand the nuclear cooperation between these two bitter rivals. It does seem that while they were on the one hand busy arming rival militias, they were also holding hands - albeit clandestinely - on the nuclear issue.

Pakistan and the US courtship alarmed Iran. But that did not prevent Tehran and Islamabad from exploring forbidden interaction with regard to transfer on nuclear technology.

Sources in India's Ministry of External Affairs point out that while the Pakistan-Iran clandestine dealings stretch over two decades, the height of the engagement on the nuclear issue took place between 1989 and 1995. With the Soviets leaving Afghanistan in 1989, Washington's use for Pakistan waned and the ardor of Pakistan's ties with the US had declined. While the Taliban emerged in 1994, its true face and the extent of the threat it posed to the region became apparent only by 1995-96.

Despite their intense bilateral differences from 1979 onwards, Pakistan and Iran were more than willing to engage on nuclear issues in the relatively tension-free 1989-95 period. Both stood to gain from the deals. Pakistan's military made much money from the transfer of technology. It also quietly got back at the US for having used it in Afghanistan and then neglected it thereafter. Iran's rulers gained access to technology for which they were desperate.

The Pakistan-Iran nuclear cooperation saga underscores that countries have neither permanent friends nor enemies; only permanent interests. In the murky world of nuclear proliferation, it does not matter who you purchase from or who you sell your technology to.

Despite their deep differences, the individual interests of Iran and Pakistan saw them come together on the question of nuclear technology. Pakistan was willing to sell nuclear technology to Iran, a country whose intentions it did not trust. And Iran purchased the technology from someone it did not really regard as a friend.


[Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in Bangalore.]

[Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.]

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Nepal Insurgency

US Jittery Over Nepal

by Ramtanu Maitra

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC16Df01.html


The developments in Nepal since February 1, when King Gyanendra seized dictatorial powers in an effort to quell a Maoist insurgency, have put the foreign policy machinery in Washington into high gear. On March 2, in a statement before the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Donald Camp told legislators, "I want to assure you and the committee that the administration is deeply engaged in helping to resolve the current crisis in Nepal. President [George W] Bush's declaration of the United States's support for freedom around the world very much extends to Nepal."

The pressure is on New Delhi to bring the Nepali king to heel, and is expected to mount further when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits India for a day on March 16. Announcing her visit, which was set up on short notice, an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said March 4 that the discussions between Rice and Indian authorities would include Nepal.

The ball has also started rolling in Kathmandu. Nepali Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey held talks with Indian leaders during his "working visit" which began March 7, the first high-level trip to India after King Gyanendra's takeover of power, it was announced. "Pandey is paying a working visit to India and the current political situation of Nepal will naturally dominate the bilateral talks in Delhi," Nepal's Foreign Secretary Madhuraman Acharya, who is accompanying Pandey, said.


Shared concerns

In New Delhi, External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh told news reporters on March 6 that "the developments in Nepal constitute a serious setback to democracy and bring the monarchy and mainstream political parties in direct confrontation with each other".

"In view of the current disturbed conditions in Nepal, the question of military supplies to Nepal is under constant review," Singh added. "India is concerned that a further deterioration of the situation in Nepal will result in spill-over effects across the open border, particularly in the neighboring states. We have taken steps to strengthen security in border areas."

New Delhi's concerns about the suppression of democracy and the deterioration of the security situation along the India-Nepal border echo Washington's concerns. In his testimony to American lawmakers, Camp stated, "We are concerned about abuses and atrocities by Maoists and human rights abuses by government security forces including extra-judicial killings and 'disappearances'. We continue to vet units receiving US assistance to ensure that none is implicated in human rights violations. An amendment to the FY 2005 Senate Appropriations bill stipulated that Foreign Military financing could be made available to Nepal if the secretary of state determined that Nepal was taking a number of steps to improve the human rights practices of the security forces. We have made it clear to the government of Nepal that we expect to see appropriate, timely and transparent investigations of any credible allegations of abuse and that failure to do so could jeopardize our ability to continue assistance. We will continue to convey our strong concern about human rights violations by the security forces to the highest levels of the Nepal government and urge swift investigation and punishment."

Within hours of King Gyanendra's dramatic move, New Delhi sent a clear message concerning the abolition of constitutional fundamental rights and the suspension of the democratic system in Nepal. India's call for the restoration of democracy may not be viewed seriously by the Nepali king - or by the international community, for that matter, as Delhi has never been a stickler for democracy in other countries - but the fact remains that it was New Delhi who played the key role in helping bring down the absolute monarchy in Kathmandu in 1990 and establish a parliamentary democracy in Nepal in the first place. The latest reports indicate that India has stopped arms shipments to the Nepali king.


A complex coup

The "royal coup" has triggered a torrent of confusion, and raised many questions. What or who led the king down this turbulent path? Does he know how to avoid falling into the snake pits strewn across the garden path? Who should he trust?

Analysts point out that the real intent of King Gyanendra was never a secret. On that fateful Friday night, June 1, 2001, in Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu, when the then-Crown Prince Dipendra reportedly wiped out almost his entire family and then took his own life, Prince Gyanendra became King Gyanendra. Soon after taking over, in a rare press interview, King Gyanendra said that unlike his brother, the murdered King Birendra, he would not be an onlooker and allow the growth of violent Maoists.

New Delhi, of course, did not like the Friday night massacre, but quietly liked the new king's determination to eliminate the Maoists. After all, India's Maoists were gaining ground and it is hardly in New Delhi's interest to see Kathmandu soft-pedaling a Maoist movement along its border. In fact, when the Indian ambassador to Nepal, Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, who was withdrawn in the wake of the king's takeover but returned to Kathmandu on February 20, met Royal Nepali Army (RNA) chief General Pyar Jung Thapa in his Kathmandu headquarters soon after the royal takeover, Thapa hinted at invoking the 1950 India-Nepal Friendship Treaty to seek Indian troops to deal with the Maoist insurgency.

Officials say New Delhi was immediately divided on the request: Natwar Singh insisted that no assistance be given, while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urged a gentle, more measured response, in view of the Royal Nepal Army's extraordinary past contribution in working in tandem with the Indian army. The Indian position, as it was eventually communicated, was that India could not deny troops if asked.

Indeed, neither India nor the US or the United Kingdom would like to see the Maoists gaining ground in Nepal. If Gyanendra's purpose is to go after the Maoists, none of these countries would be expected to protest.


The China factor

But there are wheels within wheels. To begin with, some analysts in New Delhi claim the February 1 coup by King Gyanendra had the blessings of Beijing. These analysts point to the fact that Gyanendra forced the Nepali cabinet to shut down the Tibetan cultural center affiliated to the Dalai Lama following the Christmas weekend visit to Hong Kong of King Gyanendra's son, Crown Prince Paras, and the fact that the coup itself took place after his second trip to Hong Kong in January. The same analysts cite another reason for believing King Gyanendra got some vocal support from China: namely, the king's decision to open the Lhasa-Kathmandu Road. This road had been built but never opened. New Delhi thought it had a say on this matter; but the king clearly thought otherwise.

These two "events" preceding the coup gave the impression to the US and the UK that China was meddling in Nepal's affairs. This was particularly upsetting for these two Western powers and to India as well, because the Nepali king was getting arms and weapons from all three for his army.

The UK, the US and several European countries have already expressed reservations about continued arms assistance to Nepal. This raises a possibility that the king may turn toward China. China does not seem to share the concerns of the other neighbors for a situation it deems to be Nepal's internal affair.

What troubles New Delhi even more is the response of Islamabad to the coup. Islamabad summarily dismissed the fretting of New Delhi, Washington and London by calling the coup the "internal affair" of Nepal. New Delhi cannot forget that during a visit to Kathmandu last June, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz offered to sell defense equipment to Nepal and was also ready to provide financial assistance in this regard. He said on that occasion that Pakistan was willing to offer military aid to support defense and security cooperation.

What New Delhi notes ruefully is that Pakistan never really condemned the Maoist movement within Nepal. China, by contrast, was always categorical in condemning the Nepali Maoists and supporting the royalty. Following a mid-June trip to Beijing last year, Nepali General Pyar Jung Thapa revealed to state radio and television that China would step up "security cooperation" with Nepal. This will improve Kathmandu's ability to militarily counter the anti-monarchy insurgency that started in 1996, Thapa said. In Beijing for a week, Thapa held talks with top military officials such as Defense Minister General Cao Gangchuan and General Liang Guanglie, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army. Neither side has revealed the extent of China's military assistance to Nepal.


US aid to Nepal

"King Gyanendra himself is reported to favor moving toward a closer relationship with China, and has recently conducted a high profile trip to [China]," said US legislators Frank Wolf and Mark Udall in a letter to colleagues criticizing the harassment of Tibetans in Nepal.

But beyond the China and Pakistan factors, India and others feel betrayed by the king. The US has also become a major provider of military assistance to Nepal, allocating over US$29 million in grants to pay for US weapons, services and training from October 2001 to October 2004.

US military assistance to Nepal increased dramatically after 2001: in mid-2001, Washington anticipated spending some $225,000 the following fiscal year (October 2001-September 2002) on the military training of Nepalese troops and did not plan to provide any financing (via grants and loans) for military purchases by Nepal. After September 11, $20 million was added in a supplemental allocation. In fiscal 2003, Nepal received $3.15 million from the Foreign Military Funding program and $500,000 under another program. For fiscal 2004, the Bush administration asked Congress for $10.6 million financing.

The US had allocated $45 million in aid for Nepal in the year to September 2004, 10% of which was reportedly for security. For fiscal 2005, $44 million has been set aside with only one third for security-related activities.

Following the royal coup, US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca went to consult with European allies on Nepal, among other issues. Washington has a series of military arrangements with countries bordering China, stretching from its new bases in the Central Asian republics through Southeast Asia to its formal allies in northeast Asia: Japan and South Korea. The Bush administration sees the Nepal insurgency as another "domino" in its international "war on terrorism", arguing that the country could become a "failed state" and hence a haven for terrorists.

It is not unlikely that Washington will exercise its oft-used weapon of sanctions against Kathmandu. Some time ago, it was reported that the US was threatening to raise the issue of human rights in Nepal in the United Nations and other world forums. Nepal was threatened with expulsion from the UN, the World Trade Organization, and so on. According to Indian intelligence, Nepal has approached China to veto any such threat. US ambassador to Nepal James Moriarty, who was recalled to the US for consultations in the wake of the royal coup but has since returned, recently hinted to the media that the US, India, the European Union and others who have been supporting Nepal's government will be looking for action soon if the country is to avoid punitive action, including aid cutbacks.




[Ramtanu Maitra writes for a number of international journals and is a regular contributor to the Washington-based EIR and the New Delhi-based Indian Defence Review. He also writes for Aakrosh, India's defense-tied quarterly journal.]

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Bangladesh: Fundamentalism

Goons or Terrorists? Bangladesh Decides

by B Raman [from Asia Times]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC10Df04.html


Terrorists in Bangladeshi territory? Yes, of course. But al-Qaeda in Bangladesh? No, definitely not.

That is the latest position of the government of Khaleda Zia, the Bangladeshi prime minister, in the face of growing international pressure spearheaded by member countries of the European Union to act against terrorist groups operating from Bangladeshi territory.

The government banned, under international pressure, the Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB), which also operates under the name of the Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), on February 23, and arrested some of its leaders and cadres, but not the most important - Moulana Abdur Rahman, a former activist of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), which is a member of Zia's ruling coalition, and who is now the amir of the banned organization, and Siddiqur Rahman, also known as Bangla Bhai (Bangla brother), its operational chief.

Until February 23, the government denied the very existence of these organizations and of Bangla Bhai, who used to be described by it as a figment of the media's imagination. Faced with the threat of aid curtailment from the EU, the government has now been forced to admit that these organizations and Bangla Bhai exist and were creating a state of anarchy in Bangladesh. However, its action has been half-hearted and does not seem to be due to its conviction on the need to put a stop to the use of its territory by all terrorist organizations - domestic or international - and to closely monitor the functioning of the large number of Saudi and Kuwaiti-funded madrassas and international Islamic universities which have come up in its territory to spread Wahhabism among the Muslims of Bangladesh and Southeast Asia.

While the government now admits that some of the activities of the banned organizations, such as acts of violence directed against non-Muslims and secular-minded Muslims, amounted to terrorism, it is trying to avoid blaming them for acts of political terrorism directed against the leaders and cadres of the opposition parties, such as their repeated attempts to kill Sheikh Hassina, former prime minister, and the recent assassination of Shah M S Kibria, a former finance minister, who was a close personal friend of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It was reportedly Kibria's assassination that set off alarm bells in New Delhi and contributed to the decision of Singh to postpone his visit to Dhaka to attend a regional summit.

After having initially described the arrested leaders and cadres as terrorists, the government is now trying to play down the gravity of their past acts of terrorism. At the same time, it continues to deny, as it was doing before February 23, that survivors of al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front (IIF) have been given sanctuary in Bangladeshi territory; or that an organization called the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), which is a member of Osama bin Laden's IIF, has been active in Bangladesh and training recruits from the Arakan area of Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries or that the local madrassas and international Islamic universities have become the breeding ground of jihadi terrorism.

The Bangladesh branch of the HUJI of Pakistan has been active since the 1990s, and one of its leaders signed bin Laden's fatwa of 1998 calling for attacks against the US and Israel. The annual reports titled "Patterns of Global Terrorism" of the US State Department have repeatedly referred to the activities of the HUJI from Bangladeshi territory. Even its latest report, submitted to US Congress last April 29, says as follows:

Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami, Bangladesh (HUJI-B) (Movement of Islamic Holy War). Description: The mission of HUJI-B, led by Shauqat Osman, is to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh. HUJI-B has connections to the Pakistani militant groups Harakat ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI) and Harakat ul-Mujahideen (HUM), who advocate similar objectives in Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. Activities: HUJI-B was accused of stabbing a senior Bangladeshi journalist in November 2000 for making a documentary on the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. HUJI-B was suspected in the assassination attempt in July 2000 of Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina. Strength: HUJI-B has an estimated cadre strength of more than several thousand members. Location/area of operation: Operates and trains members in Bangladesh, where it maintains at least six camps. External aid: Funding of the HUJI-B comes primarily from madrassas in Bangladesh. The group also has ties to militants in Pakistan that may provide another funding source.

Since September 11, 2001, there have been persistent reports from secret as well as open (the United States' Time magazine and the Far Eastern Economic Review, for example) sources that at least 200, if not more, survivors of al-Qaeda and other components of the IIF, many of them originating from Southeast Asia, have shifted to Bangladesh and have been given sanctuaries there by the HUJI-B and other jihadi terrorist organizations.

There have also been reports that due to the increased monitoring of the activities of Pakistani madrassas by US intelligence, recruits from Southeast Asia are now being taken to the madrassas in Bangladesh for religious education and training.

On December 10, 2003, a Canadian media organization disseminated edited extracts of a report on the internal security situation in Bangladesh, prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which it had obtained under the Access to Information Act. The extracts as disseminated by it said that the government of Bangladesh was not doing enough to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamic terrorists in South Asia and expressed its concern over the activities of extremists suspected to be connected to al-Qaeda. It said the government of Bangladesh was unwilling to crack down on terrorism and referred to the likelihood of dangers to Canadian aid agencies in Bangladesh. In a statement issued on December 11, 2003, the Bangladesh Foreign Office strongly denied the contents of the CSIS report. It said, "The contents of the report are far from the reality on the ground. The government remains firmly committed to combating terrorism. Some quarters are bent on tarnishing the peaceful image of Bangladesh."

In a separate statement issued in the Canadian capital the same day, Bangladesh's high commissioner in Ottawa, Mohsin Ali Khan, denied that his country had become a terrorist haven and asserted that his government was very "conscious of its responsibility to protect its citizens. We condemn terrorism in any country, in any form, in any place. Bangladesh is against any terrorist attack and it will not allow its soil to be used by any terrorist group."

This position was reiterated by Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Morshed Khan in a statement issued on February 26. He said, "There may be some local goons, working in the name of religion, who are being hunted down. There is a difference between international terrorists and local goons.There are no international terrorists in the country."

An oft-reiterated contention of the Bangladeshi authorities is that if there were al-Qaeda or pro-al-Qaeda terrorists in Bangladesh territory, by now they would have been involved in some act of international terrorism somewhere or the other. According to them, the fact that there have been no instances of the involvement of terrorists based in Bangladesh in any act of international terrorism showed that there were no international terrorists based in its territory.

It needs to be recalled that the Pakistani authorities used to take up a similar position and deny the presence of pro-al-Qaeda international terrorists in their territory. The investigation into the explosions near the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in August 1998 showed that some of the perpetrators had gone from Pakistan or Afghanistan. This weakened Pakistan's denials. The international community ultimately found after September 11, 2001, that the planning for these strikes in the US had been made from Karachi and other places in Pakistan by terrorist elements such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, whose presence and activities in Pakistani territory Islamabad used to deny.


B Raman is additional secretary (retired), cabinet secretariat, government of India, and currently director, Institute for Topical Studies, Chennai, and distinguished fellow and convener, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai Chapter.

E-mail: itschen36@gmail.com. (Copyright B Raman, 2005)

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Lebanon-Syria Crisis

Hezbollah Enters the Fray

by Ashraf Fahim

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GC10Ak02.html

In typically dramatic fashion, Hezbollah, Lebanon's most important political faction, ended weeks of silence on the anti-Syrian demonstrations that have gripped the country since the Valentine's Day assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri with a massive demonstration on Tuesday to show support for Syria and opposition to US interference.

"We are united here to above all thank Syria, the Syrian people and the Syrian army, which has stayed by our side for many long years and is still with us," said Hezbollah's popular secretary general, Hasan Nasrullah, to a sea of about 500,000 demonstrators, far more than have attended opposition rallies.

The demonstration was organized by the Shi'ite militia-cum-political party that represents Lebanon's largest denominational community. Held in Riad al-Solh square, it may not have projected quite the elan of the so-called "Cedar Revolution", but the sheer numbers suggest the international community has misjudged the balance of opinion, and power, in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is a crucial link in the ongoing confrontation between the US and Syria that has come to a head since Hariri's dramatic assassination. By entering the fray so forcefully, Hezbollah has simply acknowledged its own central role in the drama that was spinning out of control around it.

Though the focus of international attention has been on demands for Syria to withdraw its long-standing troop presence from Lebanon, an ancillary demand, pushed by the United States and Israel, has been for the disbandment of Hezbollah's military wing - the Islamic Resistance. That demand is implicit in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which Hezbollah has rejected as "foreign interference" in Lebanon's affairs, in favor of the Taif Accord of 1989 that ended Lebanon's civil war.

America's and Israel's insistence on Hezbollah's disbandment - Europe has been more cautious - would appear to be out of step with the domestic opinion in Lebanon that the administration of US President George W Bush claims to support. While the US State Department has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization (and is pressuring the European Union to do likewise), the group's role in successfully driving Israel out of South Lebanon in 2000 has given it enormous prestige in Lebanon and the Arab world. Few Lebanese, even in the opposition, seem eager to see it disarm, especially with Israel still considered a threat.



Why Hezbollah?

Hezbollah is a target for a number of reasons. Its symbolism as an anti-Western and militarily successful resistance organization means it has a negative impact on public opinion in the Middle East vis-a-vis the US, and an inspirational effect on other militant organizations.

And as a prestigious ally and proxy to Syria and Iran, Hezbollah complicates America's regional goals. President Bush may have had this nexus in mind when he said on Monday, "The time has come for Syria and Iran to stop using murder as a tool of policy, and to end all support for terrorism." As a symbol of defiance, Hezbollah also has the potential to disrupt Washington's plans for the region's political evolution, as well as the Arab-Israeli "peace process", and even US stewardship of Iraq, given Hezbollah's kinship with Iraq's new Shi'ite power brokers.

Hariri's assassination and the quick response from the Lebanese opposition and Washington created the initial impression of a spontaneous crisis between Washington and Syria and, by extension, Hezbollah. But the current confrontation began in the 1980s and has boiled over at various times since the Bush administration came to office.

Likewise, many of the media have portrayed the visit of Syrian Prime Minister Naji al-Otari to Tehran shortly after the assassination as the blossoming of a new, anti-American alliance. In fact, the Syrian-Iranian alliance goes back to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, and ever since Syria and Iran have nurtured Hezbollah, with Syria offering protection, and Iran arms and training.

So the board was already set when Hariri was assassinated; it's only the pace of the game that has quickened. And though it only has a minor role in this wider regional confrontation, Hezbollah's spectacular cameos have drawn ire in the West and infamy in the East.



The Hezbollah 'bogeyman'

The ubiquitous description in US press reports about the militant group is that "it has killed more Americans than any other group other than al-Qaeda". Hezbollah became synonymous with terrorism in the US lexicon in October 1983, when a suicide bomber (from a group that the US claims later morphed into Hezbollah) crashed into the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, killing 241 US servicemen. Other attacks in Lebanon were also pinned on Hezbollah, and many American analysts would later credit the United States' withdrawal from Lebanon with emboldening al-Qaeda. The US grievance against Hezbollah is, in some ways, an old-fashioned blood feud.

Israel's vendetta against Hezbollah relates to the fact that the group, as it often states, delivered "the first Arab victory in the history of Arab-Israeli conflict". In addition to the toll in blood - Israel lost 900 soldiers in Lebanon - many Israeli generals blame Hezbollah, and Israeli premier Ehud Barak's decision to withdraw, for inspiring the al-Aqsa intifada. Hezbollah's steadfast anti-Zionism is also cloying to the Israeli government, though Hezbollah emphasizes that it will not interfere in the Palestinians' decision to reach a settlement - something Nasrullah calls a "Palestinian matter". The conflict with Israel endures primarily because Hezbollah and Syria claim the Shebaa farms region in South Lebanon as Lebanese territory (the UN does not).

Hezbollah, of course, has a longer list of grievances, and a deeper body count, than its adversaries. The group was founded, with help from revolutionary Iran, as a result of the 1982 Israeli invasion that killed up to 19,000 Lebanese, largely Shi'ites in the south. There are also personal grievances - the US Central Intelligence Agency allegedly attempted to assassinate one of Hezbollah's spiritual inspirations, Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, in 1985, missing him but killing 80 others. Nasrullah's 18-year-old son Hadi was also killed fighting the Israeli occupation.

The Bush administration, for its part, has made no secret of its desire to settle accounts. When he was deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage famously said, "Hezbollah may be the 'A' team of terrorists and maybe al-Qaeda is actually the 'B' team. And they're on the list and their time will come." With Hariri's assassination, the administration evidently believes that the time has indeed come.

Few argue, however, that Hezbollah currently targets Americans. In the 1990s, US intelligence and Israel blamed Hezbollah for attacking Jewish and Israeli targets in South America. Some have also accused it of bombing the Khobar Towers military base in Saudi Arabia in 1996. But Hezbollah was quick to condemn the attacks of September 11, 2001, and Israeli attempts to link it to al-Qaeda have failed.

The focus is instead on capacity. Critics argue that as a conduit for Syria and Iran, and as an anti-American group with "global reach", it has the potential to be supplied with weapons of mass destruction, which it could disseminate or use against US interests. A 2004 study by the influential Rand Corp used precisely that logic to name Hezbollah as one of the three most serious threats faced by the US. Hezbollah thus falls within the Bush administration's "preemptive" threat doctrine, and it will be a test of the relevance of that doctrine as to whether it is applied to Hezbollah.



A coordinated campaign

It is hardly a secret that the US and Israel have coordinated their campaign against Syria and Hezbollah. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told the Knesset (parliament) on February 23, "Giving back Lebanon's sovereignty to the Lebanese depends on the dismantling of Hezbollah. Israel is acting towards the realization of this vital objective in a worldwide political campaign." Shalom added, "In coordination with the US we are especially pressuring the EU countries into placing Hezbollah on to the list of terrorists."

Israel's endeavors in this regard have focused on blaming Hezbollah for terrorist acts carried out against Israel by Palestinian groups, such as the February 25 suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. In fact, Sharon has claimed, Hezbollah is responsible for "80% of attacks on Israel". The Bush administration has taken up the charge that Hezbollah is trying to undermine the Palestinian Authority's new president, Mahmoud Abbas. After looking over Israeli-supplied intelligence, acting assistant secretary of state David Satterfield railed against "Hezbollah's active engagement in acts of violence and terror directed against Israelis", and said, "They need to stop and to stop immediately."

The US campaign against Hezbollah has been primarily focused on the group's fundraising and media efforts. The US Justice Department has spent considerable time and resources pursuing Hezbollah "cells" in the US. None have been actively involved in military affairs, but a great deal of attention was given to a group in North Carolina in 2003 convicted of operating a cigarette-smuggling cartel that funneled funds to Hezbollah. A new book on the subject, Lightning out of Lebanon: Terrorist Cells on American Soil, was serendipitously published this month by Barbara Newman of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

The FDD is one of a string of right-wing, pro-Israel policy groups that form the backbone of the campaign against Hezbollah. As Adam Shatz wrote in the New York Review of Books, "Dick Cheney's new adviser on Syrian policy, David Wurmser, a pro-Likud ideologue, is an open advocate of preemptive war against Syria and Hezbollah, a position favored by neo-conservatives in and close to the Bush administration, such as Douglas Feith, John Bolton and Richard Perle."

The White House's broader strategy has been to try to get the international community to replicate the legal measures the US has taken against Hezbollah. On his first post-election trip to Europe in mid-February, Bush put intense pressure on the EU to list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. A congressional resolution (H RES 101), introduced on February 15, also urges the EU to ban Hezbollah. Such a move would isolate Hezbollah politically, and prevent it from raising funds in Europe through charities. So far the US hasn't succeeded, largely because of French resistance - for which France earned the fearful moniker of "pro-Arab" from the displeased Israeli premier, Ariel Sharon.

Efforts to shut down Hezbollah's highly successful TV station, al-Manar (The Beacon), which claims 10 million to 15 million viewers, have had more success. That campaign has been led in the US by right-wing groups such as the Coalition Against Terrorist Media. The US State Department put al-Manar on the Terrorism Exclusion List on December 17, in effect preventing it from broadcasting in the US, and it was recently banned in France, largely because of the screening of an undeniably anti-Semitic Egyptian miniseries.



Enter Nasrullah

The problem faced by the US and Israel at the moment is one of overreach. With its demonstration on Tuesday, Hezbollah has put paid to the idea that the Lebanese are united in their opposition to Syria or in favor of disarming the Shi'ite militia. And as an integral part of the Lebanese political process, Hezbollah will have considerable pull in the formation of any future government.

Had the US focused exclusively on a Syrian withdrawal, it might be in a more tenable position. Nasrullah has emphasized that Hezbollah supports a Syrian pullout, but only under the Taif Accord - an Arab agreement - rather than Resolution 1559. It is precisely the anti-Hezbollah provisions of 1559 that alienate many Lebanese, who see those provisions as intended to benefit Israel.

While Hezbollah has a surprisingly moderate domestic political platform - one observer called it "almost social democratic" - the rub so far as Washington is concerned lies in its external policy, particularly on the "peace process". Rumors in the press that the Lebanese opposition has been in talks with the Israeli government have been seized on by Nasrullah, who has said that the group would not agree to negotiations, even if the Lebanese government did. Its Syrian patron's long-standing policy is that Lebanon and Syria must negotiate an agreement with Israel together because of Israel's strategic superiority.

It will not be easy for the US to sideline Hezbollah. Regionally, the group has close religious ties to Iraq's new Shi'ite-dominated government, which makes threatening it risky - Nasrullah studied in Najaf with many of the Da'wa Party's clerics, whose candidate (Ibrahim Jaafari ) may become Iraq's next prime minister. In addition, popular Arab support makes tackling Hezbollah difficult. And though Syria appears weak at the moment, its support, and the support of Iran, still makes Hezbollah a potent military force.

With deep popular support, and having driven out the US and the Israelis in turn from Lebanon, Hezbollah is understandably defiant. On Tuesday, addressing the possibility of a US intervention, Nasrullah told the half-million supporters gathered in central Beirut, "We have defeated them in the past, and if they come again we will defeat them again."
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[ Ashraf Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern affairs based in New York and London. His writing can be found at www.storminateacup.org.uk. ]