Desperately Seeking A Future

Indian Express, April 30, 2003

Pakistan’s latest experiment in ‘‘controlled democracy’’ appears to be faltering within a few months of parliamentary elections and the nomination of a Prime Minister.
The country’s military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, does not want parliament to vote on the Legal Framework Order (LFO), the decree that he used to amend the country’s constitution. The opposition parties in parliament, religious as well as secular, argue that it is parliament’s privilege to examine the arbitrary amendments to Pakistan’s basic law.

When the country’s last military ruler, General Zia ul Haq, allowed a phased return to democracy after several years of direct military rule, he too had allowed the new parliament to vote on constitutional amendments proposed by him. By refusing to allow debate on the LFO, General Musharraf is failing to adhere even to that precedent set by one of his military predecessors.

For now, Musharraf and the Pakistani military have things under their control. But the deadlock in parliament does not allow them to pass off their regime as a democracy. The air of political crisis, even if it is not sufficient to erode the General’s power, creates the kind of uncertainty that frightens off investment.

Above all, it does not allow Pakistan to function as a ‘‘normal’’ country. As it is, in today’s world, military rule is an anachronism. Pakistan stands in the dubious company of Burma as a country where the military chief, in uniform, is also head of the state. While Pakistan is admittedly not as repressive as Burma, it cannot take pride in the similarity of its system of governance with that international pariah.

Over the years, Pakistan has become a state that stands only on one pillar — that of the executive branch of government represented by the military and the intelligence services. The judiciary has lost its standing by repeatedly endorsing extra-constitutional interventions. Even now, General Musharraf claims that his authority to amend the constitution derives from a Supreme Court ruling. There is no recognition of the basic logic that the judicature, which has the right to interpret but not to amend the constitution, simply cannot confer a right it does not have itself on someone else.

The military or civilian executive constantly circumscribes the legislature in its functions, if and when the legislature is allowed to exist at all. Political parties operate in the shadow of larger than life figures, slandered, jailed or exiled with alarming frequency.

And then there are the ubiquitous intelligence agencies, hidden from public view but frequently seen pulling the strings in Pakistan’s complex political drama.

Unlike most Arab and Central Asian states, which have never seen democracy, Pakistan has aspired for democratic rule since its inception. Power has alternated between civilian-democratic dispensations and military rulers claiming to control institutional decline, political chaos, and economic disarray.

When General Musharraf took power he promised to restore democracy within three years, after creating institutional checks and balances and introducing reforms that would forever end the alteration of power between authoritarian military rulers and ineffective elected civilians.

Even before he achieved the status of a US ally, General Musharraf had started espousing political ideas that rested on his continuation in office rather than on the effectiveness of institutions such as an independent judiciary or a government truly accountable to parliament.

Now, with international sanctions usually applied to military regimes having been lifted in return for his support in the anti-terrorism effort, his desire to perpetuate his power without real reform has become all too obvious.

Civilians will continue to snipe at a regime lacking legitimacy. International support will depend on General Musharraf’s usefulness in the current war and will dissipate once the military situation changes. Pakistan has been down this road before. Field Marshal Ayub Khan ruled for a decade from 1958-1969, backed by the west for his participation in anti-Communist regional treaties.

General Zia ul Haq presided over the country from 1979 to his death in 1988, benefiting from Pakistan’s role as the frontline state in the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan. Ayub wrote his own constitution while Zia revised the existing constitution to suit him.

Like General Musharraf, they established a one-legged system revolving around them instead of allowing other institutions of state to participate as equals in running the country. All this led to social unrest, corruption and eventual economic stagnation.

All of Pakistan’s military rulers have thought of themselves as saviours of the nation. Instead of changing the constitution or excluding certain leaders from the race, General Musharraf should try to change the way politics is practiced in the country. And he should begin by conceding to parliament the right to vote on constitutional amendments and seeking its endorsement of his ‘‘election’’ as President in last year’s controversial referendum.

Pakistani politicians look upon politics as an arrangement for the distribution of patronage rather than a process of formulating policy. This explains the greed and corruption of some of them. To be able to rob the exchequer themselves, they invite others to share the spoils.

Political loyalties are not secured through commitment to the same programme. They are bought by doling out favours and financial benefits. Tolerance and sharing of power is not a virtue of the Pakistani political class. They try to accumulate more and more power instead of exercising the authority vested in them by law. They victimise their opponents with the intention of eliminating them from politics.

What Pakistan needs to change this is not a General acting, in Musharraf’s words, as ‘‘over-watch’’. It requires a compact among the major politicians and the country’s establishment comprising Generals, judges and civil servants that ensures adherence to democratic ethics. True democracy facilitates peaceful removal from power as well as the prospect of returning to it. Losing office while respecting dissent and accepting the role of national institutions is not so bad as risking everything. Instead of trying to impose reform from above, and creating new polarisation, General Musharraf should try a different approach. He should sit down with major political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, and secure an agreement that they will not pursue vendettas against each other.

There should also be consensus on non-interference with judicial appointments or independence of the judiciary and a commitment that there will be no amendments in Pakistan’s constitution without due process and consensus among members of parliament. In the past, a party with two-thirds majority in parliament managed to push through self-serving constitutional amendments without debate.

During Sharif’s last tenure, two constitutional amendments were rushed through parliament in a record twelve minutes. History shows us that arbitrarily made rules do not bring stability to nations. General Musharraf has allowed Pakistan’s media to remain by and large free and he invokes that as an argument that he is running a democracy. But the truth remains that military rule, even with relative freedom of expression, is not a substitute for full and prper democracy. If General Musharraf wants Pakistan’s future politicians to behave differently from the politicians of the past, he should himself act differently from previous military rulers. After such political consensus, he should allow democracy to take its course. Pakistan’s problem is not that it does not have a good constitution or a good set of laws.

The country’s greatest weakness lies in the fact that the constitution and law are subject to the whims of rulers, who change the rules when these do not suit them.

Indo Pak Talks: It is A Question of Minimum

Indian Express and The Nation (Pakistan), April 23, 2003

Soon after the talk of another round of talks between India and Pakistan surfaced in the media, a senior Pakistani academic in the United States wrote to me, ‘‘Supposing the Indians say to us, okay, let’s talk. What do we intend to say to them that we haven’t already said and which they haven’t brushed aside?’’

In many ways this represents the dilemma of India-Pakistan negotiations. The absence of dialogue causes tension, spiked now with the prospect of nuclear confrontation. But dialogue usually ends with both sides sticking to stated positions, with little scope for a substantive breakthrough.

Negotiations usually involve reconciling maximum demands — what one side says it desires, with its minimal expectation, what it will settle for. Most observers agree that India’s maximum demand is that Pakistan gives up its claim on all of Jammu and Kashmir, and its minimal expectation would probably be that Pakistan accept the status quo without further violence and a de facto partition of Kashmir along the line of Control.

India would like Pakistan to stop ‘‘being a thorn in its side’’. An Indian negotiating team would try to secure more than the minimum and would probably settle for less than the maximum. But in Pakistan’s case, there has never been much discussion of a ‘‘bottom line’’ national position on the Kashmir conflict. Pakistanis feel that they were cheated at the time of partition, when a contiguous Muslim majority state was not allowed to become part of Pakistan. There is a desire that a UN-sponsored plebiscite be held in the Jammu and Kashmir State that ‘‘sets right that original injustice and paves the way for Kashmir’s accession to Pakistan’’.

But that is a maximum position. Attempts at different times to try and define alternatives to that position have all been declared by the country’s establishment as running contrary to the national interest. In the days before a new round of India-Pakistan talks, perhaps there is scope for discussion and debate within Pakistan to define alternative negotiating positions for a future Pakistani negotiating team.

When India and Pakistan tested their nuclear weapons in 1998, some experts expressed the hope that there would be no further wars between them. Nuclear wars served as a deterrent to war between the US and the Soviet Union and it is a widely held view that the prospect of nuclear annihilation creates a ‘‘balance of terror’’ that in turn forces protagonists to talk to each other. India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons but do not have in place any of the other elements of deterrence.

They do not have clearly identified ‘‘red lines’’ the crossing of which would result in a nuclear strike. There are no arms control talks, no detailed doctrines and no hotlines to guard against triggering accidental nuclear clashes. Given the geographic proximity of the two, their reaction time in case of a missile attack is barely a few minutes. And neither side can nuke the other without having to bear some of the fallout.

Deterrence has already failed in part between India and Pakistan since their nuclear tests, the Kargil clash being an example of a non-nuclear conflict between them. Relations between the world’s other nuclear powers have never been characterised by such frequent confrontations. Pakistan’s military-dominated decision-making process has resulted in combinations of short-term military and diplomatic moves without a well-thought out end game.

As pointed out by retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Pakistan’s military adventures have been launched in the ‘‘hope that world powers would come to our rescue, intervene, bring about a cease fire and somehow help us achieve our political objectives. All our past wars with India have been fought for no purpose (and) we have suffered humiliation as a result.’’

Rounds of negotiations have been no different. Pakistan has called for talks but has gone into talks without alternative negotiating positions. The Indians have ended up digging in their heels, making negotiations a zero-sum game as well. A feeling of insecurity against a much larger and hostile neighbour was the original source of Pakistani apprehensions about its nationhood. The emphasis on seeking to ‘‘complete’’ Pakistan by acquiring Kashmir, which in the Pakistani psyche should have been part of Pakistan in the first place, is directly related to this sense of insecurity.

But over the years, structures of conflict have evolved, with the Pakistani establishment as the major beneficiary of maintaining hostility. The possession of nuclear weapons has given the Pakistani elite a sense of invulnerability and has increased its willingness to consider options of unconventional warfare. The environment of the global war against terrorism restrains Pakistani support for Islamic militancy in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

But in the absence of a sustained peace process, and fulfillment of mutual commitments such as those made by Musharraf last year about curbing militancy, there will always be room for new tactics that prolong the conflict and attempt to alter the status quo.

Pakistan’s domestic politics has also become a major factor in its relations with India and vice versa. The Pakistani establishment does not trust the leaders of Pakistan’s two major political parties — Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League. Since the 1999 coup d’etat that brought General Musharraf to power, the military has attempted to rewrite Pakistan’s constitution and restructure its polity — the fourth such attempt in Pakistan’s relatively short history as an independent nation.

The exclusion of Bhutto and Sharif from the political process has benefited the Islamist political parties. Their political power makes it difficult for politicians and intellectuals to advocate a settlement with India. An Islamist leader recently declared publicly that ‘‘killing Hindus’’ was ‘‘the best approach to the 56-year-old dispute between Pakistan and India over Kashmir.’’

The rise of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism in India is feeding the religious frenzy in Pakistan while the political gains of the Pakistani Islamists have empowered India’s religious hardliners. The clash of these rival religious sentiments is hardly conducive to rational discourse aimed at seeking long-term friendship. Still, it would be in India’s interest to help Pakistan gain sufficient confidence as a nation to overcome the need for conflict or regional rivalry for nation-building.

The international community, especially the US, could increase pressure for restoration of civilian rule in Pakistan, paving the way for a constitutionally mandated civilian government to resume the Lahore peace process. In Kashmir, India could start a process of political inclusion that would help identify credible Kashmiri partners in restoring peace. Pakistan would need to back away from its deep involvement with the Kashmiri political opposition to pave the way for an inclusive political process. Dialogue among Kashmiris from both sides of the LoC would also help ease the Kashmir situation.

As things stand, however, there is potential for further Indo-Pak conflict. India believes it can maintain the status quo in J-K with its superior military force while Pakistan continues to bleed India and demand talks without having worked out what it would seek in these talks short of demanding the cession of all of Kashmir.

The two sides need to recognise the difference between isolated rounds of talks and a peace process aimed at creating lasting peace.

Why India Cannot Afford A Preemptive Strike on Pakistan

Indian Express, April 10, 2003

The pre-emptive US war in Iraq is not yet over but its international fallout has already begun. A spat has started between India and Pakistan over whether the doctrine of pre-emption can be extended to South Asia.

First came the assertion by India’s Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha that India had ‘‘a much better case to go for pre-emptive action against Pakistan than the US has in Iraq’’. As if to clarify that pre-emption is not a universal doctrine but merely a tool of policy available to the US, the Bush administration was quick to state that India must not use the pre-emptive war against Iraq as a pretext for an attack on Pakistan.

State Department spokeswoman Joanne Prokopowicz clarified, ‘‘Any attempts to draw parallels between the Iraq and Kashmir situations are wrong and are overwhelmed by the differences between them.’’ This led Sinha to imply that he was not talking so much about an Indian pre-emptive strike against Pakistan as suggesting that the US deal with Pakistan.

He said Pakistan was ‘‘a fit case’’ for US military action, because it had weapons of mass destruction and terrorists.

For its part, Pakistan dismissed the Indian suggestion, telling India to listen to the US and to examine its own violations of UN resolutions. ‘‘India has breached UN Security Council resolutions,’’ said the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman, referring to resolutions from 1948 to 1957 calling for a plebiscite among Kashmiris to choose accession to India or Pakistan.

Indian and Pakistani foreign offices routinely engage each other in wars of words and this could be a routine exchange, were it not for the major changes occurring in the global system. Until the US and Britain decided to launch their invasion of Iraq, the international system worked on the premise of national sovereignty.

Since World War II, punitive or enforcement military action has usually been sanctioned by the UN except when a great power veto forced the majority of nations to bypass the UN. In such cases, a defined cause for war existed or the existence of aggression and genocide necessitated it.

In Iraq, however, not only was the UN bypassed but the need for demonstrating an existing threat was also dispensed with. The US and Britain went to war to change a bad regime. Until now, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq though the Anglo-American forces claim to have virtually taken over the entire country. A precedent has been set for external military intervention for regime change, based on unproven or perceived threats.

But, as the State Department response to Sinha’s first statement affirms, the US considers the doctrine of pre-emption exclusive to its status as a global hyperpower. India can try to please its own people or embarrass Pakistan in that segment of the global media that has time to pay attention to it. But it cannot realistically expect international support for a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan.

America’s ability to do as it pleased in Iraq was largely a function of the tremendous asymmetry in military power between the US and Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s rhetoric notwithstanding, Iraq never had a chance of fighting a US invasion. Irregular Iraqi forces can still make a prolonged occupation difficult but US technological superiority seems to have won the first phase.

In the case of India and Pakistan, the military asymmetry is nowhere comparable to that between the US-British forces and the Iraqis. Pakistan can fight India to a draw despite India’s military modernisation, even if one were to ignore the nuclear aspect. The UN and other international players did not have the opportunity to intervene against a US pre-emptive strike. But an Indian pre-emptive strike will most likely be subject to international condemnation and intervention.

The US can absorb the costs of war and reconstruction in Iraq. The Indian economy is in a take-off stage and is growing at a healthy rate. A simple cost-benefit analysis would make it obvious that it is not in India’s interest to jeopardise its overall stability and well-being to pursue a misadventure against Pakistan.

Sinha’s statements should be seen not merely as threats but as part of India’s effort to continuously increase its international leverage. Pakistan can hold its own militarily against India but it does not like to have to stare down frequent US pressure. Since the Kargil war, India’s ability to secure international support has been its persistent advantage. From India’s point of view, General Pervez Musharraf’s speech of January 12, 2002 outlining a vision of Pakistan without jehadi activism was a triumph of sorts. It amounted to an admission that the acceptable course for Pakistan was different than the one pursued in the past.

With each round of brinkmanship, India seeks more concessions and greater implementation along the lines of Musharraf’s speech.

It would be a terrible mistake on the part of India’s leaders to consider extending the notion of pre-emption to South Asia without recognising the limits . The US would most likely be able to shrug off the embarrassment that might result if it is unable to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But India’s prestige would take a major battering if it fails to find the terrorist camps that it claims to eliminate. And the US can pull out of Iraq, back to the security of its homeland, if popular resentment makes life difficult for its troops but India cannot move out of Pakistan’s neighbourhood in case of prolonged sub-conventional resistance.

Instead of continuing the game of brinkmanship that has characterised India-Pakistan relations over the last several years, it would make more sense for both to acknowledge what it is that bothers the other.

New Delhi is clearly frustrated by what it sees as Pakistan’s failure to deliver on promises such as those made by Musharraf soon after his policy speech of January 12 last year. Pakistan, on the other hand, refuses to be treated with contempt manifested in comparisons with much smaller and weaker military powers.

Both also see the Jammu and Kashmir issue from totally divergent perspectives. If the leadership in both countries was less obsessed with rhetoric, there could be scope for a comprehensive peace process addressing these issues.

How Bush Silenced the Moderate Muslim Voice

Indian Express, April 4, 2003

‘‘Show them no pity. They have stains on their souls.’’

To those familiar with anti-western rhetoric in the Arab and Muslim world, the above might sound like a line out of an Al Qaeda statement. In fact, it comes from the exhortation by a British commander, one Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins to be precise, to his troops in Iraq.

For moderate Muslims who have, for years, argued for reconciliation with the West, the war in Iraq is becoming their worst nightmare. Moderation in the Islamic world might turn out to be the most significant casualty of this war.

Everyday fresh images of destruction of the historic capital of Islam’s caliphs, Baghdad, are beamed into Muslim homes, courtesy a vibrant and increasingly independent Arab media. The emphasis here is on the death and destruction caused by a precision-guided Goliath relentlessly pounding a largely helpless David already debilitated by sanctions.

That the war was not provoked by an immediate casus belli, does not have broad international support and is seen as an American war of choice even by some of its supporters does not help.

Over two weeks into war, the weapons of mass destruction that the US-led coalition went in to eliminate have not been found or seen. There has been no popular uprising by the Iraqi people to support the invading troops. Progress in the march to Baghdad is reportedly good but slow compared to the expectations built by the Bush administration.

To make matters worse, Coalition military sources and their embedded journalist partners have ended up circulating half-truths and outright fabrications, unnecessarily eroding their credibility despite their overwhelming advantages.

The otherwise deceptive and dishonest Iraqi Baathists are looking increasingly like beleaguered defenders under attack, rather than the hated authoritarian regime they actually represent.

British and US 24-hour television news stations remain obsessed with the technological superiority of the Anglo-American Alliance and on repeating claims and rhetoric that fail to take into account historic realities or Muslim sentiments.

In fact, key segments of the Western media have been badly hurt by the impression that they have allowed themselves to be inducted into the psychological operations of the US-British military effort. Claims about the fall of Umm Qasr were broadcast nine times and three days earlier than the port city’s actual subjugation. Stories about the discovery of a chemical weapons facility near Najaf and the surrender of the Iraqi 51st Division turned out to be untrue. The reported fall of Basra to British troops on the third day of the war did not materialises after over a week.

The family of a British soldier alleged to have been executed by the Iraqis denied Prime Minister Blair’s assertion in this regard, saying the Army told them their son had been killed in action. And the British have had to retract their claims about the capture of an Iraqi General after circulating them through the BBC and CNN.

The US networks, in particular, have acted more as cheerleaders for their country’s war-machine than as independent sources of news. There is little interest in reporting on civilian casualties or hardship and there seems to be little desire to guard against being spun by those leading the charge.

Al-Jazeera, which has shown greater professional competence and integrity than the US cable news networks, is being viciously attacked for being an Arab news network as if being Arab was a crime.

Those Muslims who looked up to and hoped to emulate the higher ethics of Western democracies find this partial adoption of the propagandist ways of dictatorships by the free world very disturbing.

Few people in the Muslim world like Saddam Hussein. In fact, most commentators and observers recognise his role in bringing destruction to the Iraqi people. But at the same time, the Bush-Blair war is widely seen as an effort to occupy Iraq, not one to liberate it.

The British and the Americans have not been able to convince many Muslims that their military effort is a humanitarian project. Why else has Britain allocated only £ 210 million out of a war budget of £ 3 billion for humanitarian assistance? The US allocation for humanitarian work is a meagre $ 2.4 billion out of an estimated budget of an approximate $ 75 billion. Surely, after allocating more money to fighting than helping the people, the coalition should not expect its efforts to be seen as anything other than a military conquest.

From the point of view of the Muslim moderates, the Iraq war is polarising the world between a Muslim ‘‘us’’ and a Western ‘‘them’’. It is no longer easy for Muslim modernists to praise the West’s moral purpose when US leaders emphasise their power at the cost of their ideals.

Since the first strike aimed at decapitating Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership, all we have heard from Washington and London is how there is no doubt that their superior military technology will prevail. A post-occupation American governor for Iraq has already been identified.

Some contracts for Iraqi reconstruction have been parceled out among favoured US companies. US and British marines have put in greater effort to secure the Rumailah oil fields than in providing water to thirsty civilians in southern Iraq. Is it surprising then that promises of building an Iraqi democracy and making a new beginning in the Middle East are not being taken seriously by an overwhelming majority in the Arab-Islamic world?

Recent polls show that approval for the US stands at less than ten per cent in almost every Muslim majority country polled. There is, of course, no moral equivalence between the western democracies and a totalitarian regime that used chemical weapons against its own people.

Saddam’s regime represents an anachronistic Stalinist system which disregards human rights and civil liberties. Even at their worst, the US and Britain represent far greater adherence to norms of civility than Iraq’s Baathist regime has done in its entire history.

But the recent conduct of the US towards Muslims and the Muslim world has been a particularly low point for those in the Muslim world who admire the United States as a leader of the free world. Beginning with the televised images of blindfolded prisoners in chains from Guantanamo to the post-9/11 violations of civil liberties of ordinary Muslims in the US and the conduct of the propaganda war in Iraq, the Bush administration has seemed willing to continually lower the moral bar for itself. It is as if Washington is stooping to the same level where it finds its ‘‘enemies’’.

The US has decided to ‘‘shock and awe’’ instead of trying to ‘‘befriend and embrace’’ the world’s one billion Muslims. The underlying assumption, articulated by neo-conservative intellectuals as well as by historian Bernard Lewis is that the Arab-Islamic world has never been receptive to Western idealism while it fears and respects force.

The problem with building an empire through force is that it remains vulnerable to the kind of sniping that terrorist movements represent. The American public has traditionally shown little appetite for empire or for protracted conflict. Moreover, Israel’s experience in the West Bank and Gaza, and Russia’s in Chechnya, disproves the theory that overwhelming force can persuade Arabs and Muslims better.

Instead of marginalising Muslim moderates by setting aside its own ideals in favour of a policy based solely on demonstrations of power, the US should review its relationship with the world of Islam.

There is a long tradition of Muslim leaders looking up to the West. Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, told a peasant who asked him what westernisation meant: ‘‘It means being a better human being.’’ Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah cited the Englishman’s sense of justice and fairplay as the value that bound Muslims with Westerners.

Even the religiously conservative founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdel Aziz, allied himself to the United States because he found God-fearing Americans better than God-less Communists. Seeking out democratic allies in the tradition of these elders would have ensured Muslim friendship for the West more effectively than raining tomahawk missiles on Iraq.

U.S. Risks A Wave of Extremism

International Herald Tribune , April 1, 2003

President George W. Bush says creating a democracy in Iraq will serve as a model for other countries in the region. He has also promised to help create a Palestinian state. But Arabs and Muslims are skeptical about such promises, making it all the more important that both are kept.

Arabs remember that they were promised liberation from Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I, only to be colonized and divided by France and Britain. Arab suspicion of Western motives is deep-rooted and unlikely to be altered by Bush’s declarations of good intent.

American forces occupying Iraq in the hope of reshaping it might find the suspicion and resistance they encounter daunting. Relations between an alien army of occupation and a nation proud of its history and culture are never easy.

The lessons of U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan after World War II apply rather lightly to Iraq. The Germans and the Japanese were not part of any wider fellowship or nation, whereas the Iraqis belong to the 1 billion-strong Muslim global community, in addition to their Arab identity.

Yet failure to build a prosperous democracy in Iraq would be a major blow to U.S. credibility in the Muslim world, from Morocco to Indonesia. America’s claims to moral superiority would come under even more intense challenge.

To avoid such a situation, the United States must hand over power to Iraqis sooner rather than later, helping them rebuild their nation without imposing leaders or ideologies. A democratic Iraq will probably have a strong Islamic and Arab nationalist character. Efforts to dilute Iraq’s Arab or Islamic identity would fulfill the worst fears of conservative Muslims, who suspect that Bush is influenced by fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

Muslims have historically turned to literalism in interpreting religion whenever their co-religionists are humiliated by the military might of non-Muslims. Fundamentalist Muslims would see a prolonged U.S. military occupation of Iraq as a sign that Islam will be completely subjugated by materialist powers for a while, before establishing eventual supremacy in the world.

The fundamentalist Muslim view of history looks upon defeat as an opportunity for religious revival. This perspective originates from the sacking of Baghdad in 1258 by the Mongol horde led by Genghis Khan’s grandson Helugu, which led to a Muslim regrouping under a purist religious banner. Such a view is backed by prophecies about the end of the world attributed to the Prophet Mohammed. It could become a rival ideology against those who believe in America’s manifest destiny.

Fundamentalist thinking could also influence Muslim attitudes towards the war against terrorism as well the war in Iraq. Among the sayings attributed to Mohammed, known as hadith, is this prediction: “An enemy will gather its forces against the followers of Islam. Then, during this war, fierce fighting will occur. Muslims will ask for a volunteer expedition that will vie to die or return victorious.”

Muslim terrorists justify themselves as just such a volunteer group that is vying to die for Islam against America’s large military. They also insist that the United States, with its global reach, is the powerful enemy they have been urged to guard against.

Fundamentalist interpretations may not appeal to the vast majority of Muslims, who want to practice their faith peacefully and without confrontation with other religions. But the invasion of Iraq may well enflame a new cycle of hatred among Muslims that can only benefit religious extremists.

The United States must do all it can to avoid provoking such a upsurge in its treatment of Iraq.

Moderate Muslims First Victims of Shock and Awe

Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2003

“Show them no pity. They have stains on their souls.”

To those familiar with anti-Western rhetoric in the Arab and Muslim world, it might sound like a line out of an Al Qaeda statement. In fact, it comes from the exhortation several days ago by a British commander, one Lt. Col. Tim Collins to be precise, to his troops in Iraq.

For moderate Muslims, who have for years argued for reconciliation with the West, the war in Iraq is becoming their worst nightmare. Moderation in the Islamic world might turn out to be the most significant casualty of this war. Every day fresh images of destruction of the historic capital of Islam’s caliphs, Baghdad, are beamed into Muslim homes courtesy a vibrant and increasingly independent Arab media. The emphasis here is on the death and destruction caused by a precision-guided Goliath relentlessly pounding a largely helpless David already debilitated by sanctions. That the war was not provoked by an immediate casus belli, does not have broad international support and is seen as an American war of choice even by some of its supporters does not help.

From the point of view of moderate Muslims, the Iraq war is polarizing the world between a Muslim “us” and a Western “them.” It is no longer easy for Muslim modernizers to praise the West’s moral purpose when U.S. and British leaders emphasize their power at the cost of their ideals.

Since the first strike aimed at decapitating Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership, all we have heard from Washington and London is how there is no doubt that their superior military technology will prevail. A post-occupation American governor for Iraq has already been identified. Some contracts for Iraqi reconstruction have been parceled out among favored U.S. companies. U.S. and British marines have put in greater effort to secure the Rumaila oil fields than have been put into providing water to thirsty civilians in southern Iraq. Is it surprising, then, that promises of building an Iraqi democracy and making a new beginning in the Middle East are not being taken seriously by an overwhelming majority in the Arab-Islamic world? Recent polls show that approval for the U.S. stands at less than 10 percent in almost every Muslim majority country polled.

More than 10 days into war, the weapons of mass destruction that the U.S.-led coalition went in to eliminate have not been found or seen. There has been no popular uprising by the Iraqi people to support the invading troops. Progress in the march to Baghdad is reportedly good, but it is slow relative to expectations built by the Bush administration. To make matters worse, coalition military sources and their embedded journalist partners have ended up circulating half-truths and outright fabrications (such as the reported fall of Basra and the capture of an Iraqi general), unnecessarily eroding their credibility despite their overwhelming advantages. The otherwise deceptive and dishonest Iraqi Baathists are looking increasingly like beleaguered defenders under attack rather than the hated authoritarian regime they actually represent.

Those Muslims who looked up to and hoped to emulate the higher ethics of Western democracies find this obsession with power very disturbing. Few people in the Muslim world like Saddam Hussein. In fact, most commentators and observers recognize his role in bringing destruction to the Iraqi people. But at the same time, the present war is still widely seen as an effort to occupy Iraq, not one to liberate it. There is, of course, no moral equivalence between the Western democracies and a totalitarian regime that once used chemical weapons against its own people. Saddam Hussein’s regime represents an anachronistic Stalinist system that disregards human rights and civil liberties. Even at their worst, the United States and Britain represent far greater adherence to norms of civility than Iraq’s Baathist regime has done in its entire history.

But the recent conduct of the United States toward Muslims and the Muslim world has been a particularly low point for those in the Muslim world who admire the United States as the leader of the free world. Beginning with the televised images of blindfolded prisoners in chains from Guantanamo to the post-9/11 violations of civil liberties of ordinary Muslims in the United States and the conduct of the propaganda war in Iraq, the United States has appeared to lower the moral bar for itself. It is as if Washington is stooping to the same level where it finds its “enemies.”

The United States has decided to “shock and awe” instead of trying to “befriend and embrace” the world’s 1 billion Muslims. The underlying assumption, articulated by neo-conservative intellectuals, is that the Arab-Islamic world has never been receptive to Western idealism while it fears and respects force. The problem with building an empire through force is that it remains vulnerable to the kind of sniping that terrorist movements represent. The American public has traditionally shown little appetite for empire or for protracted conflict. Moreover, Israel’s experience in the West Bank and Gaza, and Russia’s in Chechnya, disproves the theory that overwhelming force can better persuade Arabs and Muslims.

Instead of marginalizing Muslim moderates by setting aside its own ideals in favor of a policy based solely on demonstrations of power, the United States should review its relationship with the world of Islam. There is a long tradition of Muslim leaders looking up to the West. Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, told a peasant who asked him what Westernization meant: “It means being a better human being.” Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah cited the Englishman’s sense of justice and fair play as the value that binds Muslims with Westerners and sought to emulate U.S. conduct toward Canada in his country’s foreign policy. Even the religiously conservative founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdel Aziz, allied himself to the United States because he found God-fearing Americans better than God-less Communists. Seeking out democratic allies in the tradition of these elders would have ensured Muslim friendship for the West more effectively than raining Tomahawk missiles on Iraq.