Alternative approaches to West Asian crises
By Hamid Ansari
Given the linkages, prioritisation would need to be eschewed in favour of parallel and simultaneous progress on Palestine, Iraq, and Iran.
IT COMMENCED in Iran 100 years back, in 1906. The demand was for an adalat-khaneh (house of justice). Within months, an elected majlis was in place. A year later the Anglo-Russian entente divided Iran into a Russian and a British sphere of influence, leaving a small area in the middle as neutral territory. The Iranians, wrote the historian Nikki Keddie, "were neither consulted on the agreement nor informed of the terms."
In 1904, Najib Azuri launched in Paris the Ligue de la Patrie Arabe with the declared objective of freeing Syria and Iraq from Ottoman rule. The stirrings of Arab nationalism during the First World War got enmeshed in imperial intrigues pertaining to the war effort. The commitments made in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence of 1915-1916 were rescinded in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916; the latter, when made public by revolutionary Russia, was sought to be dismissed as a "figment of malicious Bolshevik imagination."
In both instances, and in many more, the West Asian memory of encounters with the West is of the latter's arrogance, duplicity, perfidy, and occupation. Historical records sustain it. The visible symbols today are Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. In each case, the Western recipe is prescriptive but incapable of successful imposition; in every instance the local response, despite a severe imbalance of forces, is rejection. Has this contributed to stability?
The experience of the Occupied Territories in Palestine since 1967 and of Iraq since 2003 sustains the validity of Rousseau's judgment that "the strongest man is never strong enough to be always the master." Similarly, Iran has shown that foreign pressure brings forth impulses of resistance that are out of the ordinary.
Clearly, the grand designs for the `Middle East' have failed to fructify. 9/11 compelled a re-think, but the premises were faulty and the conclusions fallacious. Forgotten in the process was Hans Morgenthau's dictum that successful statecraft depends on choosing "between one set of principles divorced from political reality and another set of principles derived from political reality."
It was argued in 2003 that the change of regime in Iraq and grafting of democracy would create conditions for the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli problem and the implementation of the Quartet Road Map. The same argument is now being used for Iran. The three are thus perceived to be links in a chain. Can they not, therefore, be considered for a package solution? Would such an approach offer a more promising solution than the discredited regime-change option?
Perhaps a beginning can be made by revisiting the basic premises. These relate to the belief that (a) access to Persian Gulf oil necessitates political control over sources of supply; (b) the neo-patriarchal West Asian systems of governance, dependent on external support for regime security, are prone to manipulation to ensure delivery; (c) the `radical' regimes in the area — Iran and Syria — can be isolated, and done away with; (d) public opinion in the region, despite occasional outbursts, can be ignored; (e) Israel must be allowed to create new ground realities to define its boundaries and its requirement of security premised on ensuring its dominance; and (f) sleek packaging and smart salesmanship can make the region `appreciate' what is good for it, if this does not happen, crude pressure or force may be necessary.
Each premise is disputatious. Together, they have delivered neither security nor stability. A
quest for alternatives is thus unavoidable. Given the linkages, prioritisation would need to be eschewed in favour of parallel and simultaneous progress on three tracks.
In Palestine, and even without the attributes of full statehood, Palestinians have proved the democracy argument. A people discriminating enough to make a democratic choice certainly deserve to be independent and free of foreign occupation. The Quartet Road Map was delayed and destroyed by Ariel Sharon. The International Court of Justice categorically ruled against the construction of the Wall on land under occupation. Incrementally the argument, moral as well as practical, is tilting against Israel. The impasse can be broken through the acceptance of the unofficial Geneva Accord jointly produced in October 2003 by a group of Israeli and Palestinian public figures.
The Accord was well received globally and in Israel though not by the Likud Government. It is based on the premise that "peace requires the transition from the logic of war and confrontation to the logic of peace and cooperation." It builds upon all the existing agreements, proposes that the permanent border between Israel and Palestine be based on "the June 4th 1967 line with reciprocal modification on a 1:1 basis" indicated in a map attached to the document. The parties would reject and condemn "terrorism and violence in all its forms" and shall proclaim laws to prevent incitement to irredentism, racism, terrorism, and violence. They would work together with the international community to build a secure and stable `Middle East' "free from weapons of mass destruction, both conventional and non-conventional." The uniqueness of Jerusalem is recognised and practical, acceptable arrangements suggested. Even the contentious question of refugees is acknowledged and addressed by accepting the principle of compensation and offering options for the choice of Permanent Place of Residence that would not override Israel's sovereignty. Each of these would be implemented with the help of different sets of multilateral arrangements.
The Iraq story was told early enough by the Rumsfeld Memorandum of October 16, 2003: "we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror ... the cost-benefit ratio is against us." Thirty months on, the grimness of the picture is public knowledge. Nevertheless political games, rather than sagacity and commonsense, still seem to prevail.
Discussions with Iran are essential but not sufficient. All other neighbours of Iraq need to be involved in a cooperative endeavour to guarantee Iraq's territorial integrity. They, in turn,
would seek assurances about Iraq's political set-up. In a plural society, equity is an essential ingredient of a democratic framework; a tyranny of the majority will not lead to stability. It is late but perhaps not too late to initiate a cooperative exercise.
Other correctives are essential in Iraq. The second chamber provided for in Article 69 of the Constitution has yet to be instituted. Distortions reflected in Articles 108 and 109 relating to oil and gas resources do not auger well for equity and stability. No matter how humiliating, a timetable for withdrawal of coalition forces and the closure of U.S. bases there is essential to bring down the temperature of a significant section of the insurgency.
The third link in the chain is Iran, dubbed the most serious strategic problem for the United States. Iranian defaults notwithstanding, the argument that Teheran should prove that it does not have a weapons programme while years of inspections by the IAEA have yet to prove that it does have one, is fatuous. Ambassador Negroponte was tentativeness personified recently in his comment: "our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade."
More specific were the operative words of his statement: "There is concern about the new leadership in Iran." A report in the Financial Times on April 21 said the current diplomatic effort was to slow down the Iranian nuclear programme "while more `robust' efforts continue towards the ultimate solution of regime change."
Taking the Iranian case to the Security Council, and reported plans to bomb Iranian facilities using tactical nuclear weapons, are thus aimed at unnerving and destabilising the system. This is unlikely to happen, given Iran's nationalist fervour; even anti-regime elements abroad have cautioned against the effort to create another Ahmad Chalabi!
Most experts on Iran agree that Teheran's quest is security, not necessarily security through nuclear weapons that have yet to be acquired. This security can be provided through a serious dialogue on four crucial subjects: Iraq, Persian Gulf security, a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli question, and Iran's role in the global energy market (and its quest for energy-related technology and investments). They share the perception that exclusion of Iran from any of these would have negative implications.
Iran's nuclear question can be resolved in a wider framework. Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf Cooperation Council states support a nuclear weapon and weapons of mass destruction-free zone in West Asia. A reconciliation between the Arab states and Israel, in terms of the Arab League Resolution of March 2002 and subsequent to an Israeli-Palestinian accord, would add impetus to the move.
The choice is clear: a continuation of the three conflicts or an alternative paradigm of cooperative security. Would Morgenthau's theorem show the way? [The Hindu, Monday, May 01, 2006 ]
Given the linkages, prioritisation would need to be eschewed in favour of parallel and simultaneous progress on Palestine, Iraq, and Iran.
IT COMMENCED in Iran 100 years back, in 1906. The demand was for an adalat-khaneh (house of justice). Within months, an elected majlis was in place. A year later the Anglo-Russian entente divided Iran into a Russian and a British sphere of influence, leaving a small area in the middle as neutral territory. The Iranians, wrote the historian Nikki Keddie, "were neither consulted on the agreement nor informed of the terms."
In 1904, Najib Azuri launched in Paris the Ligue de la Patrie Arabe with the declared objective of freeing Syria and Iraq from Ottoman rule. The stirrings of Arab nationalism during the First World War got enmeshed in imperial intrigues pertaining to the war effort. The commitments made in the Hussein-McMahon correspondence of 1915-1916 were rescinded in the Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 1916; the latter, when made public by revolutionary Russia, was sought to be dismissed as a "figment of malicious Bolshevik imagination."
In both instances, and in many more, the West Asian memory of encounters with the West is of the latter's arrogance, duplicity, perfidy, and occupation. Historical records sustain it. The visible symbols today are Palestine, Iraq, and Iran. In each case, the Western recipe is prescriptive but incapable of successful imposition; in every instance the local response, despite a severe imbalance of forces, is rejection. Has this contributed to stability?
The experience of the Occupied Territories in Palestine since 1967 and of Iraq since 2003 sustains the validity of Rousseau's judgment that "the strongest man is never strong enough to be always the master." Similarly, Iran has shown that foreign pressure brings forth impulses of resistance that are out of the ordinary.
Clearly, the grand designs for the `Middle East' have failed to fructify. 9/11 compelled a re-think, but the premises were faulty and the conclusions fallacious. Forgotten in the process was Hans Morgenthau's dictum that successful statecraft depends on choosing "between one set of principles divorced from political reality and another set of principles derived from political reality."
It was argued in 2003 that the change of regime in Iraq and grafting of democracy would create conditions for the solution of the Palestinian-Israeli problem and the implementation of the Quartet Road Map. The same argument is now being used for Iran. The three are thus perceived to be links in a chain. Can they not, therefore, be considered for a package solution? Would such an approach offer a more promising solution than the discredited regime-change option?
Perhaps a beginning can be made by revisiting the basic premises. These relate to the belief that (a) access to Persian Gulf oil necessitates political control over sources of supply; (b) the neo-patriarchal West Asian systems of governance, dependent on external support for regime security, are prone to manipulation to ensure delivery; (c) the `radical' regimes in the area — Iran and Syria — can be isolated, and done away with; (d) public opinion in the region, despite occasional outbursts, can be ignored; (e) Israel must be allowed to create new ground realities to define its boundaries and its requirement of security premised on ensuring its dominance; and (f) sleek packaging and smart salesmanship can make the region `appreciate' what is good for it, if this does not happen, crude pressure or force may be necessary.
Each premise is disputatious. Together, they have delivered neither security nor stability. A
quest for alternatives is thus unavoidable. Given the linkages, prioritisation would need to be eschewed in favour of parallel and simultaneous progress on three tracks.
In Palestine, and even without the attributes of full statehood, Palestinians have proved the democracy argument. A people discriminating enough to make a democratic choice certainly deserve to be independent and free of foreign occupation. The Quartet Road Map was delayed and destroyed by Ariel Sharon. The International Court of Justice categorically ruled against the construction of the Wall on land under occupation. Incrementally the argument, moral as well as practical, is tilting against Israel. The impasse can be broken through the acceptance of the unofficial Geneva Accord jointly produced in October 2003 by a group of Israeli and Palestinian public figures.
The Accord was well received globally and in Israel though not by the Likud Government. It is based on the premise that "peace requires the transition from the logic of war and confrontation to the logic of peace and cooperation." It builds upon all the existing agreements, proposes that the permanent border between Israel and Palestine be based on "the June 4th 1967 line with reciprocal modification on a 1:1 basis" indicated in a map attached to the document. The parties would reject and condemn "terrorism and violence in all its forms" and shall proclaim laws to prevent incitement to irredentism, racism, terrorism, and violence. They would work together with the international community to build a secure and stable `Middle East' "free from weapons of mass destruction, both conventional and non-conventional." The uniqueness of Jerusalem is recognised and practical, acceptable arrangements suggested. Even the contentious question of refugees is acknowledged and addressed by accepting the principle of compensation and offering options for the choice of Permanent Place of Residence that would not override Israel's sovereignty. Each of these would be implemented with the help of different sets of multilateral arrangements.
The Iraq story was told early enough by the Rumsfeld Memorandum of October 16, 2003: "we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror ... the cost-benefit ratio is against us." Thirty months on, the grimness of the picture is public knowledge. Nevertheless political games, rather than sagacity and commonsense, still seem to prevail.
Discussions with Iran are essential but not sufficient. All other neighbours of Iraq need to be involved in a cooperative endeavour to guarantee Iraq's territorial integrity. They, in turn,
would seek assurances about Iraq's political set-up. In a plural society, equity is an essential ingredient of a democratic framework; a tyranny of the majority will not lead to stability. It is late but perhaps not too late to initiate a cooperative exercise.
Other correctives are essential in Iraq. The second chamber provided for in Article 69 of the Constitution has yet to be instituted. Distortions reflected in Articles 108 and 109 relating to oil and gas resources do not auger well for equity and stability. No matter how humiliating, a timetable for withdrawal of coalition forces and the closure of U.S. bases there is essential to bring down the temperature of a significant section of the insurgency.
The third link in the chain is Iran, dubbed the most serious strategic problem for the United States. Iranian defaults notwithstanding, the argument that Teheran should prove that it does not have a weapons programme while years of inspections by the IAEA have yet to prove that it does have one, is fatuous. Ambassador Negroponte was tentativeness personified recently in his comment: "our assessment at the moment is that even though we believe that Iran is determined to acquire or obtain a nuclear weapon, that we believe it is still a number of years off before they are likely to have enough fissile material to assemble into or put into a nuclear weapon, perhaps into the next decade."
More specific were the operative words of his statement: "There is concern about the new leadership in Iran." A report in the Financial Times on April 21 said the current diplomatic effort was to slow down the Iranian nuclear programme "while more `robust' efforts continue towards the ultimate solution of regime change."
Taking the Iranian case to the Security Council, and reported plans to bomb Iranian facilities using tactical nuclear weapons, are thus aimed at unnerving and destabilising the system. This is unlikely to happen, given Iran's nationalist fervour; even anti-regime elements abroad have cautioned against the effort to create another Ahmad Chalabi!
Most experts on Iran agree that Teheran's quest is security, not necessarily security through nuclear weapons that have yet to be acquired. This security can be provided through a serious dialogue on four crucial subjects: Iraq, Persian Gulf security, a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli question, and Iran's role in the global energy market (and its quest for energy-related technology and investments). They share the perception that exclusion of Iran from any of these would have negative implications.
Iran's nuclear question can be resolved in a wider framework. Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf Cooperation Council states support a nuclear weapon and weapons of mass destruction-free zone in West Asia. A reconciliation between the Arab states and Israel, in terms of the Arab League Resolution of March 2002 and subsequent to an Israeli-Palestinian accord, would add impetus to the move.
The choice is clear: a continuation of the three conflicts or an alternative paradigm of cooperative security. Would Morgenthau's theorem show the way? [The Hindu, Monday, May 01, 2006 ]
posted by e-tafakkur at 1:50 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home