A bully in an unipolar world

Oh Phaedrus, you do remember when you were among friends in a tavern about 15 years ago, when news filtered through about the collapse of the Soviet Union. While the rest exulted, it plunged you into depression.

An unipolar world would throw insurmountable problems as the only remaining super power set about being the law-maker for the world, you lamented.

The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) had by its own insane logic kept under check to an extent both major wars and adventurism by either the US or the Soviet Union. I must confess it didn’t stop the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan though, but the mujahideen with US support did put up a good fight, that eventually weakened the Soviet Union.

In the post cold war era, the world is less of a safe place. Terrorists abound. The cold logic is that when you can’t face up to the big bully, you either befriend him, become his lackey, or you attack the bully and his friends from behind, from a place you can’t be caught, by a new set of rules.

The bully will demand that you fight by his rules, by which he will quash you. But you live to fight another day.

Oh Phaedrus, you will complain that this leads to loss of innocent lives as happened in the infamous 9/11, and I do agree with you entirely. But the way out of this vicious and violent cycle is for the bully to understand that he is being a nuisance to people at large and to himself.

Your heart wept, you lost sleep as you saw the horrific deaths of innocent people roll out before your eyes on the TV. Every person dead was a heart-rending story – a child losing a father, or mother or brother, a family lose its bread winner. The terrorists are cowards you screamed, tears in your eyes.

Phaedrus, the cowards are also the mighty that misuse power, throw their weight around, hypocritically pursue their own self interest. A democratic Iraq is in our interest, they say. In the same breath they support the General in Pakistan, and refuse to cooperate with the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine.

Phaedrus, guess the rich and powerful among nations get to set and change the rules to their whim.

You did eventually come around to the idea that sometimes terrorism is a reaction, albeit sick, to repression, political or otherwise.

All countries have their freedom fighters who were in a sense terrorists, and today they are in the pantheon of their nations. Now a new generation, more dangerously, terrorize in the misguided belief that they are serving their god.

Caught between these interests are unfortunately innocent lives, including you and me.

Why Turkey should not cross the border into Iraq

Turkey’s proposed invasion of Iraq to flush out terrorists could provide a dangerous precedent for other countries handling separatist terrorist movements.

Just as the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan to flush out the Taliban, who were protecting Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, it would at first blush appear reasonable that the Turkish army crosses the border into Iraq and flushes out terrorists from the Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan (PKK) who are using Iraq as a base for terrorist attacks into Turkey.

The Turkish government is under pressure from its citizens to cross the border. The country has a significant Kurdish population, which by some estimates is as high as 20 percent. The PKK aims to establish a separate Kurdish state in a territory (traditionally referred to as Kurdistan) consisting of parts of southeastern Turkey, northeastern Iraq, northeastern Syria and northwestern Iran.

The Turkish people find that the PKK is operating from within the Iraqi border, with neither the self-governing Iraqi Kurds or the government in Baghdad able to, or trying seriously enough, to stop them.

However, once this policy of invasion to settle scores with terrorists is established as acceptable, it could lead to a number of wars around the world, as countries invade other countries to chase terrorists hiding there.

India could, for example, build a case to attack and flush out Kashmir separatist terrorists who take refuge in Pakistan. In fact, India claims that its has evidence that the Pakistani intelligence agencies are involved in training Kashmiri terrorists, and other Islamic fundamentalists, who then cross the border into India to kill and maim.

Kurdish terrorists from Iran have also used Iraq as a base to attack Iranian positions. So Iran may also feel justified to attack Iraq from another frontier.

An attack by Turkey into Iraq, and the consequent political disruption, could also lead to the PKK, and its separatist agenda, winning popular support among Kurds living in various countries. It could disrupt US efforts to bring the Iraqi Kurds into the country’s political mainstream, as a lot of Kurds may now see a separate nationhood as an alternative. The Kurds are already close to it in Iraq, where they already enjoy considerable autonomy.

In Pakistan, a spectacle turns to gore

Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming was designed to be a spectacle, a show of strength. The former prime minister boasted to an Indian television channel, NDTV, before her departure to Pakistan that she would meet with a groundswell of popular support in her country.

In organizing a spectacle of this scale, with over 200,000 people accompanying her motorcade from the airport in Karachi, Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) however took tremendous risks.

A crowd of that size was sure to be unmanageable, and a huge security risk -- a point not missed by the suicide bombers who attacked her convoy killing more than 125, and injuring more than 150.

The recrimination has now begun. Bhutto’s supporters say that the government did not provide adequate security to the procession. There are also dark hints that the Pakistani police and intelligence may have been involved in the attack.

Much is also being made of the radicalization of Pakistan, of the proliferation of Islamic fundamentalism. These arguments will surely buttress President Pervez Musharraf’s bid to stay in power, and will also ensure that Ms. Bhutto, regarded as pro-West by sections of the US and European media, will be regarded as the best hope of the US and the West to lead a transition to a democratic, pro-Western government in Pakistan.

That a bunch of terrorists were able to attack Bhutto’s procession is not an indication of widespread support for Islamic terrorists in Pakistan. It may be just that Bhutto’s temptation to make an impact on her first day in Pakistan created a security risk, an opportunity for the terrorists to fulfill their murderous mission.

It is difficult to put the blame at this point on the security provided by the government. When there are over 200,000 people shouting and yelling and jumping around in jubilation , management of these crowds can be a nightmare for security forces, and it is easy for a terrorist to infiltrate the crowds. At a press conference on Friday, Bhutto said she had been warned of terrorist attacks, with very specific information.

In a cynical sort of a way the terrorists have made a “martyr” of sorts of Bhutto, while embarrassing Musharraf.

This is not to say that radical Islam is not getting popular in Pakistan. It will in fact get worse, if a transition to democracy does not happen soon enough. If the US insists on maneuvering a pro-West government in Pakistan, over the heads of Bhutto’s opponents like Nawaz Sharif, it risks once again antagonizing large sections of Pakistanis. The US has to realize that it does not need pro-West government to fight Islamic fundamentalism. It needs democratically elected governments.

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