Beating around Bush diplomacy

Those of us who were not American in the audience, and perhaps many who were, listened with a skeptical ear. We knew that peace would have come a long time ago if the Americans had not been so generous in their military and financial aid to Israel and so dismissive of the most basic Palestinian aspirations.

But, the Secretary of State uses words well and has a sincerity that is seductive. 8216;8216;We are working with people on the ground to expand the political and civic participation that lies at the root of a free society8230; We want to partner with more nations around the world. We want to champion human dignity, we want to strengthen alliances, we want to work with others to defuse regional conflicts, and we want to ignite global economic development.8217;8217;

There was going to be a new Middle East, he assured us, one in which free people would live in democratic societies in peace and harmony. Look at Iran, look at the students and intellectuals out in the streets calling for change 8216;8216;in a land that has known only shahs and ayatollahs8217;8217;.

The problem is that the goals of American foreign policy seem to alter dramatically when it comes to our part of the world. Democracy and freedom seem no longer worthwhile objectives beyond Afghanistan.

How else to explain what the man most responsible for building the Taliban into an evil, religious terrorist group is doing in Camp David? How else to explain President Bush8217;s promises of 3 billion of aid to a man whose nuclear scientists were in consultations with Al-Qaeda to help Osama bin Laden build his own nuclear weapon?

Try as I have to view the Bush administration8217;s foreign policy without jaundiced read Indian eye I have found it impossible to understand why Saddam Hussein should be considered a bad man and Musharraf a hero.

Try as I have I fail to understand why Iran should be on the US list of next most evil regime while General and Mrs Musharraf should be ensconced with the Bushes for a cosy weekend. How humiliating, by the way, that our Deputy Prime Minister should have been given such short shrift by comparison.

So, at this Dead Sea conference I asked American friends if they could understand the deeper nuances of a foreign policy that to me seemed so completely bizarre. They admitted that they did not understand fully either but thought that the reason for its apparent duplicity was probably that President Bush believed that Musharraf was the last moderate General left in Pakistan. If he goes, they said, there could be Islamic fundamentalists in power and then what? Then, nothing is the short answer to that question. The longer answer is that Washington appears not to have understood the ground realities or two things would have been evident. One, that even if the most rabid Islamic fundamentalist becomes Pakistan8217;s ruler he will be forced to behave if Pakistan is to avoid being placed at the top of America8217;s list of failed states.

Two, it is not a matter of individuals any more. Islamic fundamentalism is not a person but an idea, a mindset, and there is sufficient evidence that this mindset has permeated the whole fabric of Pakistani society. This is why Musharraf8217;s limited exercise in democracy threw up so many Islamic fundamentalists, this is why there is now an attempt to enforce Islamic law in the North West Frontier Province.

The only way to fight the mindest is to allow real democracy, real freedom and real economic development and hope this will make a difference. At the moment the singular achievement of American foreign policy in South Asia has been to protect the mullah-military establishment that is so interwoven now that its hard to tell if it is mullahs who control the country or Generals. Hard, equally, to tell who is more responsible for international terrorism.

If this is President Bush8217;s idea of fighting a global war against terrorism then it is not a war he is going to win. Whenever America is seen to be hypocritical and duplicitous it weakens the global fight. As it is, with those Iraqi weapons of mass destruction still unfound, it is beginning to seem increasingly as if there were other reasons for the invasion of Iraq.

Three years ago when presidential candidate George W. Bush was asked to name the ruler of Pakistan he admitted that he could not. His ignorance extended to not being able to name the Prime Minister of India either.

Clearly, everything he now knows about foreign policy he has learned on the job and clearly the world would be a better place if he unlearned some of his lessons. There was a time that the American President could get away with befriending military dictators and lecturing the world about democracy at the same time. That time ended on September 11.

Write to the author at tavleensinghexpressindia.com