In whose name?

The diplomatic big tent at The Hague this week yielded an expected but nonetheless significant achievement. At a meeting of delegates from about 70 countries to discuss Afghanistan,American and Iranian representatives met on the sidelines. The US and Iran have a record of cooperation,howsoever brief,on countering the Taliban in the months after 9/11. But a meeting on the sidelines between Richard Holbrooke,US President Barack Obamas special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,and Mohammad Mehdi Akhoondzadeh,who headed the Iranian delegation,has the potential to ease the confrontationist tension in West Asia. But as the global community tries to get a grip on the slide in Afghanistan,a law proposed by the Hamid Karzai government must arrest their attention.

Protest has already been voiced by governments as afar as Scandinavia and Canada on press reports about moves in Afghanistan to pass a law that would make it mandatory for a section of Afghan women to attain their husbands permission before finding employment,education or medical assistance. It also,say critics,amounts to legalising rape within marriage. Given the immense focus by officials of the UN and governments whose assistance is critical to Afghanistan,plans to carry through the legislation may well be abandoned. At least,that is the hope. But the episode serves as a poser to the international community seeking to lighten its footprint in Afghanistan.

When Afghanistan was invaded weeks after September 11,2001,the effort won a measure of support from different constituencies around the world for its liberal promise of countering the regressive social regime of the Taliban. The international community needs to be careful of maintaining the difference between promoting democratic self-rule and condoning the grip of the warlords.