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Musharraf and Barak- Why did they meet?

Iqbal Latif - 2/7/2008

Politics is the name of the art of survival. In today’s world, geo-strategic realities demand that countries should work closely to reduce the threat from the unseen. When the very survival of a nation is at stake, efforts should be made to reduce tensions and harvest confidence building measures. Pakistan and Israel have solid rationale to promote the intensity of their communication. Last week, I highlighted that Lieberman's recent itinerary in Islamabad included two unusual appointments. Senator Lieberman had long meetings with Pakistani army chief, General Parvez Kiani, and the director general of the Strategic Planning Division, Lieutenant General (retired) Khalid Ahmad Kidwai. The SPD gave a detailed briefing to Lieberman. Lieberman endowed SPD's professional capability in overseeing the command and control system for the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal with flattering remarks. "I am deeply impressed by the professionalism of the team to secure the nuclear assets of Pakistan," he said. The Pakistani motivations were understandable Senator Lieberman would transmit the impressions of his visit to US Hard-line Senators and Israel.

Pragmatism is what can only responsibly make a nation like Pakistan tread a very fine line between being declared a responsible state or part of the axis of evil. It has been pragmatism and policy of ‘Pakistan first’ that a nuclear Pakistan has not been made an ingredient of axis of evil, like neighbouring Iran. Iran, who has not even enriched uranium to weapon grade is far more condemned and endangered. It is silly statements like Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling Israel a "rotten, dried tree" that will be annihilated by "one storm" and Israel should be "wiped off the map." Every time anyone within the Middle East has pursued this 'insane' agenda of annihilating Israel, they have suffered terrible defeat. Fascism has one quality: it breeds hatred for a fellow human being based on creed and ideology; if Zionism takes pride in exclusion, so does Islamic extremism. Political Islam sermons that preach death to a nation or a religion are akin to fascism, there are no two ways about it. These statements are very affordable for 'oil rich mullah led' Iran, however, for a country like Pakistan which is a declared nuclear state, any ‘irresponsible statement’ can be like signing off a death warrant.

Nuclear assets are not a luxury; it is a responsibility and has to be tackled with extreme care. The ‘threats of annihilation of other sovereign nations’ can only bring the wrath of the entire world. Oil-rich Iran can afford it, export oriented, inward $ remittances-dependent Pakistan cannot afford such bragging. Musharraf, in a display of pragmatism, met the Israelis and most probably the meeting was eased by Lieberman . Nuclear nations exchange list of their installations and test firing. India and Pakistan strictly adhere to such a protocol. These is no reason why Pakistan and Israel should not have a clear cut line of communication on nuclear strategy. The communications are of vital importance for mutual good. It was in the background of this meeting that Musharraf reiterated in Davos that ‘Pakistani bomb’ is not an ‘Islamic bomb.’

The meeting of President Pervez Musharraf last week with Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, in Paris described as ‘a chance encounter’ has to be analysed in the context explained above. The leaders met twice and discussed the nuclear arms issues, especially the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and Iran’s nuclear programme; the Middle East peace process; and the situation in Gaza. The second meeting is said to have lasted about an hour. In a demonstration of total ignorance of ground realities, Pakistan's rightist United Council of Action criticized President Pervez Musharraf for meeting Israeli war minister Ehud Barak in France. Senator Khurshid Ahmed, the council's parliamentary leader, termed the meeting a violation of Pakistan's principled position and said it tarnished the country's image in the Arab and Islamic world. It is deplorable that President Musharraf invited Israeli minister to his hotel room in Paris where they held an hour-long meeting reportedly over Iran's nuclear program, the statement said. What a fate that religious right condemns peace-seeking meeting of sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac!! How many wars can this country afford?

For Pakistani opposition it seems as if it is more important to safeguard Pakistan’s image in the Middle East; material threats to the survival of the nation are inferior to the grandstanding notion of 'champions of Islam. 'The first thing any tactical theorist would like to do is to make sure that Pakistan's so called ‘crown jewels’ are not endangered by ‘hotchpotch of self-made enemies’ who are technically far better ‘drone’ capable. A missile from a U.S. Predator drone struck a suspected terrorist safehouse in Pakistan and killed a top al-Qaida commander believed responsible for a brazen bomb attack during a visit last year by Vice President Cheney to Afghanistan. The strike that killed Abu Laith al-Libi was conducted Monday night or early Tuesday. Should Pakistani assets be subjected to such an unnecessary hidden threat from ‘drones’ as a result of miscommunication? The answer is a plain No.

Pakistan really does not need to open any new fronts. We are already involved neck-deep. Pakistan has recently been very apprehensive by the coordinated campaign raising the spectre of Pakistani nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists. The campaign was targeted towards creating a global situation where Pakistani strategic assets would be treated on the level of danger on par with North Koreans and Iran. In the backdrop of Al Baradei statements of IAEA and world media after Benazir assassination, President Musharraf decided to counter the "Osirak eventuality". (Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy, authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark have named top-level Indian sources, as admitting that Delhi closely worked with Israel on more than one occasion over plans to attack Pakistan's nuclear installations.)

The Pakistani Army guardian of the nuclear assets is very sensitive about such an unforeseen event and pragmatically planned to avoid misrepresentations and miscommunication to allay Israeli fears about fissile materials from Pakistan’s nuclear facilities finding their way to Iran which perhaps decided that President Musharraf's meets with Barak for an appropriate confidence-building measure.

Can one imagine what could have been the best thing Pakistan did was portrayed by blind rightist leaning opposition as a sell out of Pakistan’s Islamic orientated policies. Why not instead of 'death to Israel' repeated in Friday sermons, a more pragmatic cohabitation approach that guarantees respect for two nations be adhered too. Yes, Israel is as small as New Jersey and sits amidst hundred of millions of Arabs, but in firepower and intellectual property, it holds sway in large capacity of constructive and destructive technology. Einstein was a Jew and so are nearly 100 Nobel prize winners who have given the world of medicine breakthrough technologies; they are also known to give the world the first Hydrogen bomb and, after the experience of the holocaust, have in good order made sure that no other pseudo-Nazi ever does that to them again.

In capability of destruction and accuracy, it can target every Arab Muslim city without any need to worry about mutual assured destruction. Why play a 'game of chicken' with a nation that has the most modern weapons of death at its disposal and is now ready to live within its border and has shown great interest by signing peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt? Why can't the road to peace be further explored?

Wounds and scars from history cannot become the basis for inter-human relationships. With a bloodthirsty Jew at its centre, "The Merchant of Venice" is Shakespeare's most divisive play. No one has hijacked this mass characterization of Jews to ignite hatred amongst people more than the ideological demagogues within the Islamic world. Though many in the Islamic world may not even be familiar with the character, the way the message of hatred of Jews has been sold to the Islamic street is as if every injustice originates from or is consummated by the Jews.

Anyone who thinks this 400-year-old Shakespearean character is forgotten and superseded is mistaken. Shylock in the play offers Antonio this loan at no interest. Instead, if Antonio does not repay him in time, he will cut off a pound of his flesh. Meanwhile, Shylock's daughter, Jessica, elopes with Bassanio's friend Lorenzo taking a significant chunk of her father's wealth with her. Enraged by her betrayal, Shylock focuses all his energy on revenge. When Antonio defaults on the loan, Shylock demands his pound of flesh. Islamic societies today are gripped with frenzy; Jews are considered as the root of all evils and, very conveniently, radicals have an 'enemy to sell.' Regrettably for them, unlike the ill-treated 400-year-old Shakespearean character, the 'Shylock' of today can demand a pound of his enemies' flesh and cut it too without any regard to the measure.

War is a crime and no sensible being should instigate it. Human beings are bestowed with rational choices; war is not a rational choice, to choose war with an enemy far superior than one's own ability is a suicidal course. Human art of survival revolves around education, health and prosperity. Decent living encourages responsible attitudes; at times there is some virtue in cowardice instead of vainglory if it protects and encourages life and learning. War encourages decimation and annihilation; war needs to be planned far from civilian habitats; missiles cannot be fired from villages and compounds where civilians and children are placed, this is a respected doctrine of the most brutal and vindictive warriors. Children and women cannot become shields for cowards who protect their missile launchers amongst innocents. The responsibility of bloodshed and civilian collateral damage lies on those who, instead of leading the war from the front, hide in caves and basements. The cowardice to kill innocents under the garb of ideological struggle has taken a new momentum. Mosques have become new killing fields; exhibition of blood brutality is actually the last sigh of extremists. Mass murders undertaken by brainwashed kids give credence to those ‘peaceniks’ who keep propagating that appeasement of these elements is the only solution. Yes, sure there can be instant peace if keys of key capital cities of Islamic arc of instability are handed over to these radicals. Iran’s Ahmedinejad’s policy of chaos and global confrontation will appear Lilliputian in proportion to the wars and conflict course these guys can script and trigger.

One reads so often in the press that the plight of Muslims is aggravated by the 'vicious' Zionist-Yankee meddling in their affairs. We are told that it is this unwelcome interference that prompts radical Muslim violence. This is what you call a "Rip Van Winkle of a nation," an apt description of the Islamic community. The gross duplicity resident within mainstream mores of Islamic polity has led the nation of Islam into a collective rage of narcissism and subjection. The enemy within is therefore rarely found.

To lament for one civilian blood and then turn a blind eye to the other is ruthless and bigotry of intense order. On the political scene within the Middle East, Israelis are like Shylock and stripped of their names. Radical Islamists have seemingly taken the revulsion for Jews more than anyone else. Creating an enemy that, through some ideological misinterpretation of events, has a reason for hatred too helps perpetuate tyrannical regimes. The accusations of betrayal by Jews in the early times of the Prophet helps flourish this frenzy. It is most helpful for perpetuation of an autocratic society and the most convenient way to curtail the freedom of hundreds of millions by shifting the responsibility of denial of their self-determination on the doorsteps of schematic Jews. Jews are as human as Muslims and Quran reputedly asserts that blood of one innocent is killing of entire humanity.

President Abbas's dream of a sovereign Palestinian state lies in ruins. The political settlement of such a state can only be based on peaceful negotiation between Palestinians and Israel. The tragedy of diminishing returns continue the Palestinians are today alienated, worn to shreds and politically at far much inferior position than ever. Hamas's inclination to deny the right of Israeli existence has crippled the likelihood of peace and settlement.

Peace in the Middle East comes from the barrel of a gun. It is callous and barbaric but harmony in the Middle East, because of these self-proclaimed Jihadists, breed on the blood of the most disinclined civilians who are made canon fodder in this war of ideologies. This revolution of ideologies in Iran and elsewhere continuously needs to be watered by nothing but the blood of innocents. How many more tragic wars and how many more tragedies do the Muslim children need to face? Why can't, instead of Jihad, Waziristan, Afghanistan, and Gazans have a decent future, where their children may go to Oxford and Cambridge, sit down at Starbucks in Piccadilly, enjoy the latest brew, or Haagen-Daz on Champ's Elysées for ice cream? After all, that is what oil-rich Middle Easterners do most of the time in their summer vacations. Why are the leaders of Jihads in caves, while innocent thousands are disappearing? It is a tragedy that the Ayatollahs sit on their huge coffers of wealth in UAE-based banks while their children run huge businesses, but Jihad's canon fodder are people who are the most disenfranchised and most poverty-stricken within the world of Islam. Leadership families steer clear of the way.

The future belongs to those who are first-rate in science and technology. Empires that failed to integrate with the demands of the modern world have been wiped out. North America continues to lead in scientific investment, with public and private funding accounting for 37% of the world's gross expenditure on research and development, according to data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) featured in the UNESCO Science Report 2005.

A dramatic situation is found in the Arab States of Africa, contributing just 0.1% of world, even more surprising, the same share is found in fossil fuel-rich Arab countries of Asia. The world is moving ahead at an electrifying pace but the Middle East is falling behind. These missions of heartless killings and useless futile wars will further balkanize and divide the nations of Islam. The region is falling at a breakneck speed, caught in the spiral of venom to a bottom that has no end. Mass human killings in Afghanistan, Waziristan, and Gaza are not aberrations, they are the sum total of failed policies. A similar spectre haunts the future of oil rich Arabian Peninsula if these radicals are not stopped, if these wars of expediency are allowed to continue. JIhadists' real enemies are not Israel and US, it is the freedom and education these nations ensure that is the real enemy. They want to destroy any veneer of the mosaic of plurality within Middle Eastern societies. The road ahead is that of moderation and toleration.

No appeasement, no emotional blackmail, no exhibition of dead bodies should stop this elimination of cancer that calls for the death of western civilisation and uses children and women as hostage.

The wealth and strength of nations today is not in numbers or gold reserves or dollar reserves, rather, these are weaknesses of a nation; a nation with low literacy and low R and D with a lot of petro-dollars is destined to fail. It is knowledge and cutting edge technology that has defined the great powers of this century and millennium. Based on these two standards, let's accept that Israel is well ahead of the Islamic world and Iran in particular after the revolution that stymied advancement in that culturally rich nation. What a waste of great aptitude and talent! The mullahcracy in Iran destroyed the rich heritage of 5000 years in 28 years. Isn't it a shame?

Sadly, 'the heartbreak of Islam' is indisputable. Islam is at odds with itself. It is no longer supremacy of one nation over the other, or control of one ideology over the other.Today, it is about which nation is more advanced and connected to the aspiration of its populace. Freedom of minds dictates the strength of nations. Nations who deny pluralism and equal opportunity to their people based on color, creed and belief will not survive this age of knowledge. Only Muslims today can help their faith grow towards modernity. Only Muslims can re-interpret all the vicious statements against Jews and Christians as part of a forgotten past. Only Muslims can define jihad not as a conflict against non-Muslims, but rather, as a subtle struggle against wicked and self; only they can eliminate the belief that women are inferior to men and that non-Muslims are second-rate to Muslims. Only they can acknowledge secularism, emancipation and fairness as part of their culture.