DAWN - Opinion; 10 March, 1998

Iran - a new role, a new image


By Humayun Akhtar

IRAN'S President Muhammad Khatami, has embarked on improving relations with Iran's neighbours and the West. In this he has the support and help of his predecessor, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The European Union has already made quick overtures. On February 24, EU foreign ministers agreed to lift their ban on high-level contacts with the Tehran government. fortnight ago, the 15-member European Union upgraded relations with Tehran. EU ministers said they would continue to press Iran over alleged support for terrorism. But the move opens the way for European companies to pursue deals with Iran against the displeasure of Washington.

According to a news item, at a meeting in Tashkent on January 4th, the worried presidents of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Islam Karimov and Imomali Rahmonov, signed an agreement to block political and religious extremism and "decisively condemn ethnic, racial and religious intolerance". However, this move of the three countries does not seem to be directed against Iran.

After the drama involving Iraq, the United States' economic blockade against its other archrival in the Persian Gulf - Iran - is no longer being seriously implemented. In fact Washington and Tehran are cautiously inching towards a detente and their relationship is soon to follow the pattern of China-America hate-love affair.

The oil economy is forcing the regional powers and multinational energy corporations to build pipelines from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, home of the world's second largest fossil fuel deposits after the Gulf. Iran has emerged as one of the favoured routes to get the oil and natural gas out to international markets, despite President Clinton's warning of sanctions against companies that invest in Iran.

It is indeed not understandable that on the one hand Washington wants the newly independent states in the Caspian and Central Asian regions, to reduce their dependence on Moscow by building pipelines to replace the existing ones, all of which go through Russia, while on the other the U.S. would not like Iran to benefit from this bonanza.

"It is a high-stakes game that has cast a shadow on US-Russian cooperation, and it may lead to dark political intrigues in the region, "wrote a Western analyst. Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze, disclosed recently that a February 9 assassination attempt on him was planned by opponents of a pipeline that would carry Caspian oil through Georgia and Turkey and bypass Russia.

However, Turkmenistan has taken lead in welcoming the US policy promoting independence from Russia. Turkmenistan is an under-developed and poor desert country, with a population of about 4 million people, that has the world's fourth-largest reserves of gas but has had no way to sell it to world markets. In December, Turkmenistan became the first former Soviet republic to build a pipeline that does not go through Russia but to Iran, with whom it has a 600-mile-long border, unfortunate for the United States.

It is now reported that Royal Dutch Shell is conducting a feasibility study for a larger pipeline that would carry Turkmenistan's gas through Iran and Turkey to Europe. But the Shell officials are wary of the US Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, designed to punish any company that invests more than $20 million in Iran. However, they also express hope that Washington will soon abandon its policy to exclude Iran from the Central Asia.

"I understand that the US has its interests as a superpower, but we have our interests, and we have to feed our people," Yolbaz Kepbanov, Turkmenistan's deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, told a Western reporter in the capital, Ashkabhad.

In any case Turkmenistan's trade ties with Iran are not recent but historic, which date to the time of the Silk Route that passed through today's Turkmenistan on its way from Persia to China.

As a Soviet republic, Turkmenistan supplied Russia with natural gas, but got little in return. All of the republic's pipelines lead to Russia, whose powerful gas monopoly, Gazprom, took huge transport fees and was unwilling to let the Turkmens profit by selling their gas to Europe.

Turkmenistan is not showing favour to Iran. Its President Saparmurad Niyazov, a former Communist Party leader followed a foreign policy that invites all bidders to make their best offer for a share in his country's riches. Keeping Turkmenistan's options open has been the centrepiece of this policy. Last March, Niyazov ordered shut the gas pipelines to Russia. In December, along with Iran's President Mohammad Khatami, he opened the new gas pipeline between the two countries.

When the Iran-Turkmenistan pipeline deal was announced last July, Washington tacitly kept its eyes shut. But the number and scale of the projects involving Iran have unexpectedly increased. Along with the Shell project, the British company Monument Oil is heading a consortium to build an oil pipeline south from Turkmenistan to Iran, and Gazprom is planning to develop, along with French and Malaysian companies, a gas field in southern Iran.

Washington has awaken to the reality and has restated its hard line, "US policy is to oppose all pipelines across Iran." The reaction from Ashkabad was: "Let the Americans say, 'Don't be friends with Iran,' but we can't do that, because we are a neutral country," said Kepbanov, the Foreign Ministry official. "In our eyes, everyone is equal but Iran comes first."

Washington, however, has been trying to persuade Turkmenistan to build a pipeline across the Caspian, where it would link up with a planned route that will take oil out of Azerbaijan's rich offshore fields through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean. But the alternate route has some serious drawbacks; it is longer and thus more expensive to build than going through Iran. The United States may have cordial relations with all of these countries, but Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan do not see eye to eye.

Another possibility, that has been explored by the US companies is to bypass Iran and to build a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and then Pakistan to India. American company, Unocal has taken the lead and is the leader of a consortium.

But Afghanistan has been embroiled in a civil war for two decades and situation in Pakistan is also not very stable. Unocal has established an office in Ashkabad and has been training Afghan workers to build pipelines and is maintaining friendly ties with both the Taliban that controls most of Afghanistan and the opposition in the north. The Unocal hopes that the two sides some day may form a coalition government. But even if they do, a pipeline would not be ready until four years after that. President Niyazov, in all probability will not wait that long.

While the confrontation between President Clinton and President Saddam Hussein, once a darling of Washington, was heating up, Iran was mending fences to revive bilateral ties in the region.

The most significant development in this respect would be the rapprochement that has commenced between Iran and Saudi Arabia. While Kofi Annan was busy in Baghdad resolving the conflict between Iraq and the U.S., Iran's former President, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, led a delegation well represented from various fields, to Saudi Arabia, where he was for over 10 days for discussions with the Saudi leadership.

In a statement issued, at the end of the visit, the two countries announced that they had agreed to form a joint ministerial committee to work on boosting bilateral relations. According to the US media, the visit was much more than a courtesy call on Riyadh by a former head of state.

Iran, of course, would like the U.S. forces out of the area and instead the Gulf littoral states to make arrangements for their mutual security. It must be remembered that it was Saudi Arabia which had invited the U.S. forces against a threat from both Iraq and Iran.

From the Saudi perspective, in spite of Saudi Arabia acquiring top-of-the-line equipment and its forces having high-level training with U.S. and allied troops, it seems that Saudi Arabi would like to keep its options open instead of solely relying on Washington.

Though Russia is no longer a power that she used to be, when Communist and was known as the USSR, but still along with France and China did not allow a free hand to the United States in the United Nations in the recent Iraqi crisis. In fact at one stage Mr. Yelstin threatened Washington with another world war. Not that the U.S. has ignored Mr. Yelstin's outbursts, but he will be taken care of in due course of time. Russia has, however, sent a message of hope to the Gulf countries; she is also now not a 'godless' country.

On the whole, it is indeed an interesting scenario. Iran is definitely emerging as a regional power, moderate and pragmatic in approach. Iran is no longer a country, where America was 'satan'. Retaining an Islamic flavour, its endeavour, it seems, is to project an Islam, which teaches peace and compromise with other religions; confrontation and enmity with other countries is no longer its policy.





The Clinton doctrine


By Dr Maqbool Ahmad Bhatty

THE very success of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in negotiating a diplomatic solution of the crisis over Iraq appears to have been seen as a let-down by many trigger happy US analysts, who virtually equate it to some sort of failure by President Clinton.

Considering the political polarization between the supporters and detractors of Clinton that is reflected in attitudes towards his personal scandals, it is hard to understand whether the disappointment manifested over non-use of the high technology weaponry assembled in the Gulf comes from his friends or enemies. One is amazed that the peaceful alternative has had such a lukewarm reception as if the UN chief has deprived the US of a chance to demonstrate its military muscle just when the moment seemed to be ripe.

An interesting construction being placed on the rapid military build-up in the Gulf region is that the resort to a display of American might constitutes a new doctrine by the US President, which is being dubbed as the "Clinton Doctrine". The terminology of doctrines is applied to a long-term strategy that starts to determine political and military policy of a major power.

The first such policy guideline was the Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed in 1823 by the fifth President of the US, James Monroe, calling upon European powers to desist from expanding their influence into Latin America. This amounted to proclaiming America's right to maintain hegemony in the western hemisphere. This is a doctrine whose relevance for US goals has continued.

Since the Second World War, policies announced by US presidents at various times also assumed the character of doctrines. The Truman Doctrine, proclaimed following the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 asserted the US right to intervene militarily in the defence of its national interests. This right of intervention was modified by the Nixon Doctrine, two decades later, that sought containment of communism without intervention on the Asian mainland. The Brezhnev Doctrine had sought to justify Soviet intervention wherever communist regimes were threatened, in the 1970s, which was countered by the Reagan Doctrine of assisting regimes and movements struggling against Soviet occupation.

The Clinton Doctrine, the latest proclamation of American global concerns, reflects the vision of the US as the "indispensable nation", without whose active involvement no major international problem can be resolved. In the post-cold war era, there is increasing apprehension that whereas nations and governments are amenable to respecting norms of conduct, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons can be assembled by terrorists (a definition that can be extended to regimes which act in support of purposes defined to be "terrorist" in intent). Under the Clinton Doctrine, Washington will use its power and resources to stem the threat of weapons of mass destruction.

This concept, if it does indeed assume the character of a "doctrine", would confer unlimited power and discretion on the US to bring to bear its unchallenged military superiority even on disarmament goals. One must realize that Washington applies its own criteria, to identify which threat is to be considered as "terrorist" in nature. So far, no private terrorist groups have been named.

However, the countries identified as those that harbour or abet terrorism include such communist states as North Korea, and Cuba on the one hand, and radical Islamic countries such as Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Sudan on the other. If possession of weapons of mass destruction is to attract military pressures from the US, then even nuclear capable countries, such as India, Israel and Pakistan could theoretically fall foul of the latest doctrine. In practice, the threat of being declared a terrorist state was only applied by the Bush Administration to Pakistan, soon after the Pressler Law took effect in October 1990.

On the whole, the US role as a superpower has had a moral dimension to it, and one has to recall that one of the reasons for failure of the League of Nations was that isolationist sentiment prevailed over Wilsonian vision, preventing the US from becoming a member. US membership of the United Nations since 1945 has been a significant factor in enforcing a more just international order. While "realpolitik" and perceived national interests have figured increasingly in practice, democratic ideals and humanitarian concerns embodied in the UN Charter are usually invoked to justify US policies of intervention from time to time.

It is the present US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright who has come up with the definition of the US as the "indispensable nation", early in 1997 on assuming office citing the role of Washington during the Bosnian crisis, as post-cold war Europe dithered over Serbian genocide of Muslims. Indeed it was only when the US intervened, and promoted the Dayton Agreement, that peace was achieved. US forces remain engaged in countering Serbian truculence, and US influence helps to keep European powers involved as well. The prosecution of war criminals in Bosnia is also a positive indicator about the US role in enforcing humanitarian international law.

Realism and an objective analysis of US policies since the Gulf War of 1991 reveal that Washington is not even-handed in enforcing the Charter, or the resolutions of the UN, which are being invoked to compel Saddam Husain's Iraq to permit unlimited access to UN arms inspectors. This has been noted by the international community, which showed little enthusiasm for resort to overwhelming force being prepared by Washington since late last year. Only Britain endorsed the military option, whereas other permanent members of the Security Council, as well as the great majority of other UN members, including Pakistan, manifested a distinct preference for a diplomatic solution of the kind worked out by Mr Kofi Annan.

In the post-cold war period, the danger of weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists is real. It has been conjectured, on the basis of information available on the Internet, that chemical and nuclear devices could be assembled by irresponsible and even demented persons. This underscores the need to monitor the Internet, which is likely to have as many as a billion users by the start of the next century. Already, concerns are rising over the diffusion of pornography, child sex, racialism and anti-religious propaganda on this powerful medium of communication.

Surprisingly, when measures to regulate misuse of the Internet were recently considered at a UN-sponsored seminar at Geneva, that elected Mr Agha Shahi, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan, as its President, the US representative opposed such regulation. He based his stand on the US constitutional provisions that call for unlimited access to information.

The US is likely to remain a major global player, even when a multipolar world order emerges, as is inevitable in the next century. For some time to come, it will remain the dominant power by reason of its overwhelming military superiority, its technological edge and economic strength. Apart from being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it enjoys preponderant influence in the financial institutions that regulate the global economy, notably the World Bank and the IMF.

If there is going to be a "Clinton Doctrine", designed to prevent weapons of mass destruction from falling into irresponsible hands, a corollary of such a doctrine is that those who have military power must use it responsibly, and not violate provisions of the UN Charter, or resolutions of the UN Security Council. The concept of the "indispensable nation" is also rooted in the US projecting its power and influence to promote a just and stable world order.

Regrettably, the US has tended to project its power and to criticise or punish violations of international norms on a discriminatory basis. Washington's practice of securing UN backing for intervention abroad is to be welcomed. However, the relative indifference of the "indispensable nation" to the enforcement of past UN resolutions on such issues as Kashmir and Palestine creates doubts whether turning a blind eye towards violations by "friendly" powers can inspire confidence in the role it has assumed.

The latest US military build-up in the Gulf was seen very differently by the regional countries, the international community and even US domestic opinion from the 1991 operation. A major factor in this has been that Washington has largely condoned flagrant violations of the Middle East Peace Accord by the Netanyahu government in Israel. Not only have Israeli withdrawals from occupied territories on the West Bank been delayed but the commitment implicit in the Accord not to build further Jewish settlements has been abandoned. While verbally criticising these violations, the Clinton Administration has seemingly connived at them by vetoing any resolutions in the Security Council that seek to condemn Israel. As a result the Peace Accord appears to be in jeopardy.

Compared to 1991, when the US had almost universal support for military action against Iraq following its occupation of Kuwait, there were visible reservations in the region over a possible resort to force, which appeared to some to be designed to preserve Israeli preponderance of power. Apart from dissatisfaction over the US attitude towards Israeli arrogance, there was a lack of conviction whether military action was really necessary.

The US clearly needs to use its influence to ensure implementation of the Peace Accord in a manner that the two key issues of Palestinian rights and future status of Jerusalem are resolved in a manner acceptable to one fifth of mankind in the Arab and Islamic world. This will be possible only if the relevant UN resolutions are implemented.

The problem of Jammu and Kashmir is the other issue pending for half a century, which affects peace and security in South Asia. If the US takes its role as the indispensable nation seriously, a solution consistent with the UN resolutions needs to be pushed by Washington. The struggle of the Kashmiri people for self-determination, for which over 50,000 of them have laid down their lives, cannot possibly be equated to terrorism. With the possibility that a Hindu nationalist government may be formed following the latest elections in India, the US will have to demonstrate its commitment to democracy and human rights, by using its undoubted political clout to ensure respect for principles contained in the UN resolutions.

In the ultimate analysis, a Pax Americana cannot take the place of a system of global checks and balances to ensure a just world order. A peaceful and stable world order can emerge only on the basis of respect for the UN Charter, rather through the fiat of a single player that is not always even-handed in enforcing respect for the fundamental principles of inter-state relations. Even during the period the US exercises preponderant power, any doctrine can inspire general respect only if it is fair, rather than if it is tailored exclusively to its own perceptions and interests.





Seoul faces a rare challenge


By Richard Halloran

THE new president of South Korea confronts seven challenges that comprise the most formidable trial for his nation since its liberation from Japan in 1945. This is no ordinary change of government.

Kim Dae Jung's success or failure will determine not only the immediate future of Korea but also the security posture of the United States in Northeast Asia, where 80,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea and Japan in a single area of military operations.

In addition, the fate of the new government will affect other Asian nations struggling to right their capsized economies, to sort out issues of governance and to find safety in a volatile region.

Mr. Kim is given an even chance for success by many Koreans, even those who did not vote for him, and by some foreign observers.

His challenges will include:

* Leading South Korea out of a valley of tears into which, like several other Asian nations, it has plunged with a falling stock market,, declining valueof currency and a stringent recovery regimen imposed by the IMF.

* Coping with a hostile North Korea whose belligerent negotiating style holds little promise of progress in four-party talks scheduled to resume in Geneva this month. The US, China and the two Koreas are supposedly seeking ways to reduce tension on the Korean Peninsula.

* Consolidating his political position after getting only 40 per cent of the December 18 vote in a three-way race. He has a minority in the National Assembly, and has promised a parliamentary system in which he would become a largely figurehead president in two years.

* Reducing the corruption that permeates not only the political and business worlds but also many aspects of daily life. Koreans say there has been less corruption in recent years, but acknowledge that it is still pervasive.* Responding to rising anti-Americanism that has spread from left-wing students to midlevels of politics, government bureaucracy and the armed forces. Many Koreans want American forces to leave South Korea even as they wish to retain the country's alliance with the United States.

* Purging residual anti-Japanese emotions that hinder Seoul's ability to recover economically and to play a constructive role in Asia's international relations. South Korea's rulers have nurtured bitter feelings toward Japan ever since 40 years of harsh Japanese rule ended 53 years ago.

* Dissuading Koreans from blaming someone else for everything that goes wrong, and instead encouraging them to accept responsibility. The initial reaction to the current economic crisis, for instance, was to blame the United States, Japan and the IMF.

To meet these challenges, President Kim will bring undisputed courage, a thirst for information that is the source of political power, a shrewd analytical ability to set his own politics aside when calculating events, and a lifetime of ambition, having first sought the presidency in 1971.

On the other hand, he is 72 and has had health problems.

His courage has been tested in two attempted assassinations, a court-imposed death penalty, and years of prison or house arrest.

In one instance, he was kidnapped from a hotel in Tokyo by South Korean government agents in August 1973 and taken out to sea, where his legs and arms were bound with chains and weights. He heard crewmen talking about how to make sure his body disappeared beneath the waves.

Strong protests from the Japanese and American governments saved his life, and he was returned to Seoul. In a long interview the next night, he gave a detailed account of his ordeal in a calm, almost detached manner:

"They had done a beautiful job of kidnapping me and getting me out of Japan, but they made one miscalculation. They had not expected the Japanese to be in such an uproar over the infringement of their sovereignty."

After three months of diplomatic manoeuvring, President Park Chung Hee sent Prime Minister Kim Jong Pil to Tokyo to apologize for the kidnapping. In a supreme irony, the two Kims, who are not related, made an election campaign deal last year under which Kim Jong Phil would become prime minister under President Kim Dae Jung.

Kim Dae Jung has indicated that he is aware of most of the tasks before him. In particular, he has vowed that South Korea will tighten its economic belt. He may just pull it off.-Dawn/IHT Service

© DAWN Group of Newspapers, 1998