Indian planes intrude into Pakistan's airspace

By Iftikhar A. Khan and Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD, Dec 13: Indian planes violated Pakistan's airspace on Saturday, but fighters of the Pakistan Air Force chased them away, military as well as civilian officials confirmed late in the night.

Air Commodre Humayun Viqar Zephyr, a PAF spokesman, told Dawn that the Indian planes intruded into Pakistan's airspace in Azad Kashmir and Lahore sectors, but left as soon as they sighted the PAF jets.

He said there was no cause for concern as the PAF was "fully alive to the situation and capable of giving a befitting reply in case of a misadventure".

Official sources said President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani were immediately informed about the incident and the matter was taken up with the Indian authorities.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman confirmed that Islamabad had got in touch with authorities in New Delhi, implicitly conceding that the violation did take place. But she hastened to add that Indians had done it inadvertently.

Analysts, however, described as 'meaningful' the 'inadvertent' intrusion of Pakistan's airspace in two different sectors on the same day for the first time in recent memory.

They termed it a deliberate attempt on the part of India to create a war hysteria instead of responding positively to Pakistan's offers of cooperation in investigations into the Mumbai carnage.

CJCSC MEETS PRESIDENT: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, Gen Tariq Majeed, called on President Asif Ali Zardari here on Saturday and discussed professional matters with him.

Sources said the situation in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks came under discussion during the meeting.

They said Gen Majeed briefed the president on the state of preparedness of the armed forces.

TROOPS ON THE MOVE?: A number of people travelling between Lahore and Rawalpindi over the past two days have come up with claims that a heavy redeployment by the army was under way.

"Long convoys of military trucks are heading towards Lahore from Jehlum," Jawad Khan, a motorist, told Dawn. (Source: The Dawn)

Maoist War in Nepal

The Nepalese Civil War (labelled People's War by the Maoists was a conflict between government forces and Maoist rebels in Nepal which lasted from 1996 until 2006. The war was started by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) on February 13, 1996, with the aim of establishing the "People's Republic of Nepal."

It ended with a Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed on 21 November 2006 which is now monitored by United Nations Mission in Nepal.

Overview

More than 12,800 people were killed (4,500 by Maoists and 8,200 by the government) and an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people were internally displaced as a result of the conflict. This conflict disrupted the majority of rural development activities and led to a deep and complex Left Front which, together with the Nepali Congress, was the backbone of the broadbased movement for democratic change. However, communist groups uncomfortable with the alliance between ULF and Congress formed a parallel front, the United National People's Movement. The UNPM called for elections to a Constituent Assembly, and rejected compromises made by ULF and Congress with the royal house. In November 1990 the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre) was formed, including key elements of constituents of UNPM. The new party held its first convention in 1991, the adopted a line of "protracted armed struggle on the route to a new democratic revolution" and that the party would remain an underground party. The CPN(UC) set up Samyukta Jana Morcha, with Baburam Bhattarai as its head, as an open front ten contest elections. In the 1991 elections, SJM became the third force in the Nepalese parliament. However, disagreements surged regarding which tactics to be used by the party. One sector argued for immediate armed revolution whereas others (including senior leaders like Nirmal Lama) claimed that Nepal was not yet ripe for armed struggle.

In 1994 CPN(UC)/SJM where split in two. The militant sector later renamed itself as the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The Maoists labeled the government forces "feudal forces," and included in this accusation the monarchy and the mainstream political parties. The armed struggle began soon afterwards with simultaneous attacks on remote police stations and district headquarters. Initially, the Nepalese government mobilized the Nepal Police to contain the insurgency. The Royal Nepal Army was not involved in direct fighting because the conflict was regarded as a matter for the police to sustain control. Furthermore, controversy grew regarding the army not assisting the police during insurgent attacks in remote areas. The popularly-elected prime minister resigned his post, due to the refusal of the Royal Army to take part in the conflict. This situation changed dramatically in 2002 when the first session of peace talks failed and the Maoists attacked an army barracks in Dang District in western Nepal. Overnight, the army was unleashed against the insurgents. At the same time, the king of Nepal maintained a puppet democratic government which depended upon him for their status to remain legitimate. Under the aegis of the global War on Terrorism and with the stated goal of averting the development of a "failed state" that could serve as a source of regional and international instability, the United States, European Union, and India, among other nations, have provided extensive military and economic aid to the Nepalese government. This material support to the Nepali government dried up after King Gyanendra seized full control in February 2005 to get rid of civil war for once and all.

The government responded to the rebellion by banning provocative statements about the monarchy, imprisoning journalists, and shutting down newspapers accused of siding with the insurgents. Several rounds of negotiations, accompanied by temporary cease-fires, have been held between the insurgents and the government. The government has categorically rejected the insurgents' demand for an election to the constituent assembly; it would result in the abolition of the monarchy by a popular vote. At the same time, the Maoists have refused to recognize the installation of a constitutional monarchy. In November 2004, the government rejected the Maoists' request to negotiate directly with the King Gyanendra rather than via the Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba; their request for discussions to be mediated by a third party, such as the United Nations was dismissed.

Throughout war, the government controlled the main cities and towns, whilst the Maoist dominated the rural areas. Historically, the presence of the Nepali government has been limited to town and zonal centers. The only state apparatus present in most small villages, where most of the inhabitants of Nepal live, were a health post, a government school, a village council, and a police booth. Once the insurgency began, the schools were all that remained, indicating that the Maoists had seized control of the village. The Royal government powerbase is located in the zonal headquarters and the capital Kathmandu. Unrest reached Kathmandu in 2004 when the Maoists announced a blockade of the capital city.Three maoist rebels are waiting on top of a hill in the Rolpa district to get orders to relocate to another location.Intense fighting and civic unrest continued well into 2005, with the death toll rising to 200 in December 2004. On February 1, 2005, in response to the inability of the relatively democratic government to restore order, King Gyanendra assumed total control of the government. He proclaimed, "Democracy and progress contradict one another… In pursuit of liberalism, we should never overlook an important aspect of our conduct, namely discipline."

On November 22, 2005, the joint CPN(M)-United People's Front conference in Delhi issued a 12-point resolution, stating that they "…completely agree that autocratic monarchy is the main hurdle" hindering the realisation of "democracy, peace, prosperity, social advancement and a free and sovereign Nepal." In addition, "It is our clear view that without establishing absolute democracy by ending autocratic monarchy, there is no possibility of peace, progress, and prosperity in the country." An understanding had been reached to establish absolute democracy by ending monarchy with the respective forces centralizing their assault against autocratic monarchy thereby creating a nationwide storm of democratic protests. This marked a departure from the previous stance of the CPN(M), which had so far vehemently opposed the gradual process of democratization advocated by the UPF.

As a result of the civil war, Nepal's greatest source of foreign exchange, its tourism industry, suffered considerably. iExplore, a travel company, published rankings of the popularity of tourist destinations, based on their sales, which indicated that Nepal had gone from being the tenth most popular destination among adventure travelers, to the twenty-seventh.[5]The conflict has forced the young and able to seek work abroad in order to avoid the Human Rights Violations committed by the Government forces and the crimes committed by the Maoists. These labourers work predominantly in the Gulf (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, etc.) and Southeast Asia (Malaysia etc). The regular flow of remittances from these labourers has permitted the country to avoid serious economic crisis or economic bankruptcy. The economy of Nepal is heavily dependent on the infusion of foreign income from the labouring class (similar to the Lebanese economy during its civil war). (Source: Wikipidia)

Bangladesh: A Poor Muslim Democracy

Bangladesh:
A Poor Muslim Democracy

Muqtedar Khan

Bangladesh is an interesting puzzle. It is representative of the contemporary postmodern condition when nothing is clear-cut. It is at once both highly developed as well as underdeveloped. Bangladesh is a country that is economically backward and politically quite advanced. Many political and social scientists have often equated democracy with development and capitalism with political freedom. Bangladesh belies both these assumptions. It is a reasonably free society while being one of the world's poorest economies. Even the Freedom House ratings, which are quite biased against non-Western societies in their measurements, rate Bangladesh as a reasonably free state.

In July of this year, the present government of the Awami League party with Sheikh Hasina Wajid as Prime Minister will complete one full electoral cycle. For a nation that has existed for only 30 years this is quite an achievement.  In fact, if one were to compare the Bangladeshi democracy with the American democracy at the age of thirty, the nation of Bengalis will come out quite favorably. In 200 years, the US has yet to allow a woman to run the state.

Bangladesh has already had two women heads of state and the present head of the government, Sheikh Hasina, and the leader of the opposition party, Begum Zia, are both women. It is amazing that this country of a hundred million Muslims looks like a matriarchical society, belying another myth that associates patriarchy with Muslim culture. Bangladesh apparently is destined to destroy widely held myths. First by its very origins it has exploded the myth of Islamic unity. By breaking away from Pakistan, Bangladesh has shown that asabiyyah (Ibn Khaldun's term for ethnic solidarity) can at times overwhelm Islamic unity. Perhaps the rupture of the united Pakistan is more a commentary on the lip service given to Islamic brotherhood by Muslim leaders than the relative powers of Islam and ethnicity. Nonetheless, the very existence of Bangladesh is a blow to the rhetoric of Islamic unity that most Muslims like to crow about. The present day Muslims of Bangladesh live in greater harmony with its 11% Hindu minority than they did with Muslims of non-Bengali origins. 

Bangladesh is not the only case where interests other than Islamic unity have proven more powerful. The quick disintegration of the United Arab Republic, a union of Syria and Egypt that combined Islam, asabiyyah (Arab nationalism) and external threat (from Israel), is another case of Islamic entities splitting for interests other than Islam.

The second myth that Bangladesh has exposed is the claim by some Muslims and many westerners that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Bangladesh while not exactly an exemplary democracy or an advertisement for Islamic governance has nevertheless succeeded in demonstrating that a community dominated by Muslims can have Islam as the state religion and still provide democratic rights to its citizens and freedom of religion to its minorities.

Yes, there are cases of religious discrimination and harassment of minorities in Bangladesh. For example in 1992, when the Babri Masjid was destroyed in India by Hindu nationalists nearly 80 Hindu temples were desecrated in Bangladesh as an act of revenge. If what the Hindus did was a travesty, then what the Bangladeshi Muslims did was 80 times worse. Also in April, unknown miscreants blew a Roman Catholic Church. But these infrequent tragedies apart, Bangladesh is striving to be a good state that treats all its citizens justly.

Its constitution at least is determined to do justice to all. It recognizes the primacy of Islam (Article 2A) but guarantees the freedom of religion of all communities (Article 41). Article 11 of the constitution asserts that the Republic will be a democracy that respects all the human rights and freedoms of all its citizens.  Article 39 specifically protects the freedom of speech and expression of every citizen (39a) and 39b guarantees the freedom of the press.

Cynics, especially those who neither understand nor respect democratic principles, maybe tempted to underestimate the importance of their constitution. However, the key is their implementation. In the era of globalization and global interdependence, having these rights enshrined in the constitution is an important first step.  International pressure, especially from NGOs and human rights activists has a greater impact on states that already claim to respect these rights. Often moving court in cases of human rights violations provides effective remedy. But in states whose constitutions do not already enshrine human rights; states can continue to violate their own citizens with impunity leaving no recourse to domestic as well as international human rights activists.

As already discussed above Bangladeshis have also shown that Muslim societies allow women more opportunities for self-expression in the public arena than they are given credit for.  Bangladeshi women are not only well integrated into the political arena but are also quite active in the economic sphere. The micro-enterprise project (Grameen Bank) initiated by Dr. Muhammad Yunus has shown that empowering women is an important strategy to fight poverty and underdevelopment. Bangladeshi women have shown that while remaining within the moral sphere of Islamic values, women can play an important role in the economic well being of their immediate families and the political well being of their nation.

Yes, indeed Bangladesh is a highly developed state in political terms. But sadly it exposes an American myth that prosperity follows freedom. Bangladesh is a "poor democracy". Its per capita income is less than $500 a year. 36% of the population is below poverty level and nearly 35% of the population is unemployed. Annually a large section of the country is submerged in floods and as sea levels rise with global warming Bangladesh will face more drastic environmental threats with devastating economic implications.

Lack of industrialization, poor infrastructures, and untapped human resources will continue to challenge Bangladesh in its quest for economic well being. Poverty and disasters will continue to test the moral and political fiber of the nation. There are no shortcuts out of the environmental and economic troubles of Bangladesh.  But we must remember that in spite of all its difficulties, Bangladeshis have found a way to live in freedom, respect each other's dignity and remain connected with God.

About the Author:

(Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Adrian College in Michigan.  He earned his Ph.D. in International Relations, Political Philosophy, and Islamic Political Thought,  from Georgetown University in May 2000. Dr. Khan's column has appeared in The Daily Telegram, San Francisco Chronicle, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Muslim Democrat, Iviews.com,ptimes.com, Theglobalist.com,   Freerepublic.com, MiddleEast Online, Beliefnet.com, Arabies Trends, Al-Mustaqbal, and many other periodicals world wide.)

 

Hotel Taj: Icon of whose India?

By Gnani Sankaran

Watching at least four English news channels surfing from one another during the last 60 hours of terror strike made me feel a terror of another kind. The terror of assaulting one's mind and sensitivity with cameras, sound bites and non-stop blabbers. All these channels have been trying to manufacture my consent for a big lie called - Hotel Taj the icon of India.

Whose India, Whose Icon?

It is a matter of great shame that these channels simply did not bother about the other icon that faced the first attack from terrorists - the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST) railway station. CST is the true icon of Mumbai. It is through this railway station hundreds of Indians from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal and Tamilnadu have poured into Mumbai over the years, transforming themselves into Mumbaikars and built the Mumbai of today along with the Marathis and Kolis

But the channels would not recognise this. Nor would they recognise the thirty odd dead bodies strewn all over the platform of CST. No Barkha dutt went there to tell us who they were. But she was at Taj to show us the damaged furniture and reception lobby braving the guards. And the TV cameras did not go to the government run JJ hospital to find out who those 26 unidentified bodies were. Instead they were again invading the battered Taj to try in vain for a scoop shot of the dead bodies of the page 3 celebrities.

In all probability, the unidentified bodies could be those of workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh migrating to Mumbai, arriving by train at CST without cell phones and pan cards to identify them. Even after 60 hours after the CST massacre, no channel has bothered to cover in detail what transpired there.

The channels conveniently failed to acknowledge that the Aam Aadmis of India surviving in Mumbai were not affected by Taj, Oberoi and Trident closing down for a couple of weeks or months. What mattered to them was the stoppage of BEST buses and suburban trains even for one hour. But the channels were not covering that aspect of the terror attack. Such information at best merited a scroll line, while the cameras have to be dedicated for real time thriller unfolding at Taj or Nariman bhavan.

The so called justification for the hype the channels built around heritage site Taj falling down (CST is also a heritage site), is that Hotel Taj is where the rich and the powerful of India and the globe congregate. It is a symbol or icon of power of money and politics, not India. It is the icon of the financiers and swindlers of India. The Mumbai and India were built by the Aam Aadmis who passed through CST and Taj was the oasis of peace and privacy for those who wielded power over these mass of labouring classes. Leopold club and Taj were the haunts of rich spoilt kids who would drive their vehicles over sleeping Aam Aadmis on the pavement, the Mafiosi of Mumbai forever financing the glitterati of Bollywood (and also the terrorists) , Political brokers and industrialists.

It is precisely because Taj is the icon of power and not people, that the terrorists chose to strike. The terrorists have understood after several efforts hat the Aam Aadmi will never break down even if you bomb her markets and trains. He/she was resilient because that s the only way he/she can even survive.

Resilience was another word that annoyed the pundits of news channels and their patrons this time. What resilience, enough is enough, said Pranoy Roy's channel on the left side of the channel spectrum. Same sentiments were echoed by Arnab Goswami representing the right wing of the broadcast media whose time is now. Can Rajdeep be far behind in this game of one upmanship over TRPs ? They all attacked resilience this time. They wanted firm action from the government in tackling terror.

The same channels celebrated resilience when bombs went off in trains and markets killing and maiming the Aam Aadmis. The resilience of the ordinary worker suited the rich business class of Mumbai since work or manufacture or film shooting did not stop. When it came to them, the rich shamelessly exhibited their lack of nerves and refused to be resilient themselves. They cry for government intervention now to protect their private spas and swimming pools and bars and restaurants, similar to the way in which Citibank, General Motors and the ilk cry for government money when their coffers are emptied by their own ideologies.

The terrorists have learnt that the ordinary Indian is unperturbed by terror. For one whose daily existence itself is a terror of government sponsored inflation and market sponsored exclusion, pain is something he has learnt to live with. The rich of Mumbai and India Inc are facing the pain for the first time and learning about it just as the middle classes of India learnt about violation of human rights only during emergency, a cool 28 years after independence.

And human rights were another favourite issue for the channels to whip at times of terrorism. Arnab Goswami in an animated voice wondered here were those champions of human rights now, not to be seen applauding the brave and selfless police officers who gave up their life in fighting terorism. Well, the counter question would be where were you when such officers were violating the human rights of Aam Aadmis. Has there ever been any 24 hour non stop coverage of violence against dalits and adivasis of this country?

This definitely was not the time to manufacture consent for the extra legal and third degree methods of interrogation of police and army but Arnabs don't miss a single opportunity to serve their class masters, this time the jingoistic patriotism came in handy to hitewash the entire uniformed services.

The sacrifice of the commandos or the police officers who went down dying at the hands of ruthless terrorists is no doubt heart rending but in vain in a situation which needed not just bran but also brain. Israel has a point when it says the operations were misplanned resulting in the death of its nationals here.

Khakares and Salaskars would not be dead if they did not commit the mistake of traveling by the same vehicle. It is a basic lesson in management that the top brass should never travel together in crisis. The terrorists, if only they had watched the channels, would have laughed their earts out when the Chief of the Marine commandos, an elite force, masking his face so unprofessionally in a see-through cloth, told the media that the commandos had no idea about the structure of the Hotel Taj which they were trying to liberate. But the terrorists knew the place thoroughly, he acknowledged.

Is it so difficult to obtain a ground plan of Hotel Taj and discuss operation strategy thoroughly for at least one hour before entering? This is something even an event manager would first ask for, if he had to fix 25 audio systems and 50 CCtvs for a cultural event in a hotel. Would not Ratan Tata have provided a plan of his ancestral hotel to the commandos within one hour considering the mighty pparatus at his and government's disposal? Are satelite pictures only available for terrorists and not the government agencies ? In an operation known to consume time, one more hour for preparation would have only improved the efficiency of execution.

Sacrifices become doubly tragic in unprofessional circumstances. But the Aam Aadmis always believe that terror-shooters do better planning than terrorists. And the gullible media in a jingoistic mood would not raise any question about any of these issues.

They after all have their favourite whipping boy - the politician the eternal entertainer for the non-voting rich classes of India. Arnabs and Rajdeeps would wax eloquent on Nanmohan Singh and Advani visiting Mumbai separately and not together showing solidarity even at this hour of national crisis. What a farce? Why can't these channels pool together all their camera crew and reporters at this time of national calamity and share the sound and visual bites which could mean a wider and deeper coverage of events with such a huge human resource to command? Why should Arnab and Rajdeep and Barkha keep harping every five minutes that this piece of information was exclusive to their channel, at the time of such a national crisis? Is this the time to promote the channel? If that is valid, the politician promoting his own political constituency is equally valid. And the duty of the politican is to do politics, his politics. It is for the people to evaluate that politics.

And terrorism is not above politics. It is politics by other means. To come to grips with it and to eventually eliminate it, the practice of politics by proper means needs constant fine tuning and improvement. Decrying all politics and politicians, only helps terrorists and dictators who are the two sides of the same coin. And the rich and powerful always prefer terrorists and dictators to do business with.

Those caught in this crossfire are always the Aam Aadmis whose deaths are not even mourned - the taxi driver who lost the entire family at CST firing, the numerous waiters and stewards who lost their lives working in Taj for a monthly salary that would be one time bill for their masters.

(Postscript: In a fit of anger and depression, I sent a message to all the channels, 30 hours through the coverage. After all they have been constantly asking the viewers to message them for anything and everything. My message read: I send this with lots of pain. All channels, including yours, must apologise for not covering the victims of CST massacre, the real mumbaikars and aam aadmis of India. Your obsession with five star elite is disgusting. Learn from the print media please. No channel bothered. Only srinivasan Jain replied: you are right. We are trying to redress balance today. Well, nothing happened till the time of writing this 66 hours after the terror attack.)

(Mr Sankaran is a Tamil writer from Chennai, India).

(The article was forwarded to "Look and Gaze" by Benu Mukhopadhyay from India)

Pondering the Mumbai attacks

Pondering the Mumbai attacks
By: Kamal Raj Sigdel
Posted: 12/8/08
Last week, the world witnessed another deadly terrorist attack. This time it was Mumbai, the "financial nerve-centre" and commercial capital of India. This attack differs from any other terrorist attacks in the past, not because it was well coordinated, but because everything sounded weird and at times, hilarious.

Reportedly, 10 terrorists set sail from Karachi and approached the Indian coast, sneaking onto a fishing boat then attacking the Taj Hotel and other targets, killing more than 150 people.

India has the world's third-largest military, well-trained police with special anti-terror commands and internationally-acclaimed intelligence services. A handful of terrorists rocked the whole city for more than 24 hours. A week after the incident, everyone knew that investigations were underway, like usual, and nobody knows more than that. What is wrong with this picture?

Home Minister for the Indian state of Maharashtra. RR Patil's first reaction to the massacre was more than weird, "In a big city like this, these small things happen. We could have lost 5,000 people instead of 200." The public outcry from this amazing comment forced him to resign.

Soon after, the Indian officials started pointing fingers at Pakistan, as is the routine. No breaks or intervals, the old pantomime show starts on both sides of the border. The media fuels the fire and the curtain shadows one after another. The world watched with its eyes wide open, most of the scenes obscure and weird.

Shadows of the Pakistani leaders, panicked by the unprecedented international pressure to hunt down terrorists operating from their land, hold meetings and press conferences. Pakistani President Zardari commits to help India investigate into the attack by sending the head of Pakistani intelligence to India. The world, watching all this, claps in approval.

After a couple of hours, someone whispers something in his left ear and Zardari decides to pull the Intelligence chief back from India, derailing the planned cooperation. Disoriented and dispirited, the Chief changes his dress and goes to take a nap.

In what they call All-Party Conference (APC), the provoked Pakistani political parties gather for the first time to discuss how they could "cooperate" with India.

While others are making mediocre comments on Indian official's blame-game, one of the participants, a retired military general, stands upright and claims the attackers are in fact, brave patriots! As reported by the Dawn, the military officer speaking at a press conference says, "… the Taliban are in fact, patriotic and the problems that existed between these Taliban and the Pakistani state are actually based on miscommunication and misunderstanding."
Subsequently, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a Pakistani terrorist group, made a statement swearing allegiance to the Pakistani state. Bizarre, isn't it?

Then Obama is quoted that any country is free to bombard any other country to protect her sovereignty, and thus reported to have sanctioned the bombing of training camps in Pakistan.

In the mean time, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee warns Pakistan that the "military option is open."

This sends Washington more than enough warning signals. The outgoing Bush administration, by virtue of being the initiator of the global war on terror, dispatches Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi to stop the possible war between the two archenemies.

However, this brings to us one more absolute irony - Rice visiting India and arguing against Indian military raids on Pakistan when the United States regularly launches its own attacks on suspected Al Qaeda camps along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. At any cost, the US has to stop India from opting for the military option. The idea is to keep Pakistani shoulders engaged in the western Pakistani frontiers to fight Al Qaeda.

Despite all these misgivings, misinterpretations, media war, anger and chaos, things have not gone as planned by the terrorists. Theoretically, India should have jumped into war against Pakistan by now, and that was the game plan of the terrorists. Let us hope our wise leaders rise above petty politics, steer their countries out of the chaotic situation and do not move in the path as planned by the "smarter" terrorists.
(Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East West Center.)
© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawaii

What after Mumbai?

By Ayesha Siddiqa

THE all-party conference on national security held recently in Islamabad has issued a firm resolution to deal with the situation after the attacks in Mumbai.

While sympathising with the victims of the attack, the leadership of the various political parties expressed concern at the Indian allegations and denied Pakistan's involvement in the attacks. The resolution is certainly the first step towards consolidating the state and bridging the gap between state and society as it is for meeting the threat of external pressure. However, the backdrop of the APC has raised more questions than what the political leadership was prepared for.

This is in reference to a report that quoted a military official at a press briefing as saying that from Baitullah Mehsud and Fazlullah to Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Taliban were in fact patriotic, and the problems that existed between these Taliban and the Pakistani state were actually based on miscommunication and misunderstanding. Had the concerned official studied diplomacy and international politics in greater depth, he would have realised that such a statement could be interpreted in numerous ways. Furthermore, the statement from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) swearing allegiance to the Pakistani state that followed the official's observation is likely to raise greater suspicion in the international community.

And hadn't we been informed earlier that all these 'patriotic' warriors were in fact murdering Pakistan's people and its brave soldiers? Wasn't the popular perception in Pakistan that the military was now fighting the Taliban because they were being paid by the Indians and the American intelligence agencies? Or maybe we missed something.

Is there a possibility that these militants have suddenly changed their minds as a result of the jingoism of the Indian government and media in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks? How come we could not get them to change their minds earlier? These statements will certainly encourage India to abandon the bilateral negotiations route and make the Mumbai issue a multilateral affair in which case Pakistan is likely to face greater hardship than what the leadership attending the APC could have envisioned.

We could cry ourselves hoarse about a foreign conspiracy to finish Pakistan but it would not change the fact that Pakistan faces the threat of being internationally ostracised unless it begins to look inwards and institutionalises decision-making. In fact, the inward approach will not happen at all unless certain institutions are created and others strengthened.

This is not to suggest that Pakistan is admitting to some covert involvement in the Mumbai attacks but once its functionaries make statements that are sympathetic to elements fomenting trouble in Pakistan, people in the region, in fact worldwide, are bound to ask questions and point an accusing finger. Perhaps, the world also realises that arm-twisting client states works, especially if the patron does it. For instance, the Musharraf government capitulated to American pressure very fast after 9/11 despite the fact that none of the suicide bombers had anything to do with Pakistan.

Maybe the policymakers would like to consider the advice that the mounting pressure on Pakistan is linked to the absence of institutionalised decision-making. The political government takes decisions without consulting other political stakeholders, the intelligence agencies hold press conferences possibly without consulting the government, and the rest of Pakistan is unsure about what is happening.

Institutionalising national security decision-making does not require a national security council. But it does mean strengthening the cabinet committee for defence, empowering the defence ministry and civilianising it, and creating a national security advisory board. In the days after the Mumbai tragedy, the leaders of the two largest parties have listened to analysts with an array of perspectives.

It would also help the government to have an advisory board for national security on the pattern of the one in India. This would mean co-opting academics and experts from different fields to deliberate on issues, formulate advice and communicate the latter to the government. In India, for instance, the national security advisory board is comprised of committees looking at the nuclear proliferation issue, the environment and many other matters.

The purpose of such entities is to make government decision-making more informed. Various experts get together, debate an issue and come up with suggestions that the government can accept or reject after deliberations. This formula would allow all kinds of views and opinions of various stakeholders to be included in a process that would eventually result in a decision that could then be owned by most if not everyone. Institutionalising input in decision-making would help bridge the gaps that we find in Pakistan at the moment.

The absence of an institutionalised policymaking structure has not only resulted in mistakes by the new government in terms of not taking stakeholders on board, it has also exposed the elected government to a greater threat of internal instability. The gap between civil and military, which everyone wanted to ignore, has begun to resurface. In fact, the political government's eagerness to cooperate with Delhi is in stark contrast to the military's position. Both sides can be accused of not taking the other into total confidence.

Irrespective of the APC and the general public's resolve to fight external pressure, the fact of the matter is that the government would have to deal with greater force from outside. In the coming days, the world might not be too impressed with a position where Islamabad could redirect its forces from the western to the eastern border, especially if the GHQ and the TTP continue to show their fondness for each other.

The threat that Pakistan is facing after Mumbai is twofold: external and internal. Externally, there will be mounting pressure because such statements and India's position will make the world more suspicious of Pakistan's inclinations. There is already a perception that the country possibly lacks the will, capacity and intent to fight terrorism. More importantly, if the political government does not give some thought to its style of decision-making and governance, there is a possibility that various anti-democracy forces could win once again. Internally, we stand more exposed and vulnerable than ever before.
(Source: The Dawn, December 5, 2008)
The writer is an independent strategic and political analyst.
(ayesha.ibd@gmail.com)

Kelly Slater in Hawaii

World Champion in Surfing Kelly Slater is in Hawaii.

© Kamal Raj Sigdel

Were the Mumbai attackers homegrown

By Mir Adnan Aziz

A well-known US-based analyst on South Asia who works for the RAND Corporation, Christine Fair, has said of the Mumbai attacks that the attackers could well be homegrown, motivated by anger over the way India's 140 million Muslims are treated by the Hindu majority.

"This isn't India's 9/11," she said. "This is India's Oklahoma City." The attackers caught the Indian security forces oblivious and unprepared. Clueless as they were, it did not deter the Indian state officials, including the prime minister, from the sudden revelation that Pakistan was behind the attacks. Their media, loath to be left behind, upped the ante by creating frenzy with a spate of accusations against Pakistan and what they termed as its "rogue" intelligence agency, the ISI. In its unseemly haste to maliciously malign Pakistan, it let go of all vestiges of sanity which such a sobering matter should have required. Pakistan is plagued by its own security nightmare.

Could the ISI really be foolhardy enough to send "beer guzzling" fidayeen with telltale satellite and mobile phones linking them to Pakistan, to be implicated in an attack as audaciously violent as this, with risks of massive and immediate reprisal from India. Let's face it. The Mumbai attacks are a damning indictment of the failure of India's intelligence agencies, particularly the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Their total focus on Pakistan and their brazenly overt involvement in Afghanistan has helped the homegrown militants to operate with precision and impunity, whenever and wherever they want. India, the second largest Muslim country in the world, is not exactly a shining example of its much vaunted secularism and peaceful coexistence.

The fault lines of Hindus, versus Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and the multitude of other minorities, run deep. If only one per cent of India's minorities are inclined to violence, we have a disenchanted force of millions of militants. Yes, there are the Ambanis and the Tatas but teeming millions sleep every night on footpaths. To quote Amartya Sen, "you cannot expect stability or prosperity from a society that is half Silicon Valley, half Sub-Saharan Africa."

Among some of the major homegrown groups fighting the Indian state are the Maoists and the Naxalites. They cannot rest in peace until we have eliminated this virus. Furthermore, thousands of Sikhs have died in communal violence since 1984. Militant Hindu nationalists affiliated with the RSS have sought to wipe out all traces of Christianity from Orissa and other parts of India. They prevent, sometimes with police assistance, Christians from meeting to pray, murder new converts and are trying to take over the land where churches and Christian homes once stood. Other tragic fatalities include thousands of Muslims in Gujarat and thousands of Christians in Nagaland and elsewhere since 1947. The never-ending body count includes thousands of Bodos, Dalits, Assamese, Manipuris and other minorities.

More recently, a colonel of the Indian army, Srikant Purohit, and a major, Samir Kulkarni, are facing trial for involvement in the Samjhotha Express bombing. The blasts, as the routine goes, were blamed on the ISI, but investigations proved otherwise. The two Indian army officers were arrested, and another five, including a major general and two colonels, are under investigation. These are not rogue officers to be taken in isolation. Various reports have revealed that the Indian Army and intelligence agencies have been infiltrated to the highest ranks by such elements. India needs to face the fact that its so-called "secular democracy" has given rise to an ever increasing aggressive Hindu communalism. This is the breeding ground in which militancy has flourished and perhaps the chickens have come home to roost.

The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: miradnanaziz@gmail.com

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China
By: Kamal Raj Sigdel
[The article was published in Ka Leo on 12/4/08]
It is undisputed that China is in the spotlight today, especially after the U.S. financial crisis. China, unlike other democracies, is not an open country; its central policy and budgets are still secretive, and a single party, the Communist Party of China, rules the country. This has been one of the main reasons why the world is so curious about China.

I, too, was curious. Despite the fact that my home country, Nepal, shares borders with China, I had very few chances to understand it. The Asia Pacific Leadership Program, which brought together 38 young and mid-career professionals and students from 21 countries at the East-West Center, provided this opportunity to explore China.

During November, the group traveled all across China to figure out the future of the world through a Chinese lens. Given the rising panic among Western intelligentsia over what they call the "Chinese hard landing," I had a couple of questions in mind. Why is the West so scared of and critical about China? And is the image of China, which the Western media has created, real?

After our visit, we found out that China is much different than what we had in our minds and what appears in the international media. An outsider is indeed overwhelmed by the negative images about China. What we get through the media is sensationalism that reinforces the stereotype of China as a mysterious and angry dragon. Though these caricatures dominate our mindset, they do not portray the broader reality.

Just a week ago, before departing for China, I followed the newspapers like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others to get updated on current affairs in China, but what I saw was only negative.

When I first landed at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Nov. 6, all I saw was progress. Beijing was in no way lesser than other world cities. The city was booming; construction was going on everywhere. Beijing was just an entry point.

We traveled to other major cities such as Chongqing, Hechuan and Chengdu. In all these cities, we saw exemplary efforts for pollution control and environmental conservation. The municipal governments have promoted bicycles, electric vehicles (two-, three- and four-wheelers), electric public transportation (trolleys, buses and subways) and solar-powered street lamps.

I read an article in The New York Times titled "In rural China a bomb is ticking." So we wanted to see how the "bomb" looked. It is true that China has a rural-urban gap where rural Chinese have not benefited from recent economic growth the way city dwellers have. But with the recent reforms on rural development, rural China is much more optimistic about the future.

That's not to say there aren't valid concerns. We met a farmer whose land had been confiscated by the government, though he is being relocated to a 20-story apartment building for free.

In one of the meetings in Beijing, Xiao Geng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, said that China dealt far better with the earthquake crisis than the U.S. dealt with Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, the visit has changed my perspective on China.

There is still, of course, plenty of room for improvement, such as in press freedom, democracy and the rural-urban gap, but China has made some real achievements too. What I see now is a confident, modern China, not an angry dragon.

Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is an Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawai

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China

By: Kamal Raj Sigdel

[The article was published in Ka Leo on 12/4/08]

It is undisputed that China is in the spotlight today, especially after the U.S. financial crisis. China, unlike other democracies, is not an open country; its central policy and budgets are still secretive, and a single party, the Communist Party of China, rules the country. This has been one of the main reasons why the world is so curious about China.

I, too, was curious. Despite the fact that my home country, Nepal, shares borders with China, I had very few chances to understand it. The Asia Pacific Leadership Program, which brought together 38 young and mid-career professionals and students from 21 countries at the East-West Center, provided this opportunity to explore China.

During November, the group traveled all across China to figure out the future of the world through a Chinese lens. Given the rising panic among Western intelligentsia over what they call the "Chinese hard landing," I had a couple of questions in mind. Why is the West so scared of and critical about China? And is the image of China, which the Western media has created, real?

After our visit, we found out that China is much different than what we had in our minds and what appears in the international media. An outsider is indeed overwhelmed by the negative images about China. What we get through the media is sensationalism that reinforces the stereotype of China as a mysterious and angry dragon. Though these caricatures dominate our mindset, they do not portray the broader reality.

Just a week ago, before departing for China, I followed the newspapers like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others to get updated on current affairs in China, but what I saw was only negative.

When I first landed at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Nov. 6, all I saw was progress. Beijing was in no way lesser than other world cities. The city was booming; construction was going on everywhere. Beijing was just an entry point.

We traveled to other major cities such as Chongqing, Hechuan and Chengdu. In all these cities, we saw exemplary efforts for pollution control and environmental conservation. The municipal governments have promoted bicycles, electric vehicles (two-, three- and four-wheelers), electric public transportation (trolleys, buses and subways) and solar-powered street lamps.

I read an article in The New York Times titled "In rural China a bomb is ticking." So we wanted to see how the "bomb" looked. It is true that China has a rural-urban gap where rural Chinese have not benefited from recent economic growth the way city dwellers have. But with the recent reforms on rural development, rural China is much more optimistic about the future.

That's not to say there aren't valid concerns. We met a farmer whose land had been confiscated by the government, though he is being relocated to a 20-story apartment building for free.

In one of the meetings in Beijing, Xiao Geng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, said that China dealt far better with the earthquake crisis than the U.S. dealt with Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, the visit has changed my perspective on China.

There is still, of course, plenty of room for improvement, such as in press freedom, democracy and the rural-urban gap, but China has made some real achievements too. What I see now is a confident, modern China, not an angry dragon.

Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is an Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East-West Center.

---

© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawai

Red Dragon rising: The modern, confident China

By: Kamal Raj Sigdel

[The article was published in  Ka Leo Weekly (Manoa Now), Hawaii, USA on 12/4/08]

It is undisputed that China is in the spotlight today, especially after the U.S. financial crisis. China, unlike other democracies, is not an open country; its central policy and budgets are still secretive, and a single party, the Communist Party of China, rules the country. This has been one of the main reasons why the world is so curious about China.

I, too, was curious. Despite the fact that my home country, Nepal, shares borders with China, I had very few chances to understand it. The Asia Pacific Leadership Program, which brought together 38 young and mid-career professionals and students from 21 countries at the East-West Center, provided this opportunity to explore China.

During November, the group traveled all across China to figure out the future of the world through a Chinese lens. Given the rising panic among Western intelligentsia over what they call the "Chinese hard landing," I had a couple of questions in mind. Why is the West so scared of and critical about China? And is the image of China, which the Western media has created, real?

After our visit, we found out that China is much different than what we had in our minds and what appears in the international media. An outsider is indeed overwhelmed by the negative images about China. What we get through the media is sensationalism that reinforces the stereotype of China as a mysterious and angry dragon. Though these caricatures dominate our mindset, they do not portray the broader reality.

Just a week ago, before departing for China, I followed the newspapers like The Economist, The Washington Post, The New York Times and others to get updated on current affairs in China, but what I saw was only negative.

When I first landed at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Nov. 6, all I saw was progress. Beijing was in no way lesser than other world cities. The city was booming; construction was going on everywhere. Beijing was just an entry point.

We traveled to other major cities such as Chongqing, Hechuan and Chengdu. In all these cities, we saw exemplary efforts for pollution control and environmental conservation. The municipal governments have promoted bicycles, electric vehicles (two-, three- and four-wheelers), electric public transportation (trolleys, buses and subways) and solar-powered street lamps.

I read an article in The New York Times titled "In rural China a bomb is ticking." So we wanted to see how the "bomb" looked like. It is true that China has a rural-urban gap where rural Chinese have not benefited from recent economic growth the way city dwellers have. But with the recent reforms on rural development, rural China is much more optimistic about the future.

That's not to say there aren't valid concerns. We met a farmer whose land had been confiscated by the government, though he is being relocated to a 20-story apartment building for free.

In one of the meetings in Beijing, Xiao Geng, director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy, said that China dealt far better with the earthquake crisis than the U.S. dealt with Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, the visit has changed my perspective on China.

There is still, of course, plenty of room for improvement, such as in press freedom, democracy and the rural-urban gap, but China has made some real achievements too. What I see now is a confident, modern China, not an angry dragon.

Sigdel, a Nepalese journalist, is an Asia Pacific Leadership Program fellow at the East-West Center, Hawaii.

---

© Copyright 2008 Ka Leo O Hawai

Terrorism that's personal

Terrorism that's personal

By Nicholas D. Kristofk

Sunday, November 30, 2008

ISLAMABAD Pakistan: Terrorism in this part of the world usually means bombs exploding or hotels burning, as the latest horrific scenes from Mumbai attest. Yet alongside the brutal public terrorism that fills the television screens, there is an equally cruel form of terrorism that gets almost no attention and thrives as a result: flinging acid on a woman's face to leave her hideously deformed.

Here in Pakistan, I've been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don't matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It's a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region.

This month in Afghanistan, men on motorcycles threw acid on a group of girls who dared to attend school. One of the girls, a 17-year-old named Shamsia, told reporters from her hospital bed: "I will go to my school even if they kill me. My message for the enemies is that if they do this 100 times, I am still going to continue my studies."

When I met Naeema Azar, a Pakistani woman who had once been an attractive, self-confident real estate agent, she was wearing a black cloak that enveloped her head and face. Then she removed the covering, and I flinched.

Acid had burned away her left ear and most of her right ear. It had blinded her and burned away her eyelids and most of her face, leaving just bone.

Six skin grafts with flesh from her leg have helped, but she still cannot close her eyes or her mouth; she will not eat in front of others because it is too humiliating to have food slip out as she chews.

"Look at Naeema, she has lost her eyes," sighed Shahnaz Bukhari, a Pakistani activist who founded an organization to help such women, and who was beginning to tear up. "She makes me cry every time she comes in front of me."

Azar had earned a good income and was supporting her three small children when she decided to divorce her husband, Azar Jamsheed, a fruit seller who rarely brought money home. He agreed to end the (arranged) marriage because he had his eye on another woman.

After the divorce was final, Jamsheed came to say goodbye to the children, and then pulled out a bottle and poured acid on his wife's face, according to her account and that of their son.

"I screamed," Azar recalled. "The flesh of my cheeks was falling off. The bones on my face were showing, and all of my skin was falling off."

Neighbors came running, as smoke rose from her burning flesh and she ran about blindly, crashing into walls. Jamsheed was never arrested, and he has since disappeared. (I couldn't reach him for his side of the story.)

Azar has survived on the charity of friends and with support from Bukhari's group, the Progressive Women's Association (www.pwaisbd.org). Bukhari is raising money for a lawyer to push the police to prosecute Jamsheed, and to pay for eye surgery that - with a skilled surgeon - might be able to restore sight to one eye.

Bangladesh has imposed controls on acid sales to curb such attacks, but otherwise it is fairly easy in Asia to walk into a shop and buy sulfuric or hydrochloric acid suitable for destroying a human face.

Acid attacks and wife-burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: They are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.

Since 1994, Bukhari has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.

For the last two years, Senators Joe Biden and Richard Lugar have co-sponsored an International Violence Against Women Act, which would adopt a range of measures to spotlight such brutality and nudge foreign governments to pay heed to it. Let's hope that with Biden's new influence the bill will pass in the next Congress.

That might help end the silence and culture of impunity surrounding this kind of terrorism.

The most haunting part of my visit with Azar, aside from seeing her face, was a remark by her 12-year-old son, Ahsan Shah, who lovingly leads her around everywhere. He told me that in one house where they stayed for a time after the attack, a man upstairs used to beat his wife every day and taunt her, saying: "You see the woman downstairs who was burned by her husband? I'll burn you just the same way."

(Source: International Herald Tribune)

Obama Faces a Multipolar Moment

Obama Faces a Multipolar Moment
By A. Wess Mitchell (LA Times)

 

When Barack Obama enters the Oval Office as commander in chief for the first time in January, it's not hard to imagine him walking to the globe beside the window, giving it a good spin and running in his mind through the list of global burdens he has inherited from his predecessor. What he will see is unlike anything any American statesman has ever had to confront. Two simultaneous land wars; a rapidly arming Iran; an atomic, post-Musharraf Pakistan; a resurgent, energy-rich Russia; a China that holds 10 percent of U.S. currency; a $10-trillion public debt; the worst recession since World War II; and a weak dollar.

Reflecting on this list, it may occur to Obama that he faces the most densely packed and danger-fraught international agenda of any American president since Harry S. Truman -- but the weakest hand of any president since Warren G. Harding. To use the prevailing economic terminology, he will inherit a leveraged superpower.

Many people have noted the perils of America's wars and recession and have dilated gravely on the courage and creativity they will require of the new president. But few have called attention to the deeper structural significance these challenges collectively hold. For of the many "firsts" that Obama will register in the history books, the most important but most frequently overlooked is that he will be the first American president to have to come to grips with the full-blown psychological reality of global multipolarity.

This is neither the geopolitical straitjacket of bipolarity, with its furrowed map and hair-trigger standoffs, nor is it the permissive strategic environment of unipolarity, with its cooperative center and untamed periphery. Multipolarity has never existed on a global scale. The closest parallel we have to it is late 19th-century Europe, with its narrow power differentials and multiple actors jostling for influence in the finely tuned regional balance of power.

The 21st century wasn't supposed to look this way. Only 18 years have passed since Charles Krauthammer proclaimed the advent of the "unipolar moment." The leitmotif of this new era was supposed to be incontestable American strength. Krauthammer acknowledged that new powers might arise at some point, but that, he said, was decades away.

Now, however, the multipolar moment has arrived ahead of schedule. Signs of its advent are everywhere. China continues its peaceful half-century march to superpower status, amassing an economy that will be larger than America's in a decade and a globe-girdling array of Third World client states. Russia, long thought a geopolitical washout, has used a combination of natural-gas wealth and diplomatic braggadocio to expel U.S. influence from Central Asia and reinsert itself into the ranks of the great powers. India, now a member of the nuclear club, is quietly dethroning the U.S. high-tech industry and carving out a geopolitical sphere of influence in South Asia.

Although the U.S. will still be the strongest power in this new system, it will not enjoy the sway it did in the early 1990s.

Talking this way in Washington, D.C., will earn you the pejorative label of "declinist." Thus, arch-neoconservative Robert Kagan used a recent Washington Post column to warn the new administration against constructing a realist foreign policy template premised on an acceptance of attenuating American strength. By equating American primacy with "optimism" and "limits on our power" with defeatism, Kagan sent an unmistakable political message to the new Democratic president: Persist with the orthodoxy of unipolarity or risk the epithet "declinist" in the Republican Party's 2012 comeback narrative. "The danger of today's declinism," Kagan wrote, "is not that it is true but that the next president will act as if it is."

But the real danger is precisely the opposite -- that America is in a state of relative decline but that the new administration will act as if it is not. The latest forecast from the National Intelligence Council, the strategic forecasting unit of the U.S. intelligence community, depicts, by 2025, a world in which U.S. pre-eminence is deeply eroded and in which Washington maintains a decisive edge only in military hardware.

This is the world that Obama must equip the nation to navigate. It is imperative that he initiate a fundamental break from the post-Cold War U.S. strategic playbook. He must find a way to be flexible without being perfidious, to be a realist without being cynical, to match American policy ends with American power means. He must not persist, like his immediate predecessor, with a unipolar mind-set and a bipolar tool kit in a multipolar world.

What is an eager but overburdened young president to do? Conventional wisdom holds that the United States is not suited to playing power politics: Realpolitik, it is said, is not in our political DNA. And indeed, we are not a cynical people. But Obama need not reach far to find a shrewd new way to cope with an imposing new world. Embedded in our own domestic political system are the tools he will need. Three concepts, each deeply rooted in American democracy, may prove useful. Think of them as the ABCs of American statecraft for a multipolar world:

A: Allies are the political "base." As Obama knows, successful candidates take care to maintain their links to the party faithful. Lose them, and a politician deals from a position of weakness. In a multipolar world, allies provide the crucial "votes" that America needs to succeed against rivals. The first rule of American politics should be the first rule of American geopolitics: "Tend to your base."

B: Bargains are the coin of the realm. Every American politician understands the importance of trade-offs: Help a rival senator pass a bill, and he'll help you build that new highway back home. It's the same in foreign policy. "Ice NATO expansion," Moscow may tell the new president, "and we'll help you with Iran." As they do in the Senate, these offers force us to weigh values and interests. And as in the Senate, America must beware of cutting deals at the expense of our most precious resource -- our base.

C: Checked power is safe power. The concept of a balance of power is the taproot of American political thought. Congress, courts and the president contain and curtail one another in an elaborate dance that sifts power, protecting the republic. Understanding this separation of powers will equip Obama well for multipolarity. He need not dominate the new system or head off peers, only keep their power in manageable bounds.

The notion that democracies in general, and America in particular, are at a disadvantage in the rough-and-tumble world of geopolitics must be jettisoned. The skills we need are all well known to President-elect Obama. Incorporating these most American of concepts into our foreign policy may offer the new president some surprising advantages for coping with an unfamiliar new world.

America, it turns out, can handle the end of the unipolar moment.

(Mitchell is co-founder and director of research at the Center for European Policy Analysis.)

-The Washington Post