Powell The Politician, Please Rise

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell chose a British television channel to hit back at his archrival, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In an interview with ITV1, Colin said he advised President George W. Bush to send more troops into Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion was launched. The former secretary of state said he gave the advice to now-retired General Tommy Franks, who planned the Iraq invasion, and Rumsfeld. Powell said Bush's military advisors believed the troop level was adequate, a contention he said he still disagrees with.
Considering that Powell was barely on speaking terms with Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, he may have chosen to take a circuitous route to reach his former hard-line associates.
Or maybe the soldier in him asserted itself in more than one way. It emerges that Powell knew he was stretching the truth when he went before the U.N. Security Council with all those pictures proving Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction posed a clear and present danger to the United States.
We now know, courtesy of Bob Woodward, that President Bush called Powell to inform him of his decision to go to war only after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reminded him it would be the courteous thing to do.
Although Bush seemed to trust the Saudi ambassador more than his own secretary of state, Powell loyally went along every step of the way. Many of us recognize Powell as the “Deep Throat” for Woodward’s “Plan of Attack,” but he was as meticulous as the original man not to leave any fingerprints.
Despite all this restraint, Bush lets a brusque civilian lead America’s proud military on a ruinous path and then stubbornly stands by him. The buck may stop at the commander in chief – with or without a military background. You can’t feel the real anguish of the career people in uniform unless you have been one of them.
Who knows? Maybe a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feels he is under greater obligation than the rest to protect his own. Granted, the transition was shorter than usual after the 2000 elections. Maybe Powell should have insisted on Secretary of Defense more vigorously.
Rumsfeld probably knew where the six retired U.S. generals, who recently called for his resignation faulting his leadership and accusing him of making a series of major errors in the Iraq war, might have picked up the strength to speak.
Maybe he could shrug it off because he knows something else. Powell was the African-American – Republican or Democrat -- with perhaps the best chance as a presidential candidate – until the Iraq war was messed up. The politician in Powell couldn’t have forgiven that, could he?

India: Policing A Tough Neighborhood

For a determined regional cop, India finds itself working on a chaotic schedule. New Delhi had just managed to push forward a plan to resolve the long-running conflict in its tiny northern neighbor Nepal when trouble broke out on the southern front.
After months of uncertainty, the peace process in Sri Lanka seems to be unraveling. The government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) both insist they are committed to peace talks. Intensification in the recent spiral of violence could provide either side – perhaps even both – the excuse to return to fighting, which has already claimed 64,000 lives over a quarter-century.
In Nepal, sustained Indian pressure forced King Gyanendra to restore parliament and hand over power to an opposition alliance that brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets for almost three weeks.
The patch-up between the palace and parties has not relieved India of much. New Delhi still has to contend with the Nepalese Maoist rebels fighting to overthrow the monarchy. The rebels, whose decade-long “people’s war” with the state has claimed 13,000 lives, control much of Nepal. Indian officials brokered an alliance between mainstream opposition parties and the rebels to force King Gyanendra to shed the absolute powers he seized 15 months ago. Having tamed the palace, Indian officials believe they can encourage the Maoists to lay down arms and join the political process.
New Delhi may have made a promising beginning. The Maoists have announced a three-month ceasefire in the hope that the new government would hold elections to an assembly that the rebels hope would draft a new constitution abolishing the monarchy. Nepalese opposition parties still doubt the Maoists’ new-found commitment to multiparty politics, but seem willing to test it.
For India, a more pressing imperative is at play: the growing menace posed by Indian Maoists. Some 20,000 Naxalites, as the Indian Maoists are known, have arms and are an important factor in states comprising 20 percent of India's population. They pose a serious menace in vast swathes stretching from the Nepal border through the most backward states of north-central India - from Bihar to Jharkand, Chhattisgarh and parts of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Naxalites as the greatest internal security threat Indian has ever faced. The Maoists’ success in Nepal has directly strengthened and emboldened the Naxalites, something New Delhi has resolved to stop.
Ethnicity, rather than ideology, is what concerns India in Sri Lanka. On April 25, a suicide bomber struck the army’s heavily-fortified headquarters in the capital, Colombo, wounding the country’s hard-line army chief and killing several of his bodyguards.
The bomber was a member of the LTTE, which seeks an independent state for the mainly Hindu Tamils of northern and eastern Sri Lanka.
Originally sympathetic to the LTTE, India has suffered much at the hands of the fierce organization. When New Delhi sent a peacekeeping force to the island nation to protect the Tamils from the Sinhala-dominated government forces at the height of the civil war in the late 1980s, it faced a rude awakening.
The LTTE and Sri Lankan forces joined hands to drive out Indian troops, inflicting heavy losses. (India’s reluctance to intervene militarily in Nepal is partly rooted in the Sri Lankan fiasco.)
Fearing a harsh response from Rajiv Gandhi, the man who dispatched the troops and was set to return to power in 1991, the LTTE did what it long excelled in. It assassinated Gandhi midway through India’s staggered general election.
Although the peace process in Sri Lanka has been steered by the Norwegians, India has been playing critical behind-the-scenes role.
After the Colombo attack, the Sri Lankan government retaliated by mounting air strikes against LTTE positions in the north and east, killing several people and prompting the rebels to warn of more attacks. The fear of renewed war could trigger an exodus of Sri Lankan Tamils to the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. With state elections approaching, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh certainly cannot be perceived as anti-Tamil – either through his action or inaction.

Grumbling In Global Jihad, Inc.?

With Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi making a 30-minute video appearance on a jihadist website, days after Osama bin Laden’s delivered a fiery audio message, those deciphering the “chatter” must be on overdrive.
A day after the Bin Laden tape was broadcast, three explosions rocked the Sinai Peninsula resort town of Dahab, killing at least 30 people and injuring 160. Most fingers pointed to the Egyptian wing of Al Qaeda.
Throw in Bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri’s appeal last month, and you get the feeling that Zarqawi may be up to something infinitely more devastating.
Or maybe not. Consider the dissonance in the three messages. Bin Laden called for jihadists to extend their focus to Sudan and Kashmir, specifying for the first time India as a target. Al Zawahiri, for his part, sought to focus attention on the Palestinian territories. Consider the other incongruity. When Bin Laden, in this week’s tape, used the West's suspension of financial aid to the Palestinian National Authority as evidence of the "Zionist-Crusaders war on Islam," Hamas immediately sought to distance itself from the jihadists. A Hamas spokesman insisted that his group was interested in good relations with the West. Your enemy’s enemy is not always your friend.
Zarqawi is emphasizing the importance of Iraq in the global jihad. Like any sensible commander, he wants all the resources on his front.
But could Zarqawi’s latest appearance be construed as part of another campaign: asserting his claim to a top leadership role in Al Qaeda – perhaps even replacing Bin Laden?
We’ve already heard a lot about the tensions between Zarqawi and the Al Qaeda supreme leadership. As the most prominent battlefield commander – from his perspective, at least -- Zarqawi must think he deserves greater recognition. By issuing videotapes at a time when the other leaders are mostly limited to voice recordings, Zarqawi may feel ahead of the game.
The foot soldiers spread far and wide, moreover, are more likely to be impressed by the exploits of Zarqawi than by the ideological exhortations of leaders on the run. Could we be witnessing a bitter power struggle in Global Jihad Inc? Keep your eyes and ears open for the next series of tapes.

Europe’s Immigration Dilemma

As leading member-states of the European Union continue to press for tighter immigration controls, a number of developments have taken place.
Riots between locals and North African immigrants over law-and-order disputes are becoming appallingly common.
Far right parties, stoking fears of foreigners, have gained ground.
Proposals have been made for a hefty bond for certain categories of visa applicants in a claimed bid to deter potential asylum-seekers.
The European Union, on the other hand, has come out with reports saying that only an increase in the number of immigrants could compensate for the steady drop in labor supply in the 25-member bloc.
The United Nations Population Fund, too, says that by 2025, the EU would be home to 35 million fewer people than today - a serious problem in view of projections that 159 million new workers will be needed to maintain current labor structures.
A decline in the labor market would tend to affect much more than jobs and income.
With life expectancy increasing in EU nations, governments will be under pressure to earmark additional funds to cover the cost of pensions and health and social benefits for their senior citizens.
The case for more workers paying into social security systems cannot, therefore, be overstated.
At the political level, Britain, Germany and France hope to lay down common policies for accepting immigrants.
Specifically, they want to devise measures to ensure that an immigrant or asylum-seeker rejected in one EU member-state is rejected by all.
Their enthusiasm in seeking increased cooperation against organized crime rings dealing in illegal immigrants is understandable considering the burden such migrants tend to place on the labor market and social security systems.
The growth in right-wing parties in some EU nations may be partly attributed to the social and economic dislocations triggered by the influx of illegal aliens.
Political expediency would force mainstream parties to act tough on immigration while economic prudence would encourage them to adopt an opposite course of action.
EU governments could move to tackle this apparent dichotomy by educating the people on the clear distinctions between legal and illegal immigration and the different realities they represent.

Berlusconi: Sore Loser Or Shrewd Realist?

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is as stubborn in defeat as he was in success. The country’s highest court has confirmed the narrow victory of Romano Prodi's center-left coalition in this month’s general election. For the incumbent, that’s not enough to concede defeat.
Is Berlusconi becoming politically delusional? After all, he reversed the electoral law that had produced relative political stability, returning to a proportional representation system. Instead, that shift produced a fragmented verdict.
During the campaign, Berlusconi continued to exploit his media empire to get disproportionate television coverage for himself and his party. Has failure in the face of such advantages aggravated his malady?
Actually, Berlusconi seems to have his politics right. By questioning an outcome he knows he will inevitably have to accept, Berlusconi may be fortifying his arsenal. Prodi's coalition is fractious enough in terms of personality and ideology. Making it vulnerable to incessant opposition attacks could be one way of reclaiming the mandate Berlusconi feels should have been his all along.
Ordinarily, such callous regard for the people’s will might have sounded the death knell on a politician. With fraudulent elections – at least the perception of them – no longer the exclusive preserve of Third World autocracies, Berlusconi evidently feels he has time on his side.
In another country, such a dogged refusal to yield to the bedrock principle of democracy might have fueled concerns about its political stability. Here, too, Berlusconi feels sufficiently strong. Post-war Italy has averaged about a government a year.
Prodi’s inheritance is hardly enviable, particularly so on the economic front. Berlusconi’s government proved a grave disappointment on the vital reforms needed to improve Italy's competitiveness. The result: Italy is at the lowest rung of the eurozone ladder.
Moreover, Prodi is hamstrung by the strong showing of far-left constituents of his alliance, especially the unreconstructed Communists led by Fausto Bertinotti.
A prominent opponent of large-scale reforms, Bertinotti hopes to undo the labor-market reform introduced by Berlusconi to encourage the use of temporary and short-term contracts. The way French leaders burned their fingers in a similar cauldron will have only bolstered Bertinotti’s hand.
Prodi, more than anyone else, remembers how it was Bertinotti’s withdrawal of support that brought down his previous centre-left government in 1998. No wonder the premier-elect can’t seem to sit back and let Berlusconi’s theatrics run their course.

Putin On A Show

Having fortified his flank at home, Russian President Vladimir Putin is on the way to restoring his nation’s Soviet-era international glory. The upcoming summit of G-8 industrialized democracies is precisely the kind of event the Kremlin sees as its passport to global stardom.
Not very long after he took office, U.S. President George W. Bush began singing paeans to Putin’s sincerity. That look in his eyes was simply unmistakable. When the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Moscow barely took notice. Full-fledged G-8 membership was but a small token of appreciation from his allies.
This extended endorsement coincided with the period Putin began moving against his political opponents, big business, the independent media and started centralizing the power his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, had devolved – deliberately and by default – to the regions.
The U.N. Security Council deliberations preceding the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Moscow’s meddling in Ukraine’s political process, and the Kremlin’s curbs on international non-government organizations deepened doubts about Putin’s worthiness as an international statesman.
The democratic path chosen by Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia and Baltic countries prompts sneers in the Kremlin, which has developed special friendship with Belarus, Iran, Uzbekistan and Venezuela. The sole criterion Moscow meets for continued membership of the G-8 is the size of its economy.
By refusing to attend the St. Petersburg summit, it is argued, G-8 leaders could send a powerful signal to Putin to mend his ways. Such a drastic step, on the other hand, could alienate Russia and encourage it toward other misadventures. So which way will Russia’s G-8 partners decide?
They will probably go ahead with the summit in St. Petersburg. Putin, after all, enjoys considerable popularity among ordinary Russians. If anyone comes up with overwhelming evidence of rigged opinion polls, well, we can see to that then.

The Dems To Rummy’s Rescue?

The script is getting a little bland. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s critics call for his head; President George W. Bush reaffirms his full faith in the whole man.
Rumsfeld looks secure; his enemies wait for another day… which arrives sooner than they expect.
Except this time, it’s Rummy’s generals who are after him – retired generals, I mean. The dainty half a dozen – Maj Gen Charles H Swannack Jr, Maj Gen John Riggs, Maj Gen John Batiste, Gen Anthony Zinni, Lt Gen Gregory Newbold and Maj Gen Paul Eaton -- present a lively portrait. For instance, not all say it was wrong for the United States to invade Iraq.
Their possible motives, too, are newsworthy. Gen. Zinni is in the middle of a tour promoting a new book critical of the Bush administration. Gen. Riggs left the Pentagon in 2004 after clashing with civilian leaders and then being investigated for potential misuse of contractor personnel.
Where the six are most united is in asserting that Rumsfeld and his aides too often inserted themselves unnecessarily into military decision-making, often disregarding advice from military commanders.
Like the rest of us, our men (and women) just out of uniform are entitled to the perspective of hindsight. Moreover, their loyalty to the institution they served with such distinction as to have risen to the top ranks – if that is what has even faintly impelled them to speak -- should be admired.
All the same, politics could hardly have been at the back of their minds. Amid the rising concern about the death toll in Iraq, there has been a precipitous fall in Bush’s popularity ratings.
Bush would be the last person to ditch Rumsfeld. It would be an admission of error. The president took the rather unusual step of defending Rumsfeld while he was away at Camp David.
"I have seen first-hand how Don relies upon our military commanders in the field and at the Pentagon to make decisions about how best to complete these missions," Bush said in a statement.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation."
In an interview with Al Arabiya television, Rumsfeld himself rejected the generals' criticism. "Out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States it would be like a merry-go-round."
Rumsfeld, to be sure, has been a lightning rod for Bush critics. He was blamed for committing too few U.S. troops and for underestimating the strength of the insurgency. He took heat in 2004 over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the U.S. Army-run Abu Ghraib prison. And who can forget that brusque response he gave to an Army National Guard soldier in Kuwait who questioned him on inadequate armor.
Iraq might just have provided the excuse. Some of the tensions between Rumsfeld and the uniformed military services date back to his arrival at the Pentagon in early 2001. Rumsfeld's assertion of greater civilian control over the military and his calls for a slimmer, faster force were viewed with mistrust by many senior officers.
The Rumsfeld doctrine was dark enough on its merits. Its author’s aggressive and often abrasive style could only have earned him the eternal enmity of many.
We’re told there are several other former military leaders ready to attest to the worst in Rumsfeld. Would he hand in another resignation letter and persuaded the president to accept it? Who would be in the running to succeed him, considering how hot the Pentagon seat has become under him?
Rush Limbaugh had this brilliant idea. Dick Cheney should be sent back to his old office in the Pentagon to ponder the multilateralism of Bush 41. Condy Rice should be brought in as veep. Forget about who becomes Secretary of State and watch how Condy Rice’s gaze goes straight to New Hampshire and Iowa.
Maybe the Democrats might mount the best case for Rumsfeld to stay.

Mubarak And The Clash of Civilizations

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has triggered a firestorm in his neighborhood by saying something commonly heard in the Sunni Arab street. In an interview with Al Arabiyah TV, Mubarak said most of the Shia in the Middle East were loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they resided in.
Predictably enough, the most vigorous response came from Iraq. President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and Parliament Speaker Adnan Pachachi – the three top Kurdish, Shia and Sunni leaders of the country -- issued a joint statement criticizing Mubarak for "taking a stab at Shia Iraqis’ patriotism and civilization.” Outrage poured in from quarters as diverse as the Hezbollah and Shia members of Kuwait’s parliament.
Infused by this rather unexpected bestowal of authority, Iran conceded wielding immense influence among Iraqi Shias, adding it was spiritual in nature. Coming from a theocracy, the last qualification was perhaps redundant.
In reality, President Mubarak only repeated a variation of concerns King Abdullah of Jordan and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal had voiced last year: The rise of Shias in Iraq could come at the expense of all Arab Sunnis.
Most of the Sunni regimes in region hated Saddam Hussein; they were among the first to commiserate his departure. If the containment of the Baathist regime ever continued to made sense, it was among the leaders of these Sunni regimes.
Three years after Saddam’s fall, there is no single Arab state that is even close to becoming as strong as Iran. Arab Sunni leaders also recognize that their own legacy of bickering would prevent the emergence of one anytime soon. Most Sunni Arab states, on the other hand, have sizeable Shia minorities. They could get all kinds of wrong ideas from their newly resurgent Iraqi cousins, especially with Washington and Teheran courting them.
At a philosophical level, the prospect of an American-Iranian deal on Iraq is baffling to many Arab Sunnis. Many Americans still can’t figure out how 15 of 19 9/11 hijackers turned out to be nationals of a traditional American ally like Saudi Arabia. Most Sunni Arabs will have an equally hard time understanding how Americans could be so eager to talk to Iran’s Ayatollahs on stabilizing Iraq while threatening to nuke their own suspected nuclear-weapons facilities.
Then the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards steps in to complicate matters. Last week, he called on United States to accept Teheran as the regional hegemon. Now even the most paranoid Sunni knows such a quid pro quo is far-fetched. But, then, wasn’t that the precise role successive U.S. administrations had conferred on the Shah’s regime.
Mubarak may have had another motive. Contrary to conventional wisdom in the West, Iran is not an Arab state. It resents the misconception. The one thing the ayatollahs had no problem inheriting from the Shah was the notion of the supremacy of Iran’s Persian heritage.
Could Mubarak, the leader of another cradle of civilization, have wanted to expose the clash of civilizations within the Islamic world? Not really far-fetched, eh?

Let’s Define Democracy, First

Even in the midst of what has become a virtual civil war, the bickering factions in Iraq’s newly elected parliament are no closer to producing a government. The interim prime minister, Ibrahim Jaafri, a Shia, is denouncing American concerns at the delay as unwarranted interference. What a charade of coalition building.
For many in the Bush administration, the spectacle in Baghdad is democracy in action. To be sure, the escalation in Shia-Sunni fighting has diverted attention from continuing casualties on American forces.
Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia are too seared in the bipartisan consciousness in Washington for Americans to declare victory and withdraw. Even the worst critics of Bush’s decision to invade and occupy Iraq ardently favor staying the course in order to deter terrorism by building democracy.
What democracy? F. Gregory Gause explains in an update to his intrepid essay "Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?" (Foreign Affairs, September/October 2005) nearly two-thirds of the candidates elected to the new Iraqi parliament last December won on platforms that explicitly called for a greater role for Islam in politics.
Among the 215 Arab parliamentarians elected (the others being Kurds and smaller minority group representatives), 81 percent campaigned on lists that were sectarian and Islamist. Granted, not all of these people believe in obliterating America to save the world. Some do come quite close, though. Here’s the shocker: only nine percent came from the explicitly secular, non-sectarian, and multiethnic Iraqi National List of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Take the other two manifestations of democracy in action elsewhere in the volatile region – Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats, 20 percent of the 444 elected seats, in the November-December balloting tightly controlled by President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Gause explains that this figure understates the significance of the Brotherhood's showing. The group had fielded only about 150 candidates as part of a tacit agreement with the government that allowed Brotherhood candidates to campaign openly, and so it won almost 60 percent of the seats it contested. Liberal, leftist, and nationalist opposition parties, on the other hand, won 11 seats, fewer than 3 percent of the total.
In January’s elections to the Palestinian parliament, Hamas -- the political wing of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood – trounced Fatah, the late and hesitant convert to peace founded by Yasir Arafat. Hamas carried 56 percent of the seats against Fatah's 34 percent. Liberal, leftist, and other nationalist parties won seven percent.
Proponents of democracy must reconcile themselves with the emergence of Islamists in certifiably open elections. If this demonstration of the popular will is the kind of success the Bush administration envisions for the wider region – and eventually the rest of the world – then it needs to sort things out. Freeze on aid to a Hamas government is not the kind of encouragement Palestinian voters expect.
The creation of a liberal-secular-nationalist base across the Arab world probably is the best America can hope for. Such formations may require several electoral cycles in most places. Still struggling to form a government three months after the elections, Iraq is the model the region should avoid.

Mauling Musharraf

The flurry of American pronouncements on Pakistan indicates that Washington seems to be seriously envisaging a policy that looks beyond President Pervez Musharraf. At a news conference in Islamabad this week, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher said Washington would like to see Pakistan’s military come under civilian control.
After President George W. Bush pressed the democracy message during his visit to Pakistan last month – to the palpable discomfort of his host -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley have gone to considerable lengths to reinforce it.
Clearly, these statements can be expected to galvanize Musharraf’s opponents dispersed across the political spectrum. Although presidential elections are not due until late next year, a burgeoning anti-Musharraf movement could culminate in an early vote.
What has propelled Washington to publicly maintain a distance from a man it considered an indispensable ally until recently?
Admittedly, Musharraf’s political fortunes soared with the 9/11 attacks. After the army chief overthrew prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s government in October 1999 and gave Pakistan its fourth military regime, Musharraf had remained a pariah. Although President Bill Clinton stopped over in Pakistan for six hours during his South Asia trip in 2000, Musharraf was virtually shunned by the rest of the world.
The post-9/11 campaign to oust the Taleban regime in Afghanistan raised Pakistan’s stature as a principal U.S. ally. Over time, Musharraf’s vision of “enlightened moderation” in Islam provided a convenient basis for Washington to articulate its other concerns.
Pakistan’s major political parties, dogged by allegations of corruption and inefficiency, were considered unviable. With Islamists gaining political clout, Musharraf was the only man Washington considered capable of holding Pakistan together. The very thought of Musharraf’s exit seemed unbearable. Assassination attempts on the Pakistani leader sparked dread in Washington.
What has changed? Does the Bush administration believe it no longer needs Musharraf in its fight against radical Islam? Is Washington sufficiently assured that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe from the Islamist groups poised to take over? Or have Pakistan’s two major political formations – the People’s Party of Benazir Bhutto and Muslim League of Nawaz Sharif – earned enough credibility in American eyes as bulwarks against Islamists?
The ground realities vis-à-vis Pakistan’s vulnerability to a radical Islamist takeover do not seem to have changed drastically enough to warrant such a serious U.S. policy shift. Has the Bush administration decided to dump Musharraf anyway?
Many in Washington, after all, believe he is the principal reason America hasn’t been able to catch Osama bin Laden. Over the years, the Pakistani leader himself has offered contradictory information on the Al Qaeda leader’s status. Musharraf once sounded reasonably confident that Bin Laden was dead. Of late, has been insisting that the region the U.S. believes the Al Qaeda leader is hiding in has long been out of the direct control of the Pakistani government.
Does the policy shift stem primarily from a consensus in the Bush administration that Musharraf might be using Bin Laden as an insurance policy? In that case, the Bush administration must be relying on other assurances.
Has India reassured the United States of its ability to intervene military to secure Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and prevent a jihadist takeover?

Within Or Without The World?

For a nation trying to readjust itself to the realities of the contemporary world, France’s journey has been endless. Take the greatest incongruity of all: the French representative to the United Nations sitting in the Security Council section reserved for the veto-wielding permanent members.
You’d think the discrepancy would not be lost on the French government, perhaps even encouraging Paris to exercise greater prudence in international diplomacy. But, no, France doesn’t think the diminution of its global influence has in any way eroded its capacity to act as the world’s chief moralist.
During the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, French President Jacques Chirac and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin became the public face of the barrier to the Anglo-American steamroller.
No doubt, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, had said nastier things about the Bush administration. The two Frenchmen were the sole targets of Washington strategists and policy makers, not to speak of late-night TV comedians.
Soon another incongruity set in. While Chirac was counseling patience on Iraq, he reinforced France’s military role in some of its former colonies of West Africa. Principle couldn’t have come in such sharp conflict with politics.
It turned out, of course, that Paris’ opposition to the Iraq war was rooted less in pacifism and more in promises of lucrative oil contracts Saddam Hussein had promised should he survive in power. National interest trumps everything else. In a world growing less amenable to French actions and reactions, why blame Chirac for doing what was right for his country?
But is he? France rejected the draft European Union constitution last year before riots erupted in the banlieues. Last month, Chirac walked out of a European Union meeting when a French trade expert chose to speak in English. No one said preserving the French way in a globalized world was going to be easy. Chirac and Co. seem adept in making things more difficult for France.
They are now caught in the youth employment law that has triggered protests across France for the past month. Their plight has deepened after the Constitutional Council held that the law is constitutional.
Admittedly, France is in urgent need of labor reform. Although the aim is to encourage job creation in a country with 9.6 percent unemployment, the law is almost universally despised.
A rejection by the Constitutional Council would have been the best outcome for the two men. Villepin, who had been signaling he would not budge an inch, is now hinting he might soften that position. Retreating from a law he pushed so energetically without ending his political career would require an act of God.
The matter is now before Chirac, whose own popularity is at a record low. He can formally sack his prime minister and veto the law. That won’t get him another term as president.
No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy, Villepin’s interior minister and potential rival candidate in next year's presidential election, is biding his time.