THIS is the age of economics and a concept of economic man has been developed to typify the behaviour of a rational person in a capitalistic society. Capitalism rests on the economic trinity of individualism, materialism and utility maximisation.

The economic man is thus is self-centred and self-interested, always seeking utility maximisation as a consumer and profit maximisation as a producer. His rare manifestation of truism is nothing but enlightened self-interest, as he cannot hope to pursue his material goals in a chaotic disorderly environment.

As a rational being, he is always calculating cost and benefit with computer speed and only net gain dictates his decisions. The worldly life is the end-all and be-all for him and he is generally an agnostic, if not an atheist, and his time horizon is very short, at the most, restricted to his own life cycle, therefore, invariably preferring the present.

In sharp contrast, Islamic man has absolute faith in the existence of God and the Day of Judgment when he will be accountable to Him after death for all his deeds, big or small, and even thoughts. He realises the purpose of his creation, as viceregent of Allah on earth, and, therefore, does not live for himself. His prayer, sacrifice, life and death are for the Lord of the worlds. (6:63)

He is to discharge the Divine Trust accepted by him and carry out his responsibilities as viceregent of Allah on earth. His behaviour is always motivated for seeking the pleasure of Allah, to the point where Allah is well pleased with him and he is well pleased with Allah. His conduct, therefore, reflects the basic attributes of Allah — graciousness, mercy and justice. To this end, he casts himself in a special mould whereby he discharges his obligations to Allah, fellow beings and himself.

He leads a normal life catering to the basic needs of flesh and soul. He seeks no less good in the life on earth than that in the Hereafter. However, the short life on earth is not his principal concern, nor the ultimate of his knowledge, but the next one, which is eternal.

Even so, he leads a full worldly life within the parameters prescribed by Allah and the Holy Prophet (PBUH). His time preference is just the reverse of the economic man and worldly life is a preparation for the next one. Without ignoring himself, he is always deeply concerned with the welfare of others. In that, he not only avoids doing harm to others, in itself an act of virtue, but also actively promotes their interests and vies with others in this.

He is neither greedy nor selfish and engages in extensive charity within his means for Allah’s pleasure and not for any reward or thanks. He does this openly as well as secretly so much so that his right hand would not know what his left hand has given. He is totally devoid of ill-will and rancour, but full of goodwill for all. He is not bloated with pride and never looks down upon others, however humble they may be. Love for the sake of Allah and hatred for the sake of Allah plays down his emotions, which at times can be irrational and quite fickle. This gives him a permanent and secure basis for his consistent, constant and spontaneous good behaviour.

His conduct towards others is governed by the minimum requirement of justice. Thereafter, he tries to be benevolent and then be absolutely selfless and spontaneous, as if dealing with close kindred. He retains his individual identity but does not impose himself on others and harmonises it with society by building his relations with others on affinity, ignoring differences.

He has strong family ties, starting with his own family based on legal marriage, as a religious duty, the basic purpose of which is procreation in all its purity, adultery being strictly forbidden. In the family, parents have a special place, especially when they grow old. He is kind towards his wife and equally solicitous for proper upbringing of his children, as one of his primary responsibilities. His other relatives receive his favours prior to neighbours and others. He is very much concerned about looking after the orphans, weak, poor and naive.

The Islamic man is extremely hardworking, steadfast and patient to carry out the onerous spiritual and physical responsibilities, compulsory as well as supererogatory. However, he does not rely exclusively on his effort alone and takes it as a necessary condition but seeks Divine help as the condition to make it successful. This he does through supplication to Allah, and that also helps him establish communion with Him. He places his trust in Allah alone for the ultimate outcome of his endeavour.

He is intelligent and reflective to see relationship between various elements of the universe and take full advantage of Allah’s bounties. This makes him an avid seeker of knowledge, from cradle to grave. He always prays to Allah to add to his knowledge.

The Islamic man is balanced and moderate, does not allow himself to be swayed to the extremes, plays down his personal likes and dislikes, is kind and ever inclined to forgive and forget if this leads to good, approaches every thing with wisdom as well as in the most appropriate manner and sticks to the golden rule of following the middle course. He resists evil inclinations and avoids vain activity to conserve his energy and resources for beneficence. For this, he shuns bad companions and seeks the good company of the righteous.

On the Day of Judgment, the Islamic man will be accountable for, among other things, how he earned his living and how he spent it. A comprehensive integrated economic system has been provided by Allah to govern human economic activity, which, though sent down at a time when economic life was quite primitive, was far ahead of time and meets the essential needs of the modern complex society.

THE X-men have taken over Washington. One minute we thought we had an incompetent bunch of neoconservative fantasists and big spenders running the United States into the ground. The next thing you know, the Bush administration has mutated into a bunch of superheroes.

The president has become Regreto. The Treasury secretary has morphed into Gold Man (Sachs). And the secretary of State has become Realistique.

First, the president himself came over all contrite at his news conference with Tony Blair, acknowledging that his “kind of tough talk” at the time of the invasion of Iraq had “sent the wrong signal to people.” Hold the presses. He made mistakes!

Then — a real coup — Bush was able to announce the appointment of Henry Paulson, head honcho at Goldman Sachs, as his new treasury secretary. After five years of drift at that department, this may signal a return to the financially savvy policies of the Clinton era, when Paulson’s predecessor at Goldman, Robert Rubin, made the same move from Wall Street to Washington.

But even more remarkable has been the metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of State into Realistique — a foreign policy realist in the tradition of Henry Kissinger. Having once branded Iran a member of the “axis of evil,” this administration looked incapable of dealing diplomatically with the threat posed by that country’s ill-concealed nuclear ambitions. Only last month, the president all but tore up a letter addressed directly to him by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Last week, however, Rice suddenly morphed, announcing that the United States would join forces with “our European partners” (Britain, France and Germany) to offer Iran a diplomatic deal. The next day, she finalised the terms of this deal not only with her European counterparts but with the foreign ministers of Russia and China.

It’s been the best week for American diplomacy since Bush entered the White House.

Of course, we don’t know the small print of the document that has been sent to Tehran. But it clearly offers the Iranians a choice. Abandon your plans for nukes and you will take delivery of some real carrots — including assistance with building light-water nuclear facilities. Alternatively, press on with your illicit programme and you can expect some painful sticks.

I am strongly tempted to take my hat off to Rice. Like Kissinger before her, she has shown how much can be achieved by persistence and persuasion, even from a position of weakness.

There is, however, a catch. Could the US now be repeating with Iran the mistake that it has already made with North Korea? In 2002, the North Koreans re-started their nuclear facilities at Yongbyon (which had been closed under the US-North Korean Agreed Framework of 1994) with the clear intention of enriching uranium. Since then, they have also been busy producing weapons-grade plutonium.

As with Iran, the American response has been to participate in multiparty talks. And, as with Iran, the transgressor has been offered both carrots and sticks.

The carrots have taken the form of generous aid to North Korea’s basket-case economy. The sticks have included a crackdown on North Korea’s illicit traffic in fake drugs, counterfeit currency, endangered species and conventional weaponry.

The result? Nothing. The North Koreans turn up to the talks only when they feel like it and show no sign of renouncing their nuclear ambitions. The reason is clear. Perhaps not surprisingly, Kim Jong Il long ago figured out that the best use for a nuclear missile programme is, in fact, blackmail. “Give me the money,” he screams, “or this thing goes off.”

Could the same thing happen with the Iranians? It could, but only if they are allowed to acquire, or can credibly claim to have acquired, one or more nuclear bombs. No bombs, no blackmail. And they will be able to get bombs only if we rule out the possibility that, if diplomacy does not deliver, carrots and sticks could give way to military strikes.

For in foreign affairs, diplomacy can never be regarded as an end in itself. As the great German strategist Carl von Clausewitz observed, war is the continuation of foreign policy by other means. By the same token, a foreign policy that rules out war as a last resort lacks the credibility to achieve its ends. That is the very essence of realism.—Dawn/Los Angeles Times

THE discovery of nuclear technology may have great historical significance, but it is regrettable that it has led to the development of weapons with enormous destructive power as was revealed when the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, reducing the Japanese cities to rubble and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

In December 1953, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the UN General Assembly and made his ‘Atoms for Peace’ proposal that promoted the idea of peaceful use of nuclear energy under proper safeguards to prevent its diversion for military purposes. He told the General Assembly that “this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind”.

It is noteworthy that in his speech at the General Assembly, President Eisenhower made no mention of the Acheson-Lilienthal report that was submitted in 1946 and that had warned that the “development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the development of atomic energy for bombs are in much of their course interchangeable and interdependent”. He categorically declared that the “United States pledges before you — and, therefore before the world — its determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma — to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life.”

President Eisenhower was fully aware of the dual nature of nuclear technology, its military and peaceful applications. He, however, pleaded with governments to use nuclear energy for the improvement of socio-economic conditions. In March 1955, he intensified his efforts to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. He asked the Atomic Energy Commission to provide “free world” nations with “limited amounts of raw and fissionable materials” and to devise methods whereby this fissionable material would be allocated to serve peaceful pursuits and to mobilise experts to apply atomic energy to the needs of agriculture, medicine and other peaceful activities, that included the provision of abundant electricity to power-starved areas.

Evidently, President Eisenhower recognised the value of nuclear energy, particularly for the economic development of nations, and did not consider the exploitation of fissionable material for nuclear weapons as an impediment to using nuclear energy for civilian purposes. His administration concluded agreements for nuclear cooperation with a number of countries and even allowed the training of foreign scientists at the Argonne Nuclear Science and Engineering Laboratory in Illinois.

Following President Eisenhower’s initiative, the United Nations created the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1957, to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Since the advent of the atomic age, nuclear weapons proliferation has been a major security issue and there has been a global consensus that this constitutes a serious threat to world peace and security.

In response to the persistent demand for the conclusion of a treaty to curb the spread of nuclear weapons, the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was proposed and the treaty entered into force in 1970.

The NPT establishes a political and legal barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons. It may, however, be mentioned that Article IV of this treaty also guarantees states parties the right to develop research, production and the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, without discrimination, in conformity with Articles I and II that make the permissive provision under Article IV subordinate to the NPT’s core non-proliferation principles.

Thus, the NPT has actually created a vital and irreplaceable framework for peaceful nuclear cooperation by providing assurances that its non-nuclear weapons members will devote their nuclear programmes exclusively for peaceful purposes.

It is manifestly clear that the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is one of the pillars of the NPT. It is also important to note that nuclear energy, which is an important source of power for civilian use, may become even more crucial in the foreseeable future in view of the constant depletion of fossil fuel resources and the resultant high price of oil.

Nuclear power is abundant and affordable, apart from being safe and clean. For instance, it generates large amounts of low-cost electricity without causing air pollution.

Developing countries also need sufficient and uninterrupted nuclear energy to support economic development in order to reduce the rampant poverty and improve the standard of living of their people.

While the nuclear non-proliferation regime, based on the NPT, needs to be preserved to make the world free of the nuclear nightmare, it is equally important to allow developing countries to use nuclear energy to meet legitimate needs and to bring about social and economic changes that would ensure the well-being of their people.

It is, therefore, surprising that the United States is opposed to the developing countries’ quest for nuclear energy. Such an attitude is tantamount to a desire to deprive these countries of the benefits of nuclear technology, even for civilian purposes. Regrettably, until now, the US has used totally paradoxical arguments to defend its policy on this issue. Washington is prepared to work with nations that have advanced civilian nuclear programmes, such as France, Japan and Russia, to develop its nuclear reactors by adopting newly discovered methods to recycle spent nuclear fuel to produce more energy.

But, apparently, it does not want to see developing nations produce nuclear energy even for peaceful purposes, which they have permission to do under the NPT. This not only illustrates the dichotomy of the US nuclear policy but is also extremely unfair to the developing nations.

The United States must realise that each country has a sovereign right to develop dependable sources of energy for economic growth. Its argument that these countries may develop nuclear energy only for military purposes is a biased view.

Washington should know that most developing countries, including the ones that had the wherewithal to acquire nuclear weapons, voluntarily gave up that option. It must, therefore, adopt a realistic attitude on the question of the acquisition of nuclear energy by developing countries and abandon delusions that do not fit in with ground realities.

The writer is a former ambassador.