US role in Lebanon

With the resignation of Lebanon's pro-Syrian prime minister, Omar Karameh, the crisis in that country has deepened. The assassination of prime minister, Rafik Hariri, on February 14, amid Washington's pre-emptory and repeated calls for immediate withdrawal of Syria's remaining 14,000 troops from Bekka Valley and the host government's reluctance to oust its protectors, has internationalized what is essentially a matter of Lebanon's domestic jurisdiction.

The US has given the impression as though the Syrian troops are an occupying force like the American troops in Iraq and Israeli troops in West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights.

On the contrary, the Syrian troops are the guests of the Lebanese government which invited them during the civil war in 1975 to restore peace and tranquillity in that embattled country and their further stay and redeployment in their present location was brought about in strict compliance with the Taif accord, the handiwork of the Arab League, as endorsed by the Lebanese National Assembly on October 22, 1989.

According to this accord, the Syrian troops were to assist the national government in imposing its security plan for two years and thereafter they were to move out of Beirut into the Bekka region - which the Syrian government has indicated its troops will do - and positions along the Beirut-Damascus highway.

The size of the Syrian contingent and the duration of its stay was left to the two governments to determine by agreement. Meanwhile, a maverick military man, colonel Michael Aoun, defied the Taif accord.

The mutinous colonel took control of the capital and ousted the government. As a result of this development, the country could have relapsed into a bloody internecine strife. The Syrian troops defeated the Bonapartist adventurer and restored the authority of the government in the country.

It was because of the moderating influence of the Syrian forces that the Muslims - Sunnis and Shias - dropped their insistence on representation in the national assembly according to their numerical strength and accepted parity with the Christians who had now become a minority.

The Shias, who constituted the majority among the Lebanese Muslims, accepted "albeit with reservations" fewer assembly seats than their Sunni compatriots. A mutual spirit of accommodation and desire to preserve national unity motivated their acquiescence in a numerically inferior status vis-a-vis the Sunnis.

For over a decade and a half, Christians and Muslims had been killing one another, the targeted killings of important leaders such as the Progressive Socialist Party leader, Kamal Jumblatt, the former prime minister, Rashid Karame, and the Phalange leader and the Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayal, had destabilized the country and ruined the economy.

Bashir Gemayal's assassination exacerbated the Christian-Muslim tension which was used by the occupying Israeli army chief, Ariel Sharon, to unleash the Phalange militia to perpetrate ruthless massacre of Palestinian men, women and children in Sabra and Chatilla, the capital's refugee camps.

The Israelis, taking advantage of the civil war, invaded Lebanon and occupied the ten-by-six square mile swathe of South Lebanese territory where it set up a puppet Maronite army man, Major Haddad, as ruler under its tutelage. To bolster the Vichy-type regime, Israel raised a 2,500-strong mercenary force as the auxiliary of its approximately 900 troops.

The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon triggered a resistance movement spearheaded by Hezbollah. The Palestinians also occasionally made forays into northern Israeli territory, thereby giving Tel Aviv a pretext to launch a full-scale invasion in 1978 to expel the PLO from Lebanon.

Israel laid siege of Beirut, cutting off power and water supply to the residents. In the ensuing 11-week Israeli-PLO war, the longest in the history of the Arab-Israel wars, the PLO headed by Yasser Arafat, had to move out of Beirut to Tunis along with simultaneous Israeli evacuation of the Lebanese capital.

The deal was brokered by the Reagan administration. The Israelis, however, continued to occupy South Lebanon despite the Security Council resolution 425, demanding prompt pull-out of occupying army.

Neither the US nor France pressed Tel Aviv to evacuate the occupied Lebanese territory which remained in Israeli occupation until the defeat and flight of Israelis in May 2000.

The Hezbollah militants liberated their land and have since been pressing for the return of the Sheba farm still held by Israel. What is more galling is the attitude of the US, which, instead of demanding Israel's compliance with the world body's directive, has condoned Israel's illegal occupation of the Syrian territory.

Emboldened by the US support and indifference of other big powers, Israel expelled half a million natives of Golan Heights to make place for Jewish immigrants in flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention..

One cannot but feel revolted at the Security Council resolution 1559, calling for withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon and the disbanding of militias in a bid to establish the writ of the Lebanese government.

Although the resolution does not specifically mention the Syrian forces, it has been understood to mean only the Syrian troops present there. The UN secretary-general has taken unusual interest in the implementation of the resolution and dispatched his special envoy to Damascus and Beirut to expedite the Syrian withdrawal within two months.

The beleaguered UN chief has taken a narrow view of the resolution and focused on the Syrian troops while ignoring the occupying Israeli army in Sheba farm, a Lebanese territory.

One may ask Kofi Annan why doesn't he call upon Israel to withdraw its forces from the Golan Heights? Does international law permit the acquisition of a state's territory by another state on the pretext of its security? Clearly, the western powers back Israel's blatant territorial aggrandizement.

There is no doubt that the US has been pursuing Israel's agenda by insisting on the dis-bandment of the militias. The Taif accord does provide for such a measure only as part of the gradual abolition of Lebanon's confessional system which gives weight age to the Christian minority in that country's power structure. Here again one sees double standards on the part of the West, which clamours for majority rule in Iraq but denies it to Lebanese Muslims.

In July 1958, the Eisenhower administration landed the US marines in Lebanon during the Christian-Muslim riots amid President Chamoun's abortive move for re-election. Though Washington claimed to have taken this step to prevent alleged infiltration of communists from Syria, the real motive was to block popular demand of majority rule. The UN observers were sent to Lebanon on a fact-finding mission but they could not find any evidence of communist incursion into Lebanon.

In the early 1980s the US deployed its marines while France sent its troops to Lebanon at the height of the civil war to prevent what they feared to be Lebanon's take-over by the Arab National Movement.

The American and French military headquarters in Beirut were simultaneously subjected to lorry bomb attacks by the militants in 1983, killing 250 US marines and about 150 French troops. They both fled the city, leaving it in ruins.

When the American marines and French troops failed to stop the civil war, it was the Syrian troops who restored peace and facilitated national reconciliation among the contenders for power under the auspices of the Arab League.

The oil-rich Arab rulers led by Saudi Arabia extended generous financial assistance to the Lebanese government while the Syrian army assisted the Lebanese authority in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Beirut and the country.

If the US attacks Syria and targets the Hezbollah, using Hariri's assassination as a pretext, it will plunge Lebanon again into a civil war with a spill-over effect in the region, giving rise to larger resistance encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf.

Women's struggle makes headway

March 8 is international women's day. Over the years it has acquired a ritualistic symbolism - seminars, rallies, plays and other events to draw public attention to the deplorable status of women in Pakistan.

The cynics believe nothing comes out of all the rumpus that is created. They point to the dismal state of a majority of women in the country and ask, what have all the international women's day celebrations done to better their lot?

True, the statistics continue to be shocking. One aspect is the dismal figures of literacy, empowerment and participation in decision-making. According to the Human Development Report, 2004, only 28.5 per cent of women (above 15) in Pakistan were literate in 2002.

The figure would be somewhat better today but by no means satisfactory. The female economic activity rate has been shown as 36 per cent, which is of course, a vast improvement over what it was two decades ago, but not good enough when compared to the South Asian average of 43 per cent.

It is also the lowest in the region. As for the female participation in decision-making at every level, only nine per cent of the administrators, senior officials and managers are women.

The second aspect is the gender disparity that has still not been eliminated, many pious proclamations notwithstanding. Women continue to be perceived as the "other half".

The Human Development Report shows that in terms of literacy, the female rate is only 53 per cent of the male rate, while the economic activity rate is 44 per cent of the male rate. But given the discrimination they suffer in employment the ratio of women's earned income to that of men's is 0.33. Worse still, it is difficult to quantify the violence against women - rapes, murders, domestic abuse. This is on the rise.

But should we start despairing about the fate of women in Pakistan because of these bleak figures? What needs to be noted is that the women's movement in the country has entered a new phase.

Even ordinary women have begun to fight back not just for their rights as equal citizens of the country entitled to the same treatment as their men folk, but also to have a say in all national and local affairs, since ultimately they are equally affected - in some cases emotionally and economically more - by what befalls the country.

It is in this context that the international women's day acquires great significance because it symbolizes the efforts of the committed women activists of Pakistan to raise public awareness. It is this mobilization that has enabled women to raise their voice against the injustice that is perpetrated against them.

Women are beginning to feel empowered - if not on the ground, at least in their minds. Many of them have begun to fight back on an individual basis. There are examples which are indicators of the change that is coming.

Without these efforts, it would not have been possible for many rape victims to come out openly about what they have suffered and seek justice even against heavy odds.

The role women are now attempting to play in seemingly "non-women related" issues such as war and peace and international politics is significant. To mark the international women's day this year and to commemorate 25 years of its existence, Tehrik-i-Niswan has produced a new theatre play "Zikr-i-Nashunida".

It is not the typical March 8 play lamenting the plight of women, though that does emerge from it. But more important, according to its director and choreographer (who also prepared the script), Prasanna Ramaswamy, it celebrates the female strength which embodies and sustains life, despite the continuous onslaught of destructive activities of the power mongers.

She says, "The imaging of war on television has benumbed people and war has come to be seen as an event with accompanying data. But actually its impact is felt for decades and decades by the people who suffer tragedies, the communities that are dislocated and the environment and economic resources that are devastated."

In the play which was being rehearsed last week, the words of the female cast had a powerful effect, "We are women. We are the dispossessed of war. We have been left with memories."

Prasanna believes that art may not change society immediately. But it contributes tremendously towards starting a process of change by sensitizing people, permeating a message into their consciousness and starting a discourse.

Prasanna comes from Madras and is a committed pacifist who uses her art to promote peace. She describes her cooperative venture with Sheema Kermani, the director of Tehreek-i-Niswan, as an "endearing and rewarding experience".

This is a new aspect of the women's struggle in Pakistan. As the borders between India and Pakistan gradually open up one can expect the women of the two countries to join hands for a common cause.

While working jointly, as this play underscores, the women on both sides of the borders can work together for issues which are of common concern to them. Peace should be item number one on their agenda.

If the threat of war constantly overshadows them, can they be expected to work for their economic and social development? As Prasanna says, "Gender politics is present in issues of war and peace but it is not there in black and white. It cannot be defined as a man versus woman issue."

True, the approach to war and peace is not determined by biology. There are militant women and pacifist men. But the fact is that given the situation obtaining in South Asia, men are preponderantly running the government's show while women are most prominent in the nascent peace movement.

One just has to see the number of women working for the Pakistan-India Forum for Peace and Democracy, and other forums trying to promote peace in South Asia. In governments, men are the ones taking decisions on vital matters of life and death.

India's ruling Congress Party is headed by a woman, Mrs Sonia Gandhi. But it is now established that the presence of one or two women in a large majority of men does not affect decisions reflecting a potential gender bias.

Thus peace has also been added to the feminist agenda, which already includes female literacy, resisting violence, legal rights of women, female economic empowerment, reproductive health, and equal gender role in political decision-making apart from many others. It is a massive agenda but the struggle must go on.

Murderers of history

I have borrowed the title for this piece from the caption of an article on deliberate distortion of history written by Surosh Irfani some years ago. Before I come to Mr Irfani let me tell you something.

I once wrote in this column how, for a national philatelic exhibition in Quetta, intending participants were directed not to send in any postage stamps that bore the effigy of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. This was during the time of General Ziaul Haq. Apparently not content with murdering the man, the General also wanted to murder history by implying that there had been no such phenomenon as ZAB.

This was nothing. Very few people beside educationists know that all books of Pakistan Studies were revised with ZAB in mind. The General would have liked that his predecessor should not be mentioned in history books at all, but since that was not possible, the next best thing was to paint the man as a deep-dyed villain, something akin to Iblees or Dracula.

So the period when the late prime minister ruled the country came to be described in school and college books as "a dark and evil period in Pakistan's otherwise glorious history." In these books the emergence of Bangladesh too was laid at Mr Bhutto's door, while poor General Yahya Khan got nothing for his effort.

This was for the man who, for the first time in the history of the subcontinent, made the ordinary Muslim stand up with pride in himself and contempt for the feudal - the millstone around the community's neck - and the man who laid the foundations of Pakistan's nuclear programme for which he had to pay with his life as a result of collusion between the United States and General Ziaul Haq, for the cheeky Pakistani who was threatening to lead the Third World against the hegemony of the superpower.

When Ms Benazir Bhutto became prime minister in 1988, a committee was appointed to revise school and college history books and purge them of offensive material about her father.

Maybe the committee erred on the side of the other extreme; this I have not been able to find out. As a dedicated scholar, surosh Irfani can conduct research into this. But it is certain that the good work, for whatever it was worth, could only have been done in BB's tenure when some germs of idealism still infected her mind. In the second coming she was completely overtaken by material considerations infused in her by an enterprising husband.

Is it impossible to be dispassionate in writing history? So it seems. The Indians are far ahead of us in historiography, but even they succumb to emotionalism when they write about Muslim rulers in the context of their Hindu population.

Where there is no tradition of scholarly truthfulness, as in modern Pakistan, and writers pander to successive regimes to gain favours, the result can be horrendous, as described by Mr Irfani in his article which was actually a review of the book "The Murder of History" (Vanguard 1993) by Prof. K.K. Aziz, the distinguished historian.

According to Mr Irfani, the professor's book is a ground breaking analysis of "the falsehoods and plain lies" that have a share in shaping a youthful Pakistani subjectivity in the name of ideological education.

It is, in fact, a white paper cataloguing the untruths, bigotry and bias that successive government have systematically passed on through tailored courses and textbooks on history and Pakistan Studies.

The professor cites hundreds of examples and extracts from 65 textbooks that are a disturbing testament of the ignorance, hatred and prejudice that have gone into shaping our cultural psyche. For example, a book for intermediate students gives the following account of the creation of Bangladesh: "In the 1971 war, the Pakistan armed forces created new records of bravery, and the Indian forces were defeated everywhere....

The Hindus of East Pakistan engineered anti-Urdu demonstrations during Jinnah's time and at last the federal politicians accepted the humiliating situation and declared Bengali a second national language. The movement sowed the seeds of hatred."

As Professor Aziz rightly comments that if in 1971 the Indians were beaten everywhere why did the victorious Pakistan army surrender to India in Dhaka? There is no answer in the textbook.

Moreover why was it humiliating for the government of Pakistan to accept Bengali as a national language when demography, democracy and morality dictated that Bengali should have been the national language of the country?

Prof Aziz quotes extensively from a book on Pakistan Studies designed in General Ziaul Haq's time by a special committee of "distinguished professors and research directors headed by a vice chancellor."

These passages, says Mr Irfani, make tragic reading for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of an intelligentsia whose personal bias, ignorance and opportunism have been allowed to pass as history.

One of them counts Maulana Mahmudul Hasan and Maulana Maudoodi among the "founders of the ideology of Pakistan" without mentioning that one was opposed to the Muslim League and the other was against the creation of a separate Muslim state and had publicly stated that the war in Kashmir (1947-48) could not be described as jihad on any count.

There is no mention in the book of the role of the Bengali ulema in the revival and rejuvenation of Muslim nationalism in the subcontinent whereas they spear-headed the movement, while the Khudai Khidmatgars of the Frontier province might as well not have existed. Both did not suit the politico-sectarian concepts of the rulers and their hack writers.

About the 1977 movement of the PNA, instead of informing students that it was sparked off by the opposition protesting against the rigged elections, the following account is given without even mentioning ZAB's name: "The PPP government failed to establish an Islamic system in the country and did not treat the provinces equally.

For this, a movement was started which resulted in a change of government. The change that came on July 5, 1977 in the shape of imposition of martial law might have been on the surface a political incident but it was the starting point of an Islamic revolution."

After history had been hacked to pieces in this manner the coup de grace was delivered by the following words: "General Ziaul Haq was chosen by destiny to be the person who achieved the distinction of imposing Islamic law.... The real objective of the creation of Pakistan, and the demand of the masses, was achieved."

The murderers of history did a thorough job. It is doubtful if any life was left in the victim.

A charter for undiluted democracy

The recent meeting between two former prime ministers and heads of the country's two major national political parties, that took place outside Pakistan, has caused significant ripples in political circles and its effects are noticeable in all quarters. A majority of the people and intelligentsia have welcomed this meeting terming it a breakthrough for which Pakistani politics and democracy had to wait for 57 years.

As against this, the Musharraf government reacted in a very nervous manner, which was surprising because day in and day out the line toed by the official media on future course of Pakistani politics has been one of promoting and advocating national reconciliation.

If two arch rivals of the past met to forget and forgive and pledged to make a new beginning for democracy based on mutual respect, tolerance and rule of law, what more can one hope for achieving the goal of national reconciliation.

Instead, General Musharraf ridiculed the meeting by saying that the enemies of the past are posing as brother and sister today as if the events have taken a turn for the worse.

If he was seriously seeking a national reconciliation then he should have welcomed the meeting by acknowledging that both leaders' agreement on a code of ethics for future democracy is a step in the right direction.

The meeting between Mr Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto can surely be described as a breath of fresh air after a long time. Our major political parties have remained at loggerheads throughout our recent political history partly because of immaturity of the system and partly for reasons of manipulation of the political process by undemocratic forces, which kept them divided and pitted against each other in order to keep their dominance over the state structure.

This interference by, and involvement, of the military establishment in politics since 1950s didn't allow the democratic institutions and process to become stronger and stable.

Because of frequent martial laws, the political and civil institutions were subjected to the worst form of institutional vandalism. Political institutions were often dissolved, manipulated and misused.

In civil administration military officers were given prime offices as a bribe in return for blind obedience and support, thereby further undermining the morale and capability of these institutions.

Politicians' infighting and internal strife were often cited by General Musharraf and his predecessors as one of the major reasons for political chaos in the country and for it they were subjected to a well orchestrated campaign of vilification by these Bonapartists.

If now both the PML-N and PPP, representing the mainstream of Pakistani politics, have decided to learn from their past mistakes and commit themselves to the restoration of Constitution's supremacy, rule of law and to act in a democratically responsible manner under a mutually agreed "Charter of Democracy," it deserves a positive response from our rulers.

Through "Charter of Democracy" both the PML-N and PPP committed that as the country's major political parties, they shared a great responsibility for taking the country out of the present crisis.

Leaders of both parties affirmed that Pakistan was created through a democratic struggle and is a federation. Therefore it can only become strong and developed through full participation of the people in governance.

Therefore, it must revert to real democracy and 1973 Constitution as soon as possible through fair, free, and transparent elections under an independent and effective Election Commission.

The two parties affirmed to make a fresh start for ushering in a new era of democracy based on mutual respect, tolerance, safeguarding human rights, protecting rights of women, minorities and the under-privileged, and promoting prosperity of all people without discrimination.

Both parties agreed to continue their struggle offering every sacrifice that may be needed, defeating every attempt to create rifts and differences in their ranks to win complete and genuine freedom for the people of Pakistan.

They also resolved that they would not act in any way that would help non-democratic forces to negate the 1973 Constitution, democratic rights of the people, supremacy of parliament, federal parliamentary system of government, independence of the judiciary, rule of law, freedom of the media and civil liberties.

Both leaders affirmed to provide the people of Pakistan self-respect, dignity and good governance, and will, as leaders, never compromise the national interest of Pakistan or barter away national sovereignty for their personal or political interests.

They called upon all the political forces in the country to agree on a "Charter of Democracy", which should become the cornerstone of collective efforts for an end to dictatorship for all times to come.

In this parties must put aside differences on policies and other issues for achieving this common goal and agree to form working groups to outline specific measures and reforms for implementing the Charter of democracy.

Now, if one looks at the emerging political scenario in the context of Balochistan, the events are taking a dangerous turn. A new political crisis is brewing in Sindh, where the CM has issued a charge sheet of corruption against one minister but NAB is a bystander because it involves the king's party.

The situation in tribal areas is far from satisfactory. Unfortunately, our military, which may be professionally very well trained, is totally incapable of comprehending the political realities. For that matter no military in the world can claim mastery in this area because politics and soldiering are poles apart in both scope and tactics.

There can be no better judgment on this question than Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report which categorically stated that political assessment of the GHQ, Military Intelligence, and ISI were wide off the mark about the political situation in East Pakistan.

Our military leaders feel confident that their long stay in power is a proof that they are more capable than politicians as far as governing the country is concerned. This is a very erroneous claim and doesn't reflect the realities.

The reality is that people in the past have not openly challenged military rule partly because of a romantic notion they developed about the military and because of security paradigm that dominated our political history of hostility with India and three wars without country.

People have perceived military as a sacrosanct element of our national security system and trusted it blindly. Military has been misusing their trust for its politics, which, is undergoing erosion and making its role increasingly controversial. Whether this is for good or bad it is for the military leadership to decide.

In all three long tenures of military rulers, which coincided with a geostrategic game plan and a role for Pakistan in this region, would powers that mattered felt more comfortable in doing business with a military ruler.

These rulers were provided political support and foreign aid to keep them domestically stable much to the disadvantage of democratic forces in the country.

Ayub Khan removed Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy and Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan from the scene, Zia executed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Musharraf exiled Nawaz Sharif and has on a number of occasions reiterated that he would not allow both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto to return to the country.

Every military action was preceded and followed by a massive psycho exercise to prove politicians as corrupt, plunderers, and traitors to create doubts in the minds of the people and make them indifferent to politics.

No political party has ever had even a fraction of the resources which are at the command of military leadership to counter this propaganda campaign. At any given time dozens of officers were engaged in disrupting and weakening the democratic parties.

If the people are really so fed up with the politicians and if the present military government has genuinely put Pakistan on the rising path, as claimed by General Musharraf, then why is he so afraid of letting Mr. Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto return to Pakistan.

Why not break their myth by letting them come back so that the people may simply ignore them in the presence of General Musharraf's enlightened leadership, which has enabled Pakistan to gain economic independence and ushered in an era of unprecedented progress?

The reality is that both this PML-N and PPP still remain the country's two main national political parties. They have withstood the persecution and victimization of the present regime.

Hence, if there is calm on the surface it doesn't mean that there are no tsunami waves beneath the surface. Military window dressing may hide the political wounds but can't cure them.

As a result, we find that Balochistan is in turmoil, there is growing tension between the provinces and the centre, the federal system and the Constitution are becoming controversial, and in the absence of mainstream political leaders, regional and extremist elements are ascendant.

But the military leadership feels that the macro economic situation is on its side oblivious of the fact that it is politics that provides the meaning and purpose to a society.

Reports say that the GHQ is excited about making Pakistan the next Malaysia. If Pakistan indeed desires to emulate the Malaysian model of democracy and progress it must first recognize the right of self-governance of the people and first become politically stable. That will be a sustainable path for development, in which case both politicians and the military will win.

The writer is a former deputy chairman of Planning Commission.

Media stereotypes

President Jimmy Carter once asked Americans to abandon an "inordinate fear of communism" that "led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear." That was back in 1977, when a standard critique of American Cold War policies was that policymakers held a simplistic, monolithic view of communism.

Not all communists were stooges of the Soviet Union, as China and Yugoslavia demonstrated. And not all national liberation movements were led by communists. More often, they were led by nationalists.

Then there was the whole kaleidoscope of the global left: the socialists, the euro-communists, the trade union leaders, the advocates of a "third way" between East and West. It was a mistake to lump them all together as "communists."

This was generally a liberal critique of conservative anti-communist rigidity. Conservative Cold Warriors were always crying "Communist!" and thus missed opportunities that came from making more subtle distinctions. And the critique was not without merit.

Over time, the US did decide to take advantage of a Sino-Soviet schism, did differentiate among the various communist nations of Eastern and Central Europe, and did learn to work with socialists and labour leaders and others whom American governments had once shunned.

Of course, the liberal-left took its own point too far sometimes. Ho Chi Minh, it turned out, was a nationalist and a communist. When the Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979, the New York Times and The Washington Post did not report it as a victory for the Soviet Union or Cuba.

On the contrary, they resisted coming to that judgement for a decade and more. It took the Sandinistas themselves to confirm, as Humberto Ortega did years later, that from the very beginning they had sought to emulate the Cuban model and ally themselves with the Soviets.

Compare liberal and journalistic open-mindedness during the Cold War, when the subject was communism, with the remarkable rigidity from these same quarters today when it comes to a very different group of people: Shia Muslims.

The votes were still being counted in Iraq last month when the New York Times reported in the opening sentence of a front-page article that the likely winners of the Iraqi election were "an alliance of Shia parties dominated by religious groups with strong links to Iran."

The Washington Post went the Times one better 10 days later with this sensational headline: "Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision."

Columnist Robert Scheer wants to know "why the United States has spent incalculable fortunes in human life, taxpayer money and international goodwill to break Iraq and then remake it in the image of our avowed 'axis of evil' enemy next door." Or as James Carville says more pithily: "We done trade a half-a-trillion dollars for a pro-Iran government!"

So much for the subtle distinctions of the past. So much for complexity. And so much for letting a little time pass before jumping to alarmist conclusions that are likely to prove, shall we say, simplistic.

Much of this anti-Shia paranoia is being stirred by other Iraqis, of course, either because they are sore electoral losers or because they hope to weaken Shia influence in the new government.

Most leaders of the neighbouring Arab states are Sunni and make no secret of their anti-Shia prejudices. But that doesn't mean Americans should adopt their prejudices or their paranoia.

One could note, for instance, what Iraqi Shia leaders have actually been saying since their election victory, which is that they have no interest in or intention of copying the Iranian model or in making Iraq an ally of Iran.

Adel Abdul Mahdi, a top Shia leader insists, "We don't want either a Shia government or an Islamic government." Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the Shia alliance has pledged a "government of national unity," and already it is clear that bargaining among Iraq's constituencies is likely to produce a government with strong Kurdish as well as Sunni participation. -Dawn/Washington Post Service

The writer is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.