The real axis of evil

READING the New York Times or the Washington Post doesn’t really give you any idea of how decisions are made in America. Now one might wonder why that should be of any concern to a Pakistani but the fact of the matter is that decisions made at the Pentagon or the White House affect people all over the world. A good example, probably, is the as-yet-unexplained reason for the American embassy in Islamabad to delay issuing visas to prospective college students after approving their applications. For example, students proceeding to very reputed colleges like Yale or Williams were told to pick up their passports on a certain date (in early August) only to be told later that the delay would now be indefinite. Now, these bright young Pakistanis have no choice but to stay on a year since most of the good American colleges do not accept new students in the January term.

Coming back to the secretive way in which decision-makers and policy makers work in one of the world’s richest democracies, a disturbing trend has taken shape since the arrival of the Republicans in the White House. The party’s more conservative wing, led by people like vice-president Dick Cheney and close confidants like extreme hawk Richard Peric, has slowly hijacked the more moderate people in the Bush administration. Now, this is something that is discernible to even most followers of American politics in Pakistan. The repercussions, as said earlier, are going to be global, and have in fact started taking effect. Take the case of Israel where a rabidly anti-Palestine Sharon has been greeted often with much applause for his barbaric and cruel programmes against the Palestinians. Then take the case of Iraq, where in the most forceful policy declaration so far Mr Cheney said in a speech before American war veterans that Saddam Hussain was “close” to acquiring nuclear weapons and hence the case for invading Iraq was never stronger.

Writing in the respectable alternative journal, The Nation, Jason Vest details the close connections the right has and the way in which it operates and influences much of American foreign, and even domestic policy. He says the power and behind-the-scenes clout of these people is such that they could be called a “shadow defence establishment”. He says that starting from the Clinton administration a group of what he calls “right-wing defence intellectuals” used two organizations, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Centre for Security Policy (CSP), to further their agenda.

Mr Vest writes: “Dozens of their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their advocacy...continues, abetted by the out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and persistent, they’ve managed to weave a number of issues-support for national missile defence, opposition to arms control treaties, championing of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism in general-into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.”

Of the JINSA/CSP hardline, he says that ...the position is that there is “no Israeli occupation”, apparently because in its eyes Israel won all its wars fairly and justly. He adds: “Anyone who dissents—be it Colin Powell’s state department, the CIA or career military officers—is committing heresy against articles of faith that effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East—a hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force, clientism and covert action.”

The two organizations also show up in the recent furore caused by a briefing at the Pentagon calling for Saudi Arabia to be treated as a potential enemy of America. It was the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board—chaired by JINSA/CSP adviser and former Reagan administration official Richard Perle, and filled with advisers from both groups that was given this briefing which said that Riyadh should be considered an enemy and the only way to deal with it was to bring it to heel through a number of potential mechanisms Mr Vest writes that many of these “potential mechanisms” which mirror JINSA’s own recommendations. In fact, according to him, the final slide in this presentation proposed a “Grand Strategy for the Middle East” which concentrated on “Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot [and] Egypt as the prize”.

Michael Ledeen of JINSA is the main proponent for the regime change in Iran, while his “old comrades” like Andrew Marshall and Harold Rhode in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment “actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi governments.”

JINSA, he writes, is also happy that the US military is trying to secure bases in the strategic Red Sea country of Eritrea, but ignoring that Eritrea suffers from some of the same repressive authoritarianism that the Americans accuse Iraq or Syria of. Mr Vest quotes serving intelligence officials to say that the pervasiveness of the JINSA/CSP combine is such that sometimes officials jokingly refer to it as the real “axis of evil”. In fact, a new term has been gradually coined in this context—those who favour an extreme rightwing ideology in the case of Israel are now called ‘Likudniks’, a reference to the mainstream right-wing party in Israel.

Again the group’s influence on foreign policy can be gauged by the fact that despite America’s intention to phase out civilian aid to Israel by 2007, the policy in Washington now is to increase military aid to Tel Aviv every year so that the decline in the civilian component is more than offset.

Until the beginning of the Bush Administration, JINSA’s board of advisers included Dick Cheney, John Bolton (now under secretary of state for arms control) and Douglas Feith, the third-highest-ranking executive in the Pentagon. Both Richard Perle, derided now in much of the alternative US media as a key influence on Bush, and former CIA chief James Woolsey, two of the loudest supporters of an attack on Iraq, are still on the board. JINSA members often write op-ed pieces in some of the best-known American papers, especially very right-wing (at least editorially) Wall Street Journal and this, Mr Vest argues, is often a good indicator of what the Pentagon’s civilian leadership thinking.— OMAR R. QURESHI

(email:omarq@cyber.net.pk)

How short should a short story be?

TWO men were travelling in a train. One asked the other, “Do you believe in ghosts?” “No”, said the other man. “Don’t you?” said the first, and disappeared.

This is said to be the shortest short story in the world. But then, how short should a short story be? This is an oft-asked question to which there is no one answer. It was probably Edgar Allan Poe who once said that a short story should be such as could be read in half an hour. But he soon modified his verdict and allowed a short story to be of two-hour duration at the most. HG Wells, however, firmly believes that a short story should be such as does not take more than one hour to be read. Some others contend that it should be such as can be read in minutes. The consensus seems to be that a short story should live up to its name; it should be short and not develop into a novelette.

It is almost five years ago that I met Ehsan Malik at the residence of his sister, the top female poet of the country, Irfana Aziz. A few days later, he visited me and presented me with book of short stories, Seep aur Samandar. But when I turned its pages I was surprised to see the stories very, very, short. They were something on the pattern of Sheikh Sa’adi’s Gulistan. They were fascinating and I translated some of them at the time. To give an idea of what they were like, I reproduce two. One is, Death of a Language:

“A linguist rang up another and asked if he could give Urdu’s date of birth. ‘I can’t say anything with certainty,’ said the other, ‘but I can tell you when did it die.’ What! exclaimed the first, ‘is Urdu dead?’ Yes, came the voice from the other end, ‘it lies in the grave of symbolic poetry.”

The second story is, The Lion:

“Different animals had gathered in a jungle when a lion suddenly appeared. ‘I’m a lion,’ said he, ‘fear me.’ Hearing that every animal scampered except for an old buffalo. She lunged forward and bumped her head against the lion so that its skin spilt. And lo, a jackal appeared from within. ‘How did you know I am not a lion?’ he asked the buffalo. ‘Because, a lion never boasts that it is a lion,’ she said.

And now Ehsan Malik has come up with another book of short stories, Dafeena. These stories, however, are slightly longer than those in Seep aur Samandar. Using a few more words he has dwelt on social problems and the evils afflicting our society. His style of writing is highly readable as it is replete with pun, punch and satire. The title story is probably the best in the book.

Moderately priced at Rs125, the book has been well produced by Khazeena-i-Ilm-o-Adab, a publishing house in Urdu Bazaar, Lahore. The title cover designed by Obaidullah is most impressive. It has an introductory note by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi.

NOW about another book which has been lying on my table for quite some days. Compiled by three people engaged in the profession of teaching, Humair Hashmi, Muhammad Aslam Ansari and Mumtaz Husain Naeem, it appears under the title Sau ehd-saz-Sakhsiaat or a hundred epoch-making personalities. Going through it I find it is just a catalogue of well-known figures buried in Lahore with only sketchy details of their life and work. Even the place of birth of so many among them has not been mentioned. Incidentally, the compilers have included Sardar Dayal Singh, Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Kanhaiyalal Hindi among those ‘buried’ in the city.

I feel the book has been compiled in a hurry as some well-known details about the people included in it are missing. For example, writing about Abdul Hafeez Kardar, the cricketer, no mention is made of his service with the PAF nor his efforts for the promotion of language in the company of Masud Khaddarposh. It is also strange that Shah Husain and Madho Lal have been combined in one piece. Moreover, no mention is made of the kafis of Shah Husain for which he is so famous. This commission is inexcusable.

But a sweeping statement about Data Sahib is unbelievable. The compilers say Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh eik barey musannif thay aur sheir bhi kehtey thay. This kind of statement might go well with a primary class student but not with a serious reader. Even the verse of Khwaja Moinuddin about Data Sahib is quoted out of context.

Further, about Allama Mashriqi, it is stated that he passed the examination of mathematics from the Punjab University. In those days even the matriculation was a university examination. As such, it should have been clarified.

At places the reader feels like laughing. About Agha Hashr it is stated that he was greatly grieved when his wife died in 1914. So, to get over it he joined the JF Theatre of Calcutta. A good way to get over your grief, Isn’t it!

I can point to some shortcoming on almost each of the 460 pages of the book but I do not have the space or the time for that. All the same, the compilers deserve credit for putting so many names under one cover and provide some basic information about them.

The Quaid-i-Azam Library has produced the second issue of its magazine, Makhzan, which it inaugurated last year under the editorship of Dr Waheed Qureshi. It is a journal devoted to serious writing and carries some outstanding articles by Dr Jamil Jalibi, Dr Rafiuddin Hashmi, Prof Fateh Muhammad Malik and others. But the one by Dr Anwar Sadeed on the origin of Makhzan produced by Sir Abdul Qadir at the beginning of the last century is most comprehensive.

I may add that a magazine of the same name is being produced in Bradford in Britain by the short story writer, Maqsood Elahie Sheikh. In a recent letter, he told me that it was well received when published last year. In fact, he has asked me for a contribution to its next issue. I am glad that he still thinks that I am young and active. — ASHFAQUE NAQVI