The Iraq tinderbox

AS the conflict in Afghanistan winds down, President Bush turned his attention to Baghdad. Iraq is now in the gunsights. President Bush has challenged the United Nations to stand up to Saddam Hussein and warned that the United States was prepared to act alone if the Iraqi president failed to comply with UN resolutions demanding an end to his weapons development programme.

The reasons for contemplating such drastic action have little to do with the events of September 11 and the subsequent crisis and much to do with the course of US policy on Iraq since 1991. Russia, China, most Europeans and Secretary-General Kofi Anan disagree with this quintessentially American view and believe that the UN Security Council is the only world body legally empowered to decide whether any military action against Iraq is called for. President Bush, on the other hand, seems determined to bring about a change of regime in Baghdad with the support of the United Nations if possible, without it if necessary. And so, there is a distinct possibility that the United States could be at war with Iraq by Christmas or soon thereafter.

The 20th century began with western powers seeking to impose a new order on the Middle East. The 21st century has begun in similar fashion. Events are once again in full flush, setting the pace for mankind. The Middle East, although it was of great interest to western diplomats and politicians during the 19th century, was only of marginal concern to them in the early years of the 20th century.

The Middle East, as we know it today, emerged from decisions made by the allies during and after the First World War. Middle Eastern countries and their frontiers were created in Europe. Iraq and what we now call Jordan are British fabrications, lines drawn on a map by British politicians after the First World War; while the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq were established by a British civil servant in 1922.

The frontiers between Muslims and Christians were drawn by France in Syria and Lebanon and by Russia on the borders of Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. At that time, the political landscape of the Middle East looked different from that of today. Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not exist then. Most of the Middle East still rested under the drowsy and negligent sway of the Ottoman Empire. The Middle East, a conglomerate of artificially created states, became what it is today because the European powers willed it so.

The Arab nation consists of all who speak Arabic as their mother tongue. Today the Arab nation is fragmented into 21 independent states, each with its own national identity and trappings. The concept of international borders was introduced in the Arab world by Britain and France in the first quarter of the last century for its own reasons. The existence of separate nations broke the cohesion, the sense of ‘Ummah’ that had existed under the caliphate. The new states have little popular support and are easily influenced or manipulated by western powers. With the creation of national flags and national anthems, the new national borders were sanctified.

As the new states became established, ruling elites emerged with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. The rulers are invariably autocratic and preside over inefficient machines of states. The elites make deals with western nations to ensure their survival in power. Against this background, the Arab people feel isolated and impotent, manipulated and deceived both by their own rulers and by outside powers.

Today the politics of the Middle East present a completely different picture: they are explosive. There is a dry wind blowing throughout the region, with enough fissionable material ready to be ignited. Once the match is lit, and that may happen if and when the Americans invade Iraq. The blaze will then spread like wildfire throughout the region. All Middle East will then find itself in the eye of the storm. The entire political system fabricated by Kitchner, Lloyd George and Churchill in 1922 will then collapse like a house of cards and go up in flames.

America is playing with fire and acting like Conrad’s puffing gunboat in Heart of Darkness, shelling indiscriminately at the opaque darkness. The enemy has no country, no address and no flag, wears no uniform, stages no parades, marches to his own martial music. He could be on the next treadmill at the gym, or the next table at the sports bar. He requires no tanks or submarines. He does not fear death. He can operate with a rental car and a box cutter. He may be in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Germany, or the next motel room anywhere in the United States. He is not in any hurry. For him the soup of revenge is best served cold.

The United States finds itself today in a position similar to that of Nathan Rothschild, more than 150 years ago. The richest man in the world in the early decades in the 19th Century, Rothschild died in 1837 of an infection of which the poorest Englishman could easily have been cured in the next century by readily available antibiotics. All of Rothschild’s wealth could not give him what had not yet been invented, and all of the vast military and economic might of the United States cannot secure what lies beyond the power of guns to compel and money to buy. The biggest headaches for the United States are likely to stem not from the invasion of Iraq itself, but from its aftermath — the old conundrum of military history: what to do with the loser. Once the country has been conquered and Saddam’s regime driven out of power, the United States would be left “owning” an ethnically divided country of 22 million people ravaged by more than two decades of war and severe deprivations and disease inflicted on them by sanctions.

One felt alarmed by hearing what US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had to say on September 18. He told both houses of the US congress that Iraq could not be trusted and the US must pre-empt it and other nations who may be friends today and may turn hostile tomorrow, from possessing weapons of mass destruction.

The Islamic world faces its greatest threat today. This is the darkest era in the history of Islam since the 13th Century. The independence and sovereignty of the Muslim world is a myth. God seems to have turned away from the Islamic world. Afghanistan is under foreign occupation and has ceased to exist as a sovereign, independent country. Afghans are paying a horrible price for not meeting the US demands and defying the world’s sole superpower. Iran and Iraq, an ‘axis of evil’ as President Bush describes them, are next on the hit list.

We are told that Pakistan would have ceased to exist if it had resisted US demands and not cooperated in the war against terrorism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. “When you are face to face with a wolf, your only option is to work with it, until it becomes a pet”. Unfortunately the American wolf does not make a very good pet. There can be no friendship between the cat and the mouse. There can be no friendship between the strong and the weak or between unequals.

Who is in charge?: US foreign policy

IT IS surprising that there should be glaring inconsistencies in the perceptions within the American diplomatic establishment of the ground realities in occupied Kashmir.

Contrary to US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage’s view expressed the other day that Pakistan could not be held responsible for the alleged infiltration of militants across the Line of Control, the US ambassador in New Delhi, Robert Blackwill, seems to hold Pakistan squarely responsible for it.

Ambassador Blackwill’s assessment is clearly in contrast to that of his boss.

As New Delhi went ahead with its plan to hold elections in the occupied state, Ambassador Blackwill, in an interview to an Indian TV channel, said that “cross-border infiltration from Azad Kashmir into the Indian zone of the disputed state has risen since August, and Islamabad should put a stop to it.”

He also disclosed that in his meeting with Gen Pervez Musharraf in New York on September 12, President Bush had emphatically said that “the cross-border infiltration must end.”

The ambassador was of the view that President Musharraf had given the international community the commitment to end the cross- border infiltration permanently and “we expect him to meet that commitment.”

Ambassador Blackwill cannot be unaware of the fact that it has been India’s effort to make the world believe that the struggle for self-determination in held Kashmir is not indigenous and that Pakistan has been sustaining it by providing men and material help for it.

His statement merely echoes what the Indian authorities have been saying all these years.

This naturally creates an impression in Pakistan that contrary to what President Bush says or does in the context of post-September relationship with Pakistan, the thinking of a section of important American officials is marked by a tilt in favour of India.

This was also more or less the case during the cold war years when the US had an alliance relationship with this country. Recalling this in a recent a study of the evolution of US- Pakistan relations, Dr Tahir-Kheli, a Pakistani-American expert on foreign relations, pointed out that in 1959-60, John F. Kennedy, then a member of the Senate, urged the

US to give “massive aid to India”, maintaining that “the US-Pakistan treaty relationship” should not stand in the way.

In the context of renewed relationship between the two countries in the post-September period, there have also been instances which create the impression that important officials in the State Department do not always regard Pakistan as trustworthy. Ambassador Blackwill’s statement is a case in point.

While Pakistan has no illusion that the US-Islamabad relationship would regain the vigour and warmth that had largely characterized it in the cold war years, it expects the Americans not to obstruct its efforts to rebuild its battered economy and its institutions of governance. By statements such as the one made by Ambassador Blackwill about the alleged cross border intrusions, the Americans are putting hurdles in its way.

In the face of pressures from elements within the Pakistani society sympathetic to the Taliban cause and opposed to a cooperative relationship with Washington, President Musharraf is putting a great deal of effort in building mutually beneficial ties with the US.

The American policy makers should be expected to do nothing to undermine these efforts. Unfortunately, some of the things being said by high-level American officials about cross-border intrusions, besides being contrary to facts are having this effect.

It has been President Musharraf’s policy since he took over to bring the jihadi elements under control. He has also made it clear that it was not his government’s policy to promote militancy under the pretext of serving the cause of Islam.

But Pakistan surely expects the world community to make a distinction between terrorism and a genuine struggle for self-determination, such as the one in Indian held Kashmir. The struggle there is gaining momentum despite New Delhi’s massive use of force.

Pin-pricks such as the one in the form a recent demarche from the US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, can also not be helpful to the joint US-Pakistan efforts for combating terrorism.

The implications as well as the patronizing tone of his demand, in a letter to the Pakistan minister for interior, suggesting that Pakistan should be doing much more for restricting the movement of ‘undesirable’ elements in and out of the country is a clear irritant to those who have been engaged in setting up an elaborate system of vigilance at the country’s points of entry and exit.

In his letter to Gen Moinuddin Hyder, Mr Armitage suggests that Pakistan make more effective use of “the US-provided technology” and upgrade “the information that the US is currently getting about each and every traveller getting out of the country (Pakistan).”

The US should also know that its latest plan to finger-print and track Pakistani nationals when they enter America will be extremely distasteful to the Pakistani visitors to the US.

At a time when President Bush should feel seriously concerned about his growing reputation of being ‘anti-Muslim’, his administration proposes to expand the list of countries, whose nationals are to be subjected to finger-printing and tracking by adding five more countries to the list — all of them Muslim.

Among others, Saudi Arabian and Pakistani nationals are to be the target of this kind of treatment from October 1. This is racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the domain of state policy and practice with a vengeance — something wholly incompatible with international law and morality and norms of civilized conduct.

Almost a year after unleashing his war against “international terrorism”, President Bush has only managed to add enormously to his detractors, especially in Muslim and Arab countries. Ironically, the US-led international security force operating in Afghanistan — the first battleground of the war against terrorism — has not made any spectacular gains. Armed resistance to it is fairly strong in many parts of Afghanistan.

The Karzai regime in Kabul, installed after the ouster of the Taliban is also not very stable and secure. Its writ is virtually confined to the capital. There have been several attempts at the assassination of President Karzai himself and ex-king Zahir Shah, who was specially brought to Kabul to oversee the transition in Afghanistan has quietly gone back to Italy apparently for reasons of personal safety.

Pakistan is faced with the major task of grappling with the spillover of the turmoil in Afghanistan.

Many Al Qaeda activists fleeing Afghanistan have sought refuge in the tribal areas and perhaps even found their way into many other parts of Pakistan — only to add to the problems of the country’s internal peace and security.

Don’t get beheaded: OF MICE AND MEN

A RECENT report from Riyadh informed Pakistanis that two (more) of their compatriots had been sentenced to death by beheading in Saudi Arabia after they were caught peddling heroin. Despite the strict laws in that country, and their even stricter application, the hazards involved do not deter enterprising Pakistanis from “business as usual.” They are indeed a brave lot!

On the other hand, one of the most heartening stories I have read in the current debate on President Musharraf’s constitutional amendments was circulated by a little-known news agency some time ago. It said, “The government is giving serious thought to the restoration of Pakistan’s image in foreign countries.”

About time, I said to myself, that some attention was paid to restoring Pakistan’s image in the outside world. But somehow I don’t seem to recollect what the image was in olden times which has become soiled over the years and which the government is seriously considering to revive. And why consider the matter? Why not go ahead and do it? ‘Giving thought’ implies that the government can also decide to leave the matter as it is. The establishment in Pakistan is a great lover of the status quo.

As I have just said, before considering the ways and means, a few knowledgeable persons of advanced age (and good memory) should be asked to sit down and recollect what the old image was. As far as I can recall, it was not very bright. The trouble with our image abroad is that we jumped straight from nonentity to notoriety. There was hardly any image, say, 40 years ago. Foreigners asked, “Pakistan? where is that?” or they said, “Ah, Pakistan. It is India, isn’t it?”

But we have come a long way since then and Paki is now a household world abroad. Its ignominy all the way I admit, mainly because of our expertise at drug trafficking. Though we bravely try to keep up our reputation in other murky fields as well. For instance, it is said that it was a Pakistani from Lahore’s Mochi Gate who first taught the famous London policeman what bribe meant.

Maybe the government has suddenly woken up (just as somebody told it one day about Daylight Saving Time) to the reality of our disreputable name abroad because of what the Jamaat-e-Islami boss Qazi Husain Ahmed once bemoaned. He had disclosed that so far some 600 Pakistanis have been awarded the death penalty by beheading in Saudi Arabia because they were involved in the heroin trade. This was before he became enamoured of the Taliban and began to use all his energies to keep the US out of Afghanistan.

I remember him saying that it was a bad reflection on Pakistan that people “holding the green passport” should be treated as criminals. The situation must be rectified. Though he didn’t take the trouble of informing the nation how this was to be done. I also remember someone else explaining (I forget his name) that most of the Pakistanis arrested in Saudi Arabia were innocent as they were taken there by crooked travel agents on the pretext of providing them jobs. He didn’t say so but he probably meant that since no jobs were provided what else could these poor souls do but to take up the narcotic business for their daily bread? So what if they lost their heads in the bargain!

No one in the political and public life of Pakistan knows how Saudi Arabia can be asked to help, as a sincere friend and well-wisher, minimize the disgrace falling on Pakistan because of the large number of our countrymen getting beheaded for smuggling heroin. Maybe Mian Nawaz Sharif, who is there as a guest, could assist his country. And perhaps as a gesture of thanks for not taking part in the coming election General Pervez Musharraf could appoint him ambassador there.

After which one way for Mian Sahib to secure the Saudis’ cooperation in this behalf could be to urge them to refrain, for the sake of the ummah, from disclosing the nationality of our men sentenced to death. As an extraordinary gesture of friendship the convicted Pakistanis could also be described as Indian Hindus. This way we would be one up on Mr Advani’s Hindutva.

That would shift the calumny from us to India and bring our hostile neighbour into disrepute in the Middle East at least, thus killing (or shall we say beheading?) two birds with one stone. With all our sucking up to Saudi Arabia that should not be too much to ask for and for Mian Sahib to achieve.

Coming to the actual process I wonder what the government can really do to restore the country’s image internationally, even if it is able to decide what the image was to which we are required to go back. I do hope it does not advise the people to give up drug smuggling. Ethics and morality apart, that would shatter our economy and badly damage our self-confidence. For it appears that this is the only thing we are good at.

The reason why so many of us get caught in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere is because (as someone explained so ably) our boys are sent there for being gainfully employed, and when they are not provided with jobs they are obliged to take up the sale of drugs as an interim sideline. No sideliner can be really adept at this kind of work which needs expertise, and that is why they get arrested. This needs looking into. We must depute more experienced people for this dangerous duty. They must not lose their heads while they are at it. Anyhow, it is not an easy task to define ways and means to bring back our good name to whatever point it was before it began to drop. I have never been abroad, and for all I know this bad reputation thing may be just hearsay, simply a rumour.

But whatever the government decides to do it must rope in Qazi Husain Ahmed and other top religious leaders (who, with the decline of the Taliban, now have nothing to do except spoil the election for the military bosses) to give positive suggestions and not confine themselves to merely complaining. It is Qazi Sahib who mentioned about 600 Pakistanis having been beheaded in Saudi Arabia and he must do his part of duty towards rectifying the situation. Before he raised the issue, all of us, including the government, were perfectly satisfied with our image.

If I were the government I would say to the people, “You are responsible for the adverse publicity so you go and do whatever is to be done. All that the government can do is to enable as many Pakistanis, all with proper heads on their shoulders, to go to Saudi Arabia as we can in order to earn foreign exchange. It is up to them not to get beheaded.”

The real failure

THERE is a temptation, in reading the first interim report by the House-Senate inquiry into intelligence failures preceding the Sept. 11 attacks, to focus on the tidbits of information the intelligence agencies had gathered before the attacks that offered hints of what was coming.

The intelligence agencies for example, had received a series of indications that terrorists were interested in aeroplanes as weapons, and there were signs as well that Osama bin Laden was plotting a major, catastrophic attack on the US mainland. Yet the possibility of aeroplanes being used as weapons was never seriously studied, the report contends, and despite the signs of interest in a domestic attack, intelligence officials continued to focus chiefly on the possibility of attacks overseas.

Much can be made, at least rhetorically, of such failures — and much, no doubt, will. But the report, read as a whole, does not offer much evidence that the dots could have been connected and the attacks thwarted — at least not as America’s intelligence apparatus was positioned last year.

The overlooked information, while suggestive in retrospect, was generally not specific enough to have offered great guidance. Some of it, moreover, was uncorroborated material from sources of dubious reliability. And the material that seems most informative with hindsight, the report concedes, was a small percentage of the overall flow of data, most of which suggested that attacks abroad continued to be the major threat. It is easy in retrospect to identify such dots and say that they should have been connected. But it’s not clear that this expectation is plausible.

The major failure the report hints at is not the specific inability to stop the attacks given what was known at the time. It is, rather, a lack of seriousness and intensity about responding to the problem of Al Qaeda as it developed. The report documents the increasing alarm that intelligence officials felt at Osama bin Laden’s rise over the course of the 1990s. It also, however, documents the agencies’ failure to shift resources in response.

At the time of the attacks, for example, the FBI’s al Qaeda unit had fewer than 20 people — despite Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the African embassy bombings and the attack on the USS Cole. And notwithstanding the concern of CIA Director George Tenet, who in 1998 declared that the agency was “at war” with Al Qaeda and ordered that “no resources or people (be) spared” in the struggle, the CIA’s counterterrorism centre had no more than 40 people assigned to its task force. In the political climate of the ‘90s, when an invasion of Afghanistan to destroy Al Qaeda’s infrastructure was not proposed or seriously considered, the agencies were necessarily on the defensive. But even as their leadership realized that terrorism had to be the priority, the ship didn’t turn decisively.

Whether it has done so adequately now is an open question. The intelligence world is doing a far better job gathering information abroad and going on the offensive against terrorists. But senior intelligence officials are worried that they know a great deal more about Al-Qaeda’s activities abroad than about those here at home.

Of particular concern now, therefore, is how to augment domestic intelligence without compromising civil liberties — and how to craft an agency capable of doing so effectively. Can the FBI be reformed, or is it hopelessly rooted in its crime-fighting traditions? Testimony before the joint committee this week that the bureau repeatedly played down Al Qaeda’s domestic capability before the attacks — though without conducting a comprehensive assessment — shows what a long way it has to go. But if not the FBI, then what? These are questions that inertia cannot be allowed to answer. —The Washington Post

Reprieve for German social democracy: WORLD VIEW

“IT WOULD be a fatal error and horrific for our country if Edmund Stoiber becomes the next chancellor. His is a voice neither Germany nor Europe needs.” Thus spake Germany’s conscience, the celebrated writer Gunther Grass, on the eve of last Sunday’s election.

In the event, it turned out to be a rather close call. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was able to cling on to power by the seat of his pants in a cliffhanger, and that too largely on account of the gains made by his Green allies. The ruling alliance now has a nine-seat majority in the Bundestag, down from 21. And until shortly before polling day, it seemed unlikely that the government would survive.

A few weeks ago, Grass would have seemed to be ploughing a lonely furrow, with opinion polls showing the opposition Christian Democratic contender to be running a clear eight to nine points ahead of the incumbent. Schroeder was evidently taking a beating on account of broken election promises, most notably his unfulfilled vow to bring unemployment down to 3.5 million. But then, campaigning vigorously throughout the country, the latter pulled off a minor miracle. He didn’t just catch up with his nemesis but actually overtook him, turning what had hitherto been a less than exciting race into Germany’s closest post-war contest.

A key element in the Social Democratic resurgence was Schroeder’s clearly expressed determination to keep Germany out of any war against Iraq, regardless of United Nations sanction. Opinion polls suggest that up to 80 per cent of Germans oppose a military assault against Baghdad; that happens to coincide with the turnout percentage. By unequivocally aligning himself with the majority of his compatriots, Schroeder was also able to encourage a higher turnout, particularly among voters broadly disillusioned by his government’s drift to the right on a range of issues.

Grass, for one, was quick to concur with the changed stance, noting: “Why should we get involved in sorting out Bush’s problems? He is only trying to prove something to his father by starting a second Gulf war, rather than going to see a psychiatrist.” That’s a fairly mainstream opinion by European standards, although it’s just as well that Grass has no official standing in Germany, else Schroeder would have found himself having to apologize once more to George W. Bush. After all, Germany and the US are still allies, and the latter is particularly sensitive to aspersions being cast on its chief executive’s mental processes. He has already had to do so on account of published remarks by Germany’s justice minister that suggested she was comparing Bush with Adolf Hitler.

Herta Daeubler-Gmelin — who was quoted as saying that Bush intended to stave off criticism over domestic disasters by engaging in military adventures abroad, just as Hitler had done — denied the attributed interpretation and the chancellor accepted her explanation. But an expression of regret was nonetheless deemed necessary, although the slip (if that’s what it was) is unlikely to have damaged the ruling party’s electoral prospects.

The stance on Iraq is particularly interesting in view of the fact that Schroeder and his coalition partners, the Greens, broke with tradition and approved a German role in the military interventions in Kosovo and Afghanistan. It is no coincidence, of course, that any attack on Iraq would be considerably harder to justify, and that much of the European electorate is sceptical about the motives behind Washington’s pursuit of Saddam Hussein at this particular juncture.

Schroeder’s outspokenness on this account also made life at the hustings much more bearable for the Greens’ leader Joschka Fischer, who as foreign minister has been visibly uncomfortable with the drift towards militarism — and at the receiving end of considerable flak from his party’s support base.

Another factor that contributed significantly towards reversing disillusionment with the Greens as well as improving Schroeder’s chances of retaining his job was a natural disaster unprecedented in living memory. The floods that devastated central Europe this summer took their toll in Germany as well, particularly in the nation’s eastern regions. Not surprisingly, they helped focus popular attention on environmental concerns. Voter surveys by the Allensbach Institute suggest that support for the Greens, which had steadily been declining before the deluge, began rising swiftly after the floods.

Schroeder benefited because he reacted swiftly and decisively to the catastrophe by forgoing campaign commitments to visit the stricken regions, and by making sure that relief funds were quickly made available. Stoiber, on the other hand, was slow off the mark and won himself few friends by criticizing the government’s efforts.

For as long as he was ahead of Schroeder in the opinion polls, the uninspiring and uncharismatic Stoiber was at pains to portray himself as a moderate, campaigning on traditional conservative platforms such as lower taxes for the rich and greater labour market flexibility — which is shorthand for lower wages and fewer rights for workers. Once it became apparent that the incumbent had overtaken him, observers began speculating that Stoiber, reputedly a hardline right-winger at heart, was bound to show his true colours.

The Bavarian challenger did not disappoint them. “There always has to be a difference between tolerance and stupidity,” he declared last week, while announcing that his elevation to the chancellery would lead to the deportation of 4,000 alleged Muslim militants.

Stoiber claimed that Germany was home to 30,000 identified Islamic fundamentalists. “Among these 30,000 so-called Islamists,” he said, “there are 4,000 who are ready for violence. The police know that; 4,000 are known by name as being disposed to violence and are suspected of belonging to foreign terrorist organizations such as the Algerian GIA. I say to you: these 4,000 — I will expel them from the country.”

He did not clarify how the determination had been made, nor did he say what judicial process would be employed, given that under the existing German laws it is not possible to deport people merely on a suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization. Whether he was serious about carrying out the threat is by no means besides the point, but in the electoral context it is fairly clear what Stoiber was doing: brandishing the race card, as his ideological allies have been doing across much of the continent, particularly in the wake of September 11, 2001.

The message was bound to resonate with voters in view of the evidence that a Hamburg-based Al Qaeda cell was instrumental in planning the New York and Washington attacks. That, and the subsequent proof that similar cells are still active, certainly provides cause for concern and increased vigilance. It does not, however, justify demonization of Muslims in general. That, however, is the preferred strategy of right-wing extremists across Europe, and because it has been seen to pay electoral dividends — in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Austria, in France — mainstream conservatives have, by and large, shown few qualms about borrowing it, notwithstanding the associated risk of inflaming race hatred and deepening divisions in society.

Stoiber’s home affairs spokesman Gunther Beckstein, for example, had proposed that all immigrants must be compelled to take “integration” courses, and should also be made to pay for them. All foreigners who intend to settle down in Germany, he added, ought to recognize the nations underlying values, which have been “moulded by Christianity”. This trend would suggest that right-wing forces pose a threat not only to the safety, security and basic rights of Muslims, but to European secularism as well.

Small wonder, then, that Gunther Grass was appalled at the prospect of a victory for Stoiber. Schroeder, for all his flaws, offers a rather striking contrast to the colourless Bavarian governor. A Marxist in his youth, his clients as a lawyer included left-wing extremists and terrorists such as Horst Mahler, the founder of the Red Army Faction. By the time he set his sights on the chancellorship, he had drifted markedly towards the centre, and in 1990 he became the minister-president of Lower Saxony. Eight years later he succeeded in reversing the fortunes of the longest-serving German chancellor since Bismarck.

The conservative anti-Schroeder arsenal has included the slogan “Three women can’t be wrong” — a testament to the chancellor’s adventurous married life, with three divorces to his credit (or debit, as the case may be). His rivals even got his third ex-wife to pose for a campaign ad, saying: “I left my husband, you can do it too!” Voters were amused, but not particularly impressed.

After he ousted Kohl in 1998, Schroeder was keen to align himself with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as a proponent of the so-called Third Way. Since then, he has in some ways reverted to a less compromising form of social democracy. What he’ll do with his renewed mandate remains to be seen, not least because Schroeder was relatively reticent about showing his hand during the campaign, although it may also be the case that he does not have anything particularly new to offer.

The position on Iraq, however, is unlikely to change despite pressure to “repair” relations with the US. But, more broadly, one can sympathize with Gunther Grass’s concerns. The Social Democrats mat not have a great deal to offer, but it is important for Europe that the tide of conservatism should be stemmed wherever and whenever possible. The question of Iraq, in that context, may serve as a useful catalyst.

E-Mail mahirali@journalism.com