When the United Nations was created 59 years ago, statesmen hoped it would enhance the projection of American power by enlisting international support for Washington's policies. But time and again, the reality has been far different. Too often, the United Nations acts as if it sees its function as preventing the United States from playing a leadership role in the world--particularly when it comes to using military force against rogue states that support terrorism.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the approach taken by a high-level panel appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to put forward a new vision of collective security for the world. The group, chaired by the former prime minister of Thailand, includes 16 distinguished statesmen, among them former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, former Chinese Vice Prime Minister Qian Qichen and Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League and former foreign minister of Egypt. Unquestionably, they put a great deal of thought into the 95-page report. But unfortunately they have produced more or less what one would expect from a panel dominated by Western balance-of-power advocates and former Third World autocrats: a flawed series of policy recommendations that will empower U.N. bureaucracies while hampering America's efforts to circumvent the United Nations when it proves incapable of responding to actual threats.
The group discussed some of the major threats facing the world today, including failed states, civil wars, poverty, organized crime, AIDS and nuclear weapons proliferation. But too often, its policy prescriptions appear to be so bland as to be useless or more of the same: negotiations to invest added authority in dysfunctional bureaucracies like the International Atomic Energy Agency; expanding the size of the Security Council; and breaking "the link between poverty and civil war." We would have liked to see more in the way of substantive guidance on what current bureaucracies deserve to be eliminated. The report gives short shrift to initiatives such as the effort--supported by the Heritage Foundation on the right and former Clinton U.N. representative Nancy Soderberg on the left--to build a U.N. democracy caucus.
Unfortunately, one of the most problematic aspects of the report is its rejection of the idea of preventive action, such as the U.S.-led coalition's intervention against Saddam Hussein. The panel suggests that acting in self-defense is only acceptable after a country is attacked. Prevention is dismissed as "anticipatory self-defense." The authors assert that to permit "unilateral preventive action" ("unilateral" is apparently defined as anything the U.N. doesn't expressly approve) is deemed too much of a "risk to the global order." The US administration disagrees. In a world in which terrorists seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and rogue-state enablers like France have veto power on the Security Council, it is the height of folly to insist that we have to get U.N. approval to take pre-emptive action or wait to be attacked before we can defend ourselves.
WASHINGTONTIMES.COM

L.K. Advani

I have known Bhartiya Janata Party President L.K. Advani from the days he was in journalism. I was then Information Officer at the Press Information Bureau of the Government of India. He would come to my room, pick up the handout and leave quietly. His connections with the RSS were well known even at that time. But he would be reluctant to discuss the Sangh, particularly when people linked it with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. He has now come out in the open. What is most annoying about Advani is the sense of self-righteousness which he does not hesitate to flaunt.
Even after four decades he has not lost his evangelistic fervour. He continues to wear Hindutva on his sleeves and raises the standard of extremism higher and higher. As he begins another stint of the BJP presidentship, Advani links his party with divinity. Whether this shores up the sagging morale of the BJP is yet to be seen. But this is a shot in the dark, no doubt. Otherwise, it is difficult to imagine how a leader could present in the 21st century and that too in writing a concept of the middle age that a party representing Hindus has the divine right to lead the country.
His speech or the outburst at the BJP's national executive committee meeting was no different. He said that secularism or something similar would efface the Hindu ethos. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who was given a place on the dais almost next to Advani, is the person who defaced the Hindu ethos of pluralism when he blessed the killing and looting of Muslims in his state.
Advani's achievement is that he has brought back the BJP to square one, dogmatic and demoralised. He joined the Janata Party in 1977--the post-emergency phenomenon--only to destroy it from within and to place his people in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting he headed. It goes to his credit or discredit that he reassembled members of the erstwhile Jana Sangh after refusing to cut off links with the RSS and rebuilt another communal set-up, the BJP, which cleverly disguised its parochial fangs to head the National Democratic Alliance.
Before he was India's Home Minister, he had the pretension of modesty but he gave it up to purvey his authoritarian tendencies. The office gave him a perfect setting. After becoming the BJP chief, he has given up another pretension; he does not want his party to be mistaken for anything other than an intractable body of chauvinistic Hindus.
Posterity will judge Advani as the person who did the greatest harm to Hinduism. He has tried to make it monolithic and parochial when its traditions are pluralistic and liberal. For dubious political gains he has sought to mutilate the religion itself. He looked like succeeding at one time. But the common man in India gave him a befitting reply by defeating the BJP at the Lok Sabha polls. That Advani has failed is a tribute to the maturity of the Hindu community which has clung for centuries to the basic understanding that India is a pluralistic society. Advani is still at his old games.
Kuldip Nayar
NATION.COM.PK

Something important, even historic in terms of modern Arab history, is happening to the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip these days: a real, contested election for the presidency is taking place, whose results are not known ahead of time. Multiple candidates for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority offer ordinary citizens a genuine choice among different policy approaches and governance styles. This is novel, refreshing and long overdue for the entire Arab world.
It represents the birth of modern politics in the Arab world through a credible, legitimate process of contesting power that has not been achieved in any Arab country to date.
Perhaps a dozen candidates will present themselves for the Palestinian presidential election scheduled for January 9, but three stand out: Mahmoud Abbas, Marwan Barghouti and Mustafa Barghouti. They reflect a variety of Palestinian political perspectives and traditions that captures the wide scope of Palestinian and Arab political pluralism. The striking, even revolutionary, development in this race within the wider Arab political scene is simply that it is a real race. The candidates divide public support in a manner that mirrors the norms in other established democracies (or even young ones, like Ukraine). The latest public opinion polls suggest that Abbas and Marwan Barghouti are virtually tied with some 30-40 percent public support each, and with Mustafa Barghouti running third with only some 10 percent support.
This is a refreshing and significant change from the modern tradition of Arab presidential elections that see established leaders repeatedly re-elected with over 95 percent of the vote, in processes that insult the intelligence and rights of Arab citizens and ravage and weaken the integrity of Arab political systems.
The fascination and anticipation I and many others feel today as we follow the Palestinian election reflect the dynamic that has been absent in all other Arab elections to date: the vote's results could bring about real changes in national policies, on critical issues such as domestic governance, ties with Israel, intra-Arab relations and economic policy.
Not only is the Palestinian election a real horse race so far in terms of the leading candidates' support among the public. It also reflects the fact that political, economic and military power (the guns and the money) has become very diffused throughout Palestinian society in the past decade, due to the impact of the Israeli occupation and some recent mistakes made by the prevailing power elite that had been led by Yasser Arafat for so long. Thus it becomes possible for Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli jail, to be a credible candidate who challenges frontrunner Mahmoud Abbas.
Barghouti is credible because he reflects the sentiments and aims of many younger Palestinians who have been dissatisfied with the results of the Arafat-led majority's policies since the Oslo accords gave the Palestinians self-rule in most West Bank and Gaza towns. He and Mustafa Barghouti also represent the strong desire of Palestinians to develop truly democratic and accountable governance systems, and to minimize corruption and waste in public life.
In the final analysis, the Palestinian people will decide these issues at the ballot box, which is how it should be. Ideally, a clear winner will emerge with a majority of voters supporting him, and we will also get a good picture of the real support of the various political groups among the citizenry.
Rami G. Khouri
DAILYSTAR.COM.LB

Like to wallow in nostalgia and Old World charm? If so, East Asia can be a frustrating place. Its cities breathe vibrancy, but sometimes at a cost to their souls--and the ambience.
Here in Saigon, the gaudy and just slightly seedy crown-topped Rex Hotel is still around to tweak the memories of America's Vietnam veterans. But you don't have to hanker for the days of South Vietnam to fear for the future of Don Khoi Street, known back then as Tu Do Street. This slim but elegant tree-lined avenue at the very heart of old Saigon was until not so long ago a mix of two-to-eight story buildings and some very ordinary shop houses. A few, such as the 1930s Grand Hotel, were actually stylish.
The importance was not so much the architecture but the scale. But now one whole block of Dong Khoi, not to mention an elegant little mosque, is overwhelmed by the 25-story concrete masses of the Sheraton and new Caravelle hotels. These monster buildings are not improved by their shops, those international symbols of fickle fashion and transient wealth: Prada, Bulgari, Dolce & Gabbana, etc.
Further down Dong Khoi toward the Saigon River a row of low-rise shops and restaurants has just been demolished. It's not clear what will go up there. In Ho Chi Minh City, plot ratios and building heights are matters for negotiation, not known rules. Transparency is not a feature of city government in a one-party state. But the betting must be on another 25-plus story concrete slab.
It is not that the city center does not need new offices and hotels, but densities could easily be increased by redevelopment within the existing scale with a maximum height of, say, 25 meters. But the way things are going, the old center will gradually become a mass of close-packed concrete, dwarfing its streets and overwhelming its infrastructure. Meanwhile, plans to expand the city to the palm groves and paddy fields across the Saigon river are making very slow progress.
There are in fact many better examples in East Asia. Tokyo has been a model of redeveloping within an established scale and focusing high-rises in a few areas well served by transport. Seoul has established new business and government districts outside the old center--and even turned its central square from a giant traffic intersection into a park. Even Taipei, not the prettiest city in Asia, has moved its business center to an area that now boasts the world's tallest building, in one of its most earthquake prone capitals.
Kuala Lumpur left its old commercial and colonial era government buildings mostly intact and built its skyscrapers on green field and suburban sites. It is questionable whether one of Asia's smallest capital's needed what was until recently the world's tallest building. But at least its Petronas towers are an exciting piece of architecture.
Singapore realized just in time that the old buildings and their refurbishment have helped liven up the city and provide a tourist attraction. Singapore has proved, too, that rapid development and intelligent urban planning are compatible.
So, maybe there is still some hope that the People's Committee that runs Ho Chi Minh City - and itself inhabits an ornate colonial-era building - will recognize before it is too late to look at some more effective Asian models to leave an elegant, livable and economically viable city for the people of the future.
IHT.COM

Afghan President Hamid Karzai (l) shakes hands with Afghan Supreme Court Chief Justice Fazil Hadi Shinwari as he is sworn in as Afghanistan's first elected president at a ceremony in Kabul's Presidential Palace on Dec. 7. (Reuters File Photo)

The first act of America's war on terrorism in 2001 was a blockbuster victory. As the twin towers still smoldered, US bombers and Afghan rebels drove the Taleban from power. Afghans emerged from the rubble of to hear enthusiastic pledges of a phoenix-like resurrection for their wrecked country. Children would go to school, parents would have jobs, peace would prevail.
But this second act, now drawing to a close three years later, has had no Hollywood ending. Warlords control entire provinces, bankrolled by a drugs boom that has spread like a rash. Police, army and government institutions are being built, but too slowly. Insecurity is rife; so is poverty. The Taleban leader Mulla Omar has not been caught; neither has Osama Bin Laden.
Yet most Afghans say life is demonstrably better--which says more about their wretched living conditions before 2001 than the success of reconstruction since. Still, international aid has accelerated, millions of refugees have returned home, and the proud success of the October election sent a clear signal to the gunmen that Afghans want democracy.
As one analyst said, Afghans did not vote for Hamid Karzai, they voted for change. His task from today is to deliver a brighter third act.
Security: The peaceful presidential election promised an end to the ragged Taleban insurgency. Troops were demoralized and their leaders divided by the failure to scuttle the poll, said US generals who offered them an amnesty. But a core of hard-line fighters are still roaming the lawless south, mounting hit-and-run attacks on US troops. Even scattered and hunted, they remain a tenacious and dangerous enemy and continue to stall reconstruction.
The warlords pose a more insidious problem. "Local leaders" backed by small personal armies are involved in drug-running, extortion and thievery. Yet the central government and the US military still relies on them for security. Democracy is unattractive to the warlords, although President Karzai has brought some to heel. About 26,000 of an estimated 60,000 militant fighters have disarmed.
Women: Kabul and a handful of others cities have seen slow widening of opportunities--girls' education rates have crept upwards; women are taking new jobs, and the younger generation is starting to reject the burqa. Impressively, women accounted for 50% of voters in some northern cities during the Oct. 9 election. But in many rural areas, little has changed. Here too the election was a good yardstick of progress. In the arch-conservative Uruzgan province just 2% of voters were women.
Drugs: The rocketing drugs trade is a critical challenge for the incoming Karzai government. Having plummeted under the Taleban, poppy production has risen to dizzy new heights that threaten the entire reconstruction project. The export value of the opium will reach $2.8 billion this year, or 60% of GDP, according to the UN. Once confined to a handful of areas, opium is now cultivated in most provinces. The boom has spawned a new class of Colombian-style drug overlords. Some have powerful allies in the police, judiciary and government.
Health and employment: Afghanistan has some of the world's worst health indicators. Dire infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy rates mean Afghans are more likely to get sick and die young than anyone else. Hospitals lack even the most basic surgical equipment; patients have to bring their own drugs or pay to get treated; there is a chronic shortage of skilled doctors and nurses.
ARABNEWS.COM