Confronting
Neo-Imperialism
By Shireen M Mazari
Iran seems to be capturing
headlines on a number of issues -- but underlying
them all is the strong sense of Iranian nationalism
and commitment to defending its sovereignty. This
has not sat easy with the US and Europe, at a time
when there is a resurgence of a neo-imperial mindset
within these states.
Take the incident of the British sailors arrested
by Iran in its territorial waters. This is not the
first time that this has happened. In June 2004,
six British marines and two sailors were taken into
custody by Iran after they had ventured into Iranian
territorial waters in the narrow Shatt al-Arab waterway.
To hear the British media and government it would
appear as if Iran had done something illegal but
the fact is that it is Iran's right to protect its
territorial waters especially against threatening
vessels which UK naval vessels are, given the military
build up in the Persian Gulf and the warlike posturing
by the US and its British ally in the coalition
of the willing that invaded Iraq. Not for one moment
did the British contemplate that their sailors could
have strayed or deliberately gone into Iranian waters
-- after all the British cannot make such mistakes,
despite historical record to the contrary. There
is an arrogance that smacks of imperialism in the
way the British have been demanding the sailors'
release instead of an admission that their men could
be in the wrong. As for Iran, are they adopting
too uncompromising a posture? Not when one sees
how the US is building up its naval strike forces
in the Gulf -- and not when one sees the Iran nuclear
issue in the UNSC with resolutions imposing sanctions.
North Korea, which defied international law and
opted out of its NPT commitments, was dealt with
in a more conciliatory fashion with dialogue as
the preferred option -- through the device of the
six-party talks. Why can't a similar model be created
for dialogue with Iran, which has not opted out
of the NPT and still seeks to deal with the nuclear
issue within the IAEA rather than the UNSC's politicized
framework? Perhaps because Iran is a Muslim state,
and one which has expanded its regional influence
to challenge the US and Israel.
In any event, within this milieu, Iran's "hard
line" is understandable especially in the context
of the British sailors because Iran has experienced
an earlier trauma when the US guided missile cruiser
USS Vincennes shot down a civilian Iranian airplane
on a regular flight to Dubai -- Iran Air Flight
655 -- killing 290 innocent people, including 66
children. At the time, the Vincennes was in Iranian
territorial waters, but such niceties of international
law that maintain a semblance of order in a system
of sovereign states are hardly a matter of concern
for the US, which seems to regard collateral damage
in terms of foreign civilian lives as a mere statistic.
In the present scenario relating to the arrested
British sailors, what is equally disturbing is the
manner in which the EU has also demanded that Iran
release the British sailors immediately. Surely,
they should first verify the situation because if
the Iranian position is correct, then its actions
are justifiable. Instead, the EU has adopted a rather
imperial tone in the manner in which it addressed
the sovereign state of Iran. But then there is a
resurgence of imperialism presently and countries
like Pakistan and Iran are being targeted.
In the case of Pakistan, we have been told that
our market is too small for the EU to sign a Free
Trade Agreement, which they are seeking with India,
but they are not prepared to give us the exemptions
given to states like Bangladesh. So we are in a
lose-lose situation on this count. On the political
front also, the EU Parliament allowed the founding
member of its Friends of India to become the Rapporteur
on Kashmir and present a highly biased and in places
absurd report on this conflict. Notwithstanding
the revelation of Pakistan and the Kashmiris' limited
diplomatic-political abilities, the final product
from Emma Nicholson could not have been otherwise
but that the EU Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee
found this acceptable makes one wonder what the
EU's intent is towards this region.
However, perhaps the starkest reflection of the
rising tide of US-EU neo-imperialism has been the
taking over of the ISAF command in Afghanistan by
NATO, in 2003. Although we are told ad nauseam that
NATO's presence in Afghanistan has UN legitimacy
but the record shows otherwise. The UNSC, through
Resolution 1386 of December 2001, sanctioned the
International Security Assistance Force for Afghanistan
(ISAF). As stipulated in the Bonn Agreement of December
2001, the progressive expansion of the ISAF mandate
was approved through follow-on UNSC resolutions.
So how did NATO get into ISAF? Did the UNSC initiate
NATO's involvement or did NATO present a fait accompli
to the UN Secretary General. What is available on
record is that NATO's Secretary General informed
the UN Secretary General, through a letter dated
2 October 2003, that on 11 August 2003 NATO had
assumed "strategic command, control and coordination
of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)."
This was followed by another letter from the NATO
SG to the UN SG informing the latter of the North
Atlantic Council's agreement on a "longer-term
strategy for NATO in its International Assistance
Force (ISAF) role in Afghanistan. These communications
were forwarded to the UNSC. So effectively NATO
presented the UNSC with a fait accompli.
It was in the face of these developments that the
UNSC passed Resolution 1510 on 13 October 2003 in
which it acknowledged the 6 October NATO SG's letter
as well as communication from the Afghan Minister
for Foreign Affairs and authorized the expansion
of the ISAF mandate. But nowhere is there any reference
to NATO's role in Afghanistan. So is NATO really
in Afghanistan because of UNSC resolutions or because
its members, through their North Atlantic Council
decided to get a new foothold in Asia?
Given the continuing European-Atlantic membership
of NATO, its operations can only be legitimate in
the area of its membership -- and that also require
a UNSC authorization -- except in the case of collective
self-defense as defined by Article 5 of the NATO
Charter. The North Atlantic Council may have decided
to expand NATO's vision and operational area but
this does not legitimize, internationally, out-of-area
operations. That NATO has the military capability
while the UN may be lacking this is not the issue
here, since one is focusing on the question of international
legitimacy. In any case, the UN can be given more
teeth if the members are prepared to do so and make
effective Articles 43-47 of Chapter VII of the UN
Charter, including the provisions relating to the
creation of a Military Staff Committee.
Meanwhile, effectively we now have Europeans and
Atlantic states making decisions relating to the
Asian region and this has far reaching consequences
for all Asian states in the long run. If this is
not neo-imperialism, then what is?
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Courtesy The
News)
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