By Xanthe Scharff

In the summer of 2005, I met Anne Bonefesi, a 14-year-old girl in Malawi who tended her siblings rather than attending eighth grade. Her parents, like most in her community, lacked the funds to send girls to school beyond the seventh grade ("What it's like to live on $1 a day," July 6, 2005). Monitor readers asked me to help Anne and other girls like her. With pledges from readers, I set up the Advancement of Girls' Education Scholarship Fund (AGE) to place girls in schools offering eighth through 12th grades. The fund pays the girls' school fees and all associated costs.

This summer, which marks AGE's first anniversary, I traveled a dusty rural road one hour from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, to greet six grinning girls - the first cohort of AGE scholars supported by Monitor readers. Anne greeted me wearing a fresh white dress and a self-assured smile stretching from the depth of one dimple to another.

Anne and fellow scholar Velenesi Kadnensi live together in town and attend 8th grade at the Chitikula Full Primary School. Just down the road, Efelo Sekani, Victoria Kalonga, and Alifosina Chilembwe, three of AGE's high school students, share a room and attend the Chitikula Community Day Secondary School, where Efelo is in 10th grade, and Victoria and Alifosina are in ninth grade. Because of her outstanding grades, the sixth AGE scholar, Matilda Chalcalca, continues her education in the 11th grade at the select government boarding school in the capital, Lilongwe Secondary School for Girls.

Efelo, the ringleader of the group, told me, "I have seen a change in myself. Before, there were a lot of things impinging on my academic performance. Now I don't have to do a lot of chores and so I can concentrate." Alifosina added, "Living in a room near school helps because we don't arrive at school late, and we can go back to school and study at night."

The course work in all public schools is determined by the Ministry of Education, and is oriented toward both urban and rural life. So, in addition to learning English - a requirement for many urban jobs - this year the ninth grade girls learn about factors of production and the effects of soil conditions, capital, labor, and management on farming yields. The scholars have completed their second of three terms this year.

The girls have the opportunity to be the first in their village to graduate high school, but they face formidable challenges. They are setting a precedent, so they don't have older females who've gone before them to rely on for advice. They struggle to hear their teachers in classrooms bloated with more than 100 students. And they've had little exposure to English speakers, so they have a lot of catching up to do in school.

Despite their challenges, the AGE scholars have grown tremendously. The girls have developed a single-minded focus concerning their studies and embrace a collective responsibility to promote the importance of education in their community. Joseph Siyeni, the headmaster of the primary school that Anne and Velenesi attend, reports that the girls are in the "top half of their class, they are wellbehaved, and they are improving." The agriculture teacher of the high school, Mr. Leston Nkhoma, reports that "Efelo, Victoria, and Alifosina are hard-working and are improving." Matilda is doing very well in the competitive Lilongwe Secondary School for Girls, and is currently ranked 57 out of the 163 11th graders.

But they will have to continue to work hard to keep up. AGE advocated on behalf of Efelo, Alifosina, and Victoria - the high school girls in Chitikula - and so they will be transferred to a better-resourced boarding school. Anne and Velenesi - AGE's eighth-grade scholars - are also doing extra work, as they will take primary school exams at the end of the third term. Based on their results, AGE will work with Malawi officials to place Anne and Velenesi in the best possible school.

Xanthe Scharff is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Mass., where she studies International Development.

By Richard H. Shultz Jr. and Andrea J. Dew

As we all know, war has changed. In the 21st century it is dominated by irregular and unconventional ways of fighting. Al Qaeda demonstrated this on 9/11, and the bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are only further corroboration. War can no longer be waged effectively by conventional combat forces employed by modern militaries.

The Pentagon is just starting to catch up with these changes. It is in the midst of a strategic overhaul aimed at coming up with new ways to fight new wars. This was first signaled in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, which described the "long war" America is now engaged in as "a war that is irregular in its nature" against adversaries that "are not conventional military forces."

More recently, two of the Pentagon's smartest and most experienced generals, David Petraeus of the Army and Jim Mattis of the Marines, have overseen the production of a new counterinsurgency manual ­ called the FM 3-24/FMFM 3-24 in Pentagon-speak ­ for fighting these irregular wars. This blueprint declares that it is primarily for "leaders and planners at the battalion level and above" who are "involved in counterinsurgency operations regardless of where these operations may occur."

The current draft of this counterinsurgency manual, which has been shown to civilian experts and been posted on the Internet by the Federation of American Scientists, provides an encyclopedic 241-page review of insurgencies that took place in the 20th century and an alphabetical list of the tools of counterinsurgency. The manual, which is still a work in progress, amounts to an introductory course in the history of insurgency and counterinsurgency.

But to be of practical use to American troops in fierce battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, the final draft of the handbook must be more than a Counterinsurgency 101 exercise. It must, at a minimum, accurately identify the types of armed groups American troops will have to fight, which include more than traditional insurgents. It must also provide a framework for profiling the organization and operational tendencies of these armed groups, to learn their strengths and weaknesses. And it has to map out an intelligence model that will dig out actionable intelligence that can be used to find and defeat armed groups.

On all these critical requirements, the current draft of the manual comes up short. Based on our research and the lessons learned from centuries of counterinsurgency efforts, we recommend three major revisions for those drafting the final version.

First, you must know your enemy. In today's internal wars several different types of armed groups ­ not just traditional insurgents bent on changing a national regime ­ engage in unconventional combat. Iraq is illustrative. Those fighting American forces include a complex mix of Sunni tribal militias, former regime members, foreign and domestic jihadists, Shiite militias and criminal gangs. Each has different motivations and ways of fighting. Tackling them requires customized strategies.

Unfortunately, well into 2005, the American military subsumed all these groups under the rubric "insurgents" and planned its strategy accordingly. It didn't imagine or prepare for the possibility that former regime members had their own "day-after" plan to fight on even if they lost the conventional battle.

It didn't imagine that Iraq would become a magnet for international jihadists, so it failed to seal the borders. It didn't imagine the Sunni tribal militias would react with such violence to the American presence, so it failed to take the pre-emptive economic and political steps to address their grievances. And it failed to understand that there were radical elements within the Shiite community that would use force to try to establish a theocratic system.

These acute miscalculations gave those who seek to defeat us time to marshal their forces, and seriously undercut Washington's overall efforts to stabilize Iraq.

The Pentagon's new counterinsurgency manual suffers from similar flaws. It focuses almost exclusively on combating cohesive groups of insurgents who share the same goals. Yes, there are traditional insurgent groups in Iraq, like cells of former Baathists. But the foreign terrorists, religious militias and criminal organizations operate from very different playbooks. We have to learn to read them the way other nations faced with insurgencies have.

Consider the British experience during the 1980's and 90's in Northern Ireland. By working hand-in-glove with the Special Branch of the local police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, British intelligence agents penetrated the ranks of the Irish Republican Army, eventually capturing and incarcerating a legion of its leaders and operatives.

A former top-ranking I.R.A. commander who later became an informer told us that, when he was imprisoned with higher-ranking I.R.A. officials, they lamented over and over that the British strategy was so effective and their ranks were so depleted by the end of the 1980's that "the boys can't move, can't operate, always have to be looking over their shoulders." As a result, Britain was able to negotiate a relatively successful end to hostilities and to contain most of the splinter groups that refused to abide by it.

The Pentagon's amended manual should spell out similar ways of intuiting the organizational and operational differences that can exist between and within insurgent armies, terrorist outfits, militias, and criminal groups. It should also give a better history of how such organizations have collaborated and factionalized over the years in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere.

Second, the final manual must provide our troops with a systematic way of "profiling" each specific armed group. As it stands, the guide is a laundry list of the generic elements of insurgency movements ­ leadership, organization and networks, popular support, ideology, activities and foreign support.

Meeting and defeating terrorist groups requires a far deeper understanding of their factions ­ and the exploitation of the rifts between them. Consider how such profiling led to the demise of the Abu Nidal organization, which 20 years ago was the world's most lethal terrorist group.

As it reached its peak strength, the organization began to experience serious fissures among its leaders. Several key members felt that Abu Nidal himself was siphoning off funds. He in turn accused them of plotting to assassinate him. Eventually he had some 300 hard-core leaders and operatives gunned down or otherwise dispatched. By the early 1990's, the group had been effectively neutered.

How did this come about? In part because American and other Western intelligence agencies ­ with the help of local Arab intelligence services who were able to get operatives close to key members of the group and spread paranoia and suspicion ­ successfully grasped and manipulated factional rivalries.

A key for America should have been to get such information about schisms and unhappiness inside the insurgent groups we face, particularly in their formative stages when they were most vulnerable. Many former insurgent and terrorist leaders we have interviewed ­ hardened veterans of late 20th-century armed groups from Central America, southern Africa and Europe ­ told us that their vulnerabilities and factional strife were most blatant in their groups' early years and could have been exploited if security agencies had looked for them.

The third problem with the manual is that it actually overstresses winning "hearts and minds" ­ the political, economic, civic and other "soft power" tactics aimed at winning popular support. Yes, such steps are keys to victory; they played a central part in counterinsurgency victories in the 1950's by the Philippine government of Ramón Magsaysay and by the British in Malaya. In both places, the government invested heavily in education, local economies, public works and social welfare programs to wean their populations away from the insurgents.

But soft power tactics are not the only keys to victory. An insurgency is still war, and the key is finding and capturing or killing terrorist and militia leaders. It is an intelligence-led struggle. The Pentagon manual rightly insists that "intelligence drives operations" and that "without good intelligence, a counterinsurgent is like a blind boxer." Yet the document provides no organizational blueprint for collecting such intelligence

We have to take a lesson from other democracies that have figured out how to neutralize and defuse armed groups. The British and the Israelis, among others, have refined an effective intelligence model through bloody trial and error. It involves collecting actionable intelligence at the local level on a continual basis.

Consider the Israeli experience. After the 1967 war it built up a remarkable intelligence-gathering system in the West Bank and Gaza. But after the Oslo accords of 1993 it gave up this advantage and withdrew.

However, when the second intifada erupted in late 2000 and Israeli casualties mounted, the Israelis went back to work. They honeycombed the territories with local intelligence units that infiltrated Palestinian armed groups through agents, electronic surveillance and paid informants. It was not easy, but they did it, and their intelligence successes contributed to the Palestinian Authority's gradual de-emphasis of terrorist acts in favor of political initiatives, and even led Hamas to engage in the cease-fire that held until the current crisis.

The British and the Israelis have the blueprints for successful intelligence architecture. This is a key counterinsurgency tool that must be included in the final version of the Pentagon's counterinsurgency manual. Otherwise, the various anti-American groups in Iraq will continue to own the streets and back alleyways of Ramadi, Falluja and other battlegrounds. And the longer they do, the more likely their dream ­ to inflict a strategic defeat on America ­ will seem possible.

Richard H. Shultz Jr., the director of the international security studies program at Tufts University's Fletcher School, and Andrea J. Dew, the research associate for the program, are the authors of "Insurgents, Terrorists and Militias: The Warriors of Contemporary Combat."

By Rockford Weitz, John C. Perry and Scott Borgerson

In the last half-century, Singaporeans have capitalised on their sheltered deep harbour and favourable geographical location astride key shipping lanes to help their tiny island nation evolve from a resource-poor former colony into one of the world's pre-eminent maritime economies. Singapore's port leads the world in container throughput; its merchant fleet ranks among the global top 10; and its maritime cluster enjoys success in ship repair, oil rig construction, oil refining, bunkering and marine services. The Port of Singapore Authority has expanded the island's presence worldwide, vying with Hong Kong's Hutchison Port Holdings and Dubai's DP World for global supremacy in container terminal operations. With its maritime sector accounting for at least 7 per cent of GDP, South-east Asia's richest country has a per capita income exceeding that of many advanced nations.

But profound change in the maritime world threatens the status quo. Singapore's response to the change will determine its future prosperity.

Change is an ever-present reality for ports and shipping. As hulls shifted from wood to iron to steel, propulsion systems evolved from wind to steam to internal combustion. The 1869 opening of the Suez Canal marginalised Cape Town and placed Singapore on the shortest route between the Atlantic economies and Pacific Asia. Rubber and tin became important commodities, showing how new technologies can change markets.

Modern history has witnessed an increasing scale and pace of change, introducing new challenges and opportunities for maritime economies. The emergence of containerisation and the giant bulk carrier caused transport costs to plummet, contributing to the great shift of global trade flows from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific. Singapore responded vigorously to harness the opportunities presented by these developments, reclaiming land for expanded port facilities, deepening harbour channels, investing in state-of-the-art gantry cranes. Strategic vision and disciplined management have borne fruit.

Singapore, however, cannot become complacent as the tides of history continue to bring change to its shores. The industrialisation of the developing world, particularly China, has soaked up excess shipping capacity and swelled the order books of shipbuilders. Growing energy demand has raised the importance of liquefied natural gas as a traded commodity, fuelling rivalry for offshore gas reserves. The maritime sector has experienced unprecedented consolidation as shipping lines merge or form alliances and major port operators strive to build ever-larger global networks. Rival container ports have emerged. Next door, Malaysia has turned what 10 years ago was a mangrove swamp into the Port of Tanjung Pelepas, luring major shippers Maersk and Evergreen away from Singapore. China also looms as a burgeoning competitor with Shanghai port threatening to supersede Singapore.

Perhaps most importantly, ice-free Arctic passages and an expanded Panama Canal could fundamentally alter today's shipping patterns over the next few decades. According to several studies, the Arctic ice cap shrank last year to its smallest size in the past century. Since Arctic routes between the world's core economic areas are, on average, 5,000 nautical miles shorter than transit through the Suez and Panama canals, the Arctic Ocean could become the seaway linking those economies, all of which are in the northern hemisphere. Shipbuilders hitherto reluctant to build ice-class ships are now responding by offering them to serve Arctic navigation, particularly to reach Russian energy reserves. Panama's plans to add another set of locks large enough to accommodate the biggest container ships constitute another possible redirection of major shipping routes. These emerging sea lanes raise complicated questions for Singapore because they could diminish the geographical advantage it has enjoyed since 1869, and benefit rival ports located further north.

As Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew astutely observed in a 2001 interview: 'Being relevant to the world and as the world changes, being relevant in spite of those changes, is the business of living. The countries that make themselves relevant become better off; their people become better off.' Singapore has shown great skill in navigating its economy through the seas of globalisation. How it responds to the challenges of the changing maritime environment will determine the future relevance of its maritime cluster and its position in the world.

Rockford Weitz is a Ph.D candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where Professor Perry directs the Oceanic Studies Programme. Dr Borgerson is a recent graduate of the programme.

By Roderick Brazier

Benny Hinn, superstar Christian televangelist and faith healer, made a multi-city tour of Indonesia in late March. More than 100,000 arm-waving disciples paid more than $100 each to hear his electrifying sermons and to witness him raising cripples from wheelchairs.

Indonesia, home of the world's biggest Muslim population, seems an unlikely destination for Hinn. But Indonesia's big cities are now part of the international evangelical circuit, and charismatic Protestant churches are growing apace.

Indonesia's Muslims show no interest in Hinn and his fellow Christian preachers. But the rich, urban ethnic Chinese of Indonesia are flocking to Christianity. Since the 1950s, when only a small elite was Christian, several million Chinese have abandoned traditional Chinese religions in favor of Christianity, most commonly evangelical Protestant churches.

Of the estimated five million ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, well over 70 percent are now Christian. The ebullient and staggeringly rich charismatic churches are thriving by spreading a message of personal confidence and material success that seems to hold special appeal for young Chinese.

The mass conversion to Christianity occurred in two waves. In the 1950s and 60s, many Chinese converted as a response to Indonesia's official intolerance of traditional Chinese culture.

Convinced - sometimes justly - that the Chinese were halfhearted supporters of independence, the post-revolutionary government punished the Chinese by severely stifling their culture. Chinese schools were banned, pushing pupils into Christian schools. Chinese temples were stripped of "Chinese characteristics" and worship could only be conducted discreetly.

In contrast, Christians enjoyed far greater freedom of worship. For the ethnic Chinese, Christianity offered a life with less persecution and wider acceptance, especially by officialdom. Between 1957 and 1969 the number of Chinese Catholics surged by more than 400 percent.

The second phase of conversion began in the late 1970s, when the government de-recognized Confucianism. By law, Indonesians must profess a religion, so Confucians were forced to choose another of the five sanctioned faiths.

At about that same time, wealthy international churches began a stunningly successful campaign to proselytize the ethnic Chinese.

These charismatic Protestant groups deftly crafted a message that caters to the social and cultural preferences of the Chinese. For example, in contrast to Buddhism or Catholicism, the charismatic churches endorsed the accumulation of wealth - a message that is attractive to a group for whom money has been a major cushion in a boisterous and volatile society.

The charismatic churches also exhibit a modern outlook that is magnetic to upwardly mobile young Chinese. "Happy clappy" services are marked by the extensive use of English in sermons, songs and prayers. Fusty hymns have been replaced by Christian pop music played live by young bands.

Across urban Indonesia, where almost all Chinese live, signs of the shift abound. Jakarta's two cable television operators each carry two 24 hour Christian channels; neither carries comparable Islamic content. So called "mall churches," operating in rented space in shopping malls, have attracted a sizeable following.

The shift of religious affiliation among the ethnic Chinese of Indonesia follows a trend previously observed among ethnic Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia.

As in Malaysia, the shift to Christianity among the ethnic Chinese occurred around the same time that Muslims began to show greater piety. It seems reasonable to conclude that Christians, including the ethnic Chinese, are reacting to the quickening Islamization of Indonesia by showing greater outward piety themselves.

Unlike traditional Chinese religions, the charismatic churches offer an acceptable way for the Chinese to assert a distinct identity noisily and passionately. Moreover, the Christian churches have links to powerful international constituencies that eagerly defend the rights of Christian minorities worldwide.

What does this shift mean for Indonesia? As the ethnic Chinese are absorbed into the Christian community, the key fissures in Indonesian society become less along ethnic or racial lines, and more along religious ones.

That need not be a problem, so long as Christian proselytizing is confined to non-Muslims. If Christians start trying to convert Muslims, the response might well be different.

Roderick Brazier is the Country Representative of The Asia Foundation, Cambodia and a 2005 graduate of the Global Master of Arts Program at The Fletcher School.

As events such as the Madrid and London bombings have abundantly proved, Europe has become one of the key battlegrounds of the global war on terror. Friday marked an important date in this struggle, as a court in Amsterdam issued a much-awaited verdict in the trial of the so-called "Hofstad group," the maxi terrorist cell that planned various attacks throughout the Netherlands between 2003 and 2005.

The court convicted nine of the 14 alleged terrorists, imposing sentences up to 15 years. A key member of the group, Mohammed Bouyeri, had previously been sentenced to life in a separate trial. Bouyeri reached worldwide notoriety in November 2004, when he ritualistically killed in broad daylight Theo van Gogh, the controversial Dutch filmmaker who had directed a movie highly critical of Islam's treatment of women. The verdict represents a major victory against what Dutch intelligence agencies consider the most severe threat to the country's security, and the first successful use of new antiterrorism legislation.

But the Amsterdam trial has an importance that goes well beyond the sphere of counterterrorism. This verdict is the culmination of a new trend that has been growing in Holland since the van Gogh assassination, as the country has gone through a severe self-examination. The Hofstad group is just the most dramatic and evident manifestation of a much larger problem. Most of the members of the group, in fact, were born in the Netherlands, sons or grandsons of North African immigrants who had grown up immersed in Dutch culture, yet had embraced radical Islam and decided to "wage a holy war against their own country," as Dutch prosecutors defined it.

Bouyeri, who had described Holland as a "democratic torture chamber," talked about overthrowing the Dutch parliament and replacing it with an Islamic court. While receiving generous benefits from its social security, the men planned to kill the country's leaders and start a civil war that would have pitted Muslims against Christians.

As exiguous as their number is, the members of the Hofstad group are living examples of the failed integration of large segments of the local Muslim population and, more broadly, of the end of Holland's multicultural dogma. While only a tiny minority of Holland's Muslims has joined the group or taken part in other violent anti-system activities, tensions with the Islamic community concerning everyday life have been boiling in the Netherlands for the last 15 years. The van Gogh assassination was widely perceived by the Dutch as a tipping point, a sign they could no longer turn a blind eye to a problem they had either ignored or downplayed for too long.

Even the most liberal voices in the Netherlands now acknowledge that disturbingly high percentages of the local Muslim population have segregated themselves, ignoring, if not shunning, basic Dutch values such as women's rights, separation of church and state and respect for different lifestyles.

And if the verdict signals a strong shift in the country's attitudes toward countering terrorism, Holland has been rethinking many of its internal policies since that tragic November day. Immigration has been drastically reduced, with the stated aim of focusing on integrating the large and widely unassimilated existing immigrant communities. New residents must now undergo 500 hours of Dutch language instruction and 50 hours of social orientation. And in January Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk talked about a "national code of conduct," a set of general rules to be applied to the public that emphasizes the equality of men and women, non-discrimination and the importance of the Dutch language.

Other measures directly target the Muslim community. Public funding for Islamic schools, often accused of perpetrating the self-segregation of the Muslim community, is under review. And parliament has already voted in favor of a proposal to ban the most extreme forms of veiling (such as the burqa and the niqab) in public.

More generally, there is a growing consensus on what it means to be Dutch. Voices throughout the political spectrum have found an unprecedented determination and pride in reaffirming basic Dutch values of tolerance and democracy. "We were tolerant to the intolerants and we only got intolerance back," said Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician often criticized for his harsh tones against the Muslim community, in the wake of the van Gogh assassination. This concept has now become mainstream in a country that has found the courage to talk about immigration and the need for newcomers to accept the basic values of their host countries while still retaining their identity.

The recognition of these problems, unspoken until a few months ago, is now the priority on the agenda of all Dutch political parties. The fact that, according to official government estimates, major cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam will be Muslim-majority within a decade only adds urgency to the issue. The verdict is another battle won by the Dutch in a long war they have finally decided to fight, without demagogic alarmism or excesses, but with the necessary firm determination.

Lorenzo Vidino is a senior terrorism analyst at the Investigative Project and author of "Al Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad."

Story URL: http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060314-095242-4921r.htm

Reprinted from Indian Express
By Vikram Singh Mehta

Fortunately and unlike the marketing and pricing of petroleum products, there is no controversy over the policy towards the exploration and production of hydrocarbons in India. Successive governments of all political complexion have endorsed the importance of engaging the private sector and in allowing the market to determine the commercial and fiscal terms. All have accepted that risk capital conjoined with “leading edge” technology offers the best chance of harnessing our indigenous oil and gas resources. The challenge has been to secure both in the face of the increasing availability of exploration opportunities worldwide.

In this context the decision to offer an additional 55 onshore and offshore blocks to the petroleum industry for exploration under the now almost decade old and therefore possibly misleading umbrella of the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) could not be better timed. The oil companies are financially strong and have substantially increased their exploration budgets for 2006-7. This is because of high oil prices and the enduring benefits of the cost cutting and portfolio rationalisation exercise undertaken by them in the aftermath of the collapse of prices in the late ’90s. In addition and consequent upon the recent discoveries by Reliance, ONGC and GSPL in the Krishna Godavari basin offshore east India, there is heightened interest in our geology. And then there is “India everywhere”, the metaphor that now encapsulates our economic success and international confidence in the sustainability of this success. This NELP round — and there have been five before — stands therefore a good chance of attracting an enthusiastic and broad based response from international industry. The question is whether this will also bring in its train the relevant technological solutions for locating and then developing our undiscovered reserves.

Exploration and production is at the best of times an inherently risky proposition as it rests on overcoming three interlocking probabilities — the probability that a given geologic structure contains hydrocarbons; the probability that the hydrocarbons will be located; and the probability that once located the hydrocarbons can be produced optimally and on a commercial basis.

The probability that our geology contains hydrocarbons is high. We are certainly not a Saudi Arabia or Kuwait but the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) in the Ministry of Petroleum has delineated 26 potentially hydrocarbon bearing sedimentary basins and has estimated that these basins contain approx 30 billion tonnes of oil and oil equivalent of prognosticated reserves. This is but 1 per cent of the total world reserves but it does nevertheless hold out the prospect of materially significant accumulations in individual fields.

The challenge is to locate these fields. Our success rate so far has not been good. We have had one giant discovery — Mumbai High in the mid-1970s but thereafter only a handful of medium and smaller successes. In consequence our demand-supply equation has undergone a statistical inversion. In the early ’80s, we produced 70 per cent of our crude oil requirements and imported the balance 30 per cent. Today we import 70 per cent and produce 30 per cent. There may no doubt be operational explanations for this relative lack of success but the underlying reality is that the “easy to find” hydrocarbons have been located and that what remains to be found are in complex geologies and/or harsh terrains like the deepwaters offshore and the Himalayan foothills. The probability of locating these reserves is therefore prima facie low. It can be increased but only if we are successful in accessing the relevant technological solutions for exploration in such environments. The positive is that these solutions do exist. There are many examples of companies that have through the deployment of sophisticated geophysical (for example, advanced 3D sismic) and drilling (for example, horizontal and multilateral wells) techniques successfully located reserves in equally if not more hostile geographies like the Arctic.

The location of reserves does not of course in itself constitute success. There is still the issue of development and commercial production. A statistic will highlight why this could present a challenge. The DGH has estimated that we recover only about 28 per cent of the hydrocarbons “in place” in our discovered reservoirs. In other words, 72 per cent of the hydrocarbons are not monetised. The industry average is not much higher but there are fields internationally of comparable geology to those in India where the companies are recovering between 45-60 per cent of the hydrocarbons in place. They have achieved this higher rate through the application of inter alia advanced reservoir modelling, “smart” wells and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technology. These are complex and costly solutions but the potential upside is huge. Were we, for instance, to increase our domestic recovery rates from the existing 28 per cent to say 45 per cent, the production profiles (at existing rates of production) of our fields would be extended by almost two decades. In short, the probability of making the most of our discovered reserves rests also on technology.

I should point out that gas presents an additional complexity. Unlike oil, it is not fungible. It cannot under normal circumstances be stored for anything other than short periods. It is therefore usually consumed upon production (or else flared). Its development and production is consequently contingent upon the creation of the market; the construction of the distribution infrastructure (like pipelines) connecting the producers to this market and the conclusion of a mutually acceptable gas supply contract between the producer and the consumer. The reason why, for instance, ONGC’s gas discovery in Tripura remains undeveloped years after the reserves were proven is because this umbilical link across these segments of the gas value chain has not yet been forged. Technology has time and time again trumped the cassandras predicting the imminent depletion of hydrocarbon resources. Three decades back no one thought it would be possible to drill in the North Sea. This was because of the extreme weather conditions. Today the North Sea is amongst the largest oil and gas provinces outside OPEC. There was equal skepticism about the ability of companies to develop deepwater fields. Last year, however, the Nakika platform in the Gulf of Mexico started operating at a record depth of nearly 2 km. Technology cannot on it own of course overcome the challenges of our geological heritage but it must now be at the heart of our future policy initiatives.

There have been five rounds of bidding under NELP. The results have been impressive: 110 production sharing contracts have been signed and there has been a significant intensification of exploration activity. The shortcoming is that it has not led to a broader participation of the private sector. None of the international majors are, for instance, currently involved in exploration. This is a shortcoming not because these large companies have a monopoly over exploration success. Far from it. The success of Reliance and GSPL confirms that size and prior operational experience are not a defining requirement for exploration success. It is a shortcoming because as this article has emphasised we need to apply “leading edge” technology. Large companies have a track record in the application of such technology. NELP VI will be an unqualified success if it results in not only the broadening of private sector participation but also the upgradation of technological input. In evaluating the bids this latter factor should therefore be given strong weightage.

Story URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=89036

Vikram Singh Mehta is chairman of the Shell Group of Companies in India and a member of our International Management Advisory Group at The Fletcher School. These are his personal views.

By Hurst Hannum

It was two months overdue when finally, last week, the president of the United Nations General Assembly proposed a new Human Rights Council. The new body outlined by Sweden’s Jan Eliasson would replace the discredited UN Human Rights Commission. The proposal came after lengthy consultations with governments, but it received a rather unenthusiastic welcome from human-rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, said it should be renegotiated, commenting that “the strongest argument in favour of this draft is that it is not as bad as it could be”.

The Human Rights Council was to have been one of the centrepieces of the UN reform agreed to at a high-level UN summit last September. The new body’s supporters hoped it would be more active and less political than its predecessor, whose reputation was marred by the membership of such notorious humanrights violators as Sudan and Zimbabwe.

Early proposals had sought to cut the former commission’s 53-nation membership substantially and elect new council members by a two-thirds vote of the general assembly, to make it more difficult for violators to be elected.

The Eliasson proposal would create a 47-nation council – a meaningless reduction from the present size – whose members would be individually elected by an absolute majority of the general assembly. States would be permitted to serve no more than two consecutive three-year terms, thus eliminating the de facto permanent membership of the major powers.

The general assembly would get the power to suspend a country from council membership – by a two-thirds vote – if it “commits gross and systematic violations of human rights”.

The old commission met for six weeks annually, but the new council would meet regularly throughout the year. While the commission was frequently accused of political bias in selecting the situations that it discussed, the council would undertake a periodic review of the human-rights performance of all states, based on “an interactive dialogue with the full involvement of the country concerned”.

The council would also review the plethora of special mechanisms, such as rapporteurs and working groups, which have been created over the years to deal with specific human-rights issues. Where necessary, it may “improve and rationalise” them. The controversy over the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed led Muslim states to demand a special provision on the need for tolerance for religious sensibilities. So, the Eliasson proposal’s preamble calls upon “states, regional organisations, non-governmental organisations, religious bodies and the media” to play a role in “promoting tolerance, respect for and freedom of religion and belief”.

Human-rights advocates must be disappointed by the final result of months of negotiations. No criteria for membership on the council were created, and the election of members by majority rather than a two-thirds vote would make it more difficult to keep violators off the council.

To some extent, however, humanrights groups may find themselves hoist by their own petard. While a universal review may enable some attention to be paid to human-rights violations by major states, does it make sense to give “equal treatment” to Monaco, Tonga, Canada, Zimbabwe and Myanmar? And how are human-rights groups, except the richest western ones, supposed to participate meaningfully in meetings lasting over three months or more?

Efforts to depoliticise human rights at the UN miss the point. Human rights are political, and the UN is the ultimate political institution. In the 1980s, the Human Rights Commission was in the forefront of innovative approaches to monitor human rights and encourage their protection.

A decade later, the violators have simply learned how to play the game better. The rules may have changed slightly, and the goal of eliminating the most blatant ideological or regional bias is laudable, but the new council would be unlikely to operate much differently from the old commission.

The promotion of human rights is not a technical matter akin to revising tax treaties or cross-border adoption procedures – and even those issues can be contentious.

Human rights are about politics, about creating a fair and equal setting in which all members of society can participate in making the difficult social, economic and other decisions faced by all countries in today’s world.

Even if it surpassed its supporters’ most fervent hopes, the new council would not diminish the need for the slow, consistent, politically astute activism at both the national and international levels that is required to ensure human rights are more than a slogan.

Hurst Hannum is Sir Y. K. Pao professor of public law at the University of Hong Kong.

The political firestorm surrounding the takeover of five American container terminals by Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emirates company, is a political distraction, but in many ways a welcome one. Americans are finally taking port security seriously.

Ports are the on- and offramps to global markets, and they belong to a worldwide system operated by many different private and public entities. Since the United States cannot own and control all of that system, we must work with our trade partners and foreign companies to ensure its security. A major step in that direction would be to construct a comprehensive global container inspection system that scans the contents of every single container destined for America’s waterfront before it leaves a port—rather than scanning just the tiny percentage we do now.

This is not a pie-in-the-sky idea. Since January 2005, every container entering the truck gates of two of the world’s busiest container terminals, in Hong Kong, has passed through scanning and radiation detection devices. Images of the containers’ contents are then stored on computers so that they can be scrutinized by American or other customs authorities almost in real time. Customs inspectors can then issue orders not to load a container that worries them.

The Department of Homeland Security has greeted this private-sector initiative with only tepid interest. But the Dubai deal provides an opportunity to adopt a system like the one in Hong Kong globally. Washington should embrace Dubai Ports World’s offer to provide additional guarantees to protect the five American terminals it wants to run. The company should agree to install scanning and radiation detection equipment at the entry gates of its 41 terminals in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America and South America within the next two years.

By making this commitment, the company could address head-on the anxiety of American lawmakers, governors and port city mayors that is fueling the uproar. The 45-day review period that has recently been agreed upon provides the breathing room to work out the details. Congress and the White House should appropriate the necessary funds to allay the concerns of the severely strained Customs and Border Protection agency, which, burdened by old and frail information systems, may worry that it can’t tap the revolutionary potential of such a comprehensive inspection approach.

Hutchison Port Holdings, a Hong Kong-based company that is the world’s largest container terminal operator, would probably join Dubai Ports World in putting Hong Kong-style inspection systems in place within its 42 ports. Hutchison’s chief executive, John Meredith, is an outspoken advocate for improving container security and has championed the Hong Kong pilot program, which runs in one of its terminals.

Hutchison Port Holdings along with PSA Singapore Terminals, Dubai Ports World and Denmark’s APM Terminals handle nearly eight out of every 10 containers destined for the United States. If they agreed to impose a common security fee of roughly $20 per container, similar to what passengers are now used to paying when they purchase airline tickets, they could recover the cost of installing and operating this system worldwide. This, in turn, would furnish a powerful deterrent for terrorists who might be tempted to convert the ubiquitous cargo container into a poor man’s missile.

There is already a bipartisan bill that the White House and Congress could embrace to advance this effort. The GreenLane Maritime Cargo Security bill, co-sponsored by Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, provides incentives for American importers to accept the modest fees associated with a global container inspection system. The bill would also establish minimum security standards and encourages the tracking and monitoring of containers throughout the supply chain.

Moreover, it would create joint operations centers within American ports to ensure that, should there be a terrorist incident or a heightened level of threat, the ports will respond in a coordinated, measured way that will allow the flow of commerce to resume when appropriate.

A global regime for container security will require oversight. Congress should require that the security plans developed by importers be independently audited. It should also provide the Department of Homeland Security with adequate Customs and Coast Guard inspectors to audit these auditors. Today Customs has only 80 inspectors to monitor the compliance of the 5,800 importers who have vowed to secure their goods as they travel from factories to ship terminals. To assess worldwide compliance with the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code, the Coast Guard has just 20 inspectors—roughly the size of the average passenger screening team at an airport security checkpoint.

Congress and the White House should step back from the brink of political fratricide over the Dubai deal. Certainly it is necessary and appropriate to closely examine any transaction that involves a foreign government having an ownership interest in critical United States assets. But the 45-day security review will provide a chance to work through those issues.

At the end of the day, America’s port security challenge is not about who is in charge of our waterfront. The real issue is that we are relying on commercial companies largely to police themselves. Both Congress and the White House should embrace a framework of "trust but verify," in President Ronald Reagan’s phrase, based on real standards and real oversight. When it comes to the flow of goods around the planet, we need to know what’s in the box.

By Lorenzo Vidino

Violent protests continue to sweep the Muslim world over the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. While the furor will eventually fade away, it is important to ponder some larger issues raised by the controversy.

For now, two conclusions can be drawn. First, the most radical segments of the Muslim world have shown their power, bringing a Western nation virtually to its knees.

Secondly, the lack of support for the Danish newspaper by much of the Western media has shown we are willing to accept limits to free speech, if going beyond those limits provokes a clash with the most violent voices of the Muslim world.

The key question is: where do we place that limit? How far must we compromise to respect other peoples' feelings? Last year, for example, two Scottish Muslim organizations tried to prevent a Glasgow restaurant from obtaining the authorization required to sell alcohol to patrons sitting outdoors, claiming it was offensive to Muslim passers-by.

Are we going to reach a point where no alcohol will be served in public places, as that could offend Muslims? By the same token, some Muslims are offended by mini-skirts and other revealing clothes. Are we going to implement a culturally-sensitive dress code for Western women on our own turf? The question is not so preposterous, given the acts of kowtowing that abound in the West.

Indeed, the Academy Award for self-imposed censorship goes to the city council in the town of Derby, England, which sent out a directive last year to all its employees informing them that, after complaints from Muslim workers, all pig-related items were to be removed from their desks, including stuffed animals and coffee mugs representing the impure animal.

Are Muslims living in the West that intolerant? Are we on a collision path with a monolithic bloc that violently opposes any criticism or perceived offense? The protests over the Danish cartoons provide us with a good perspective on these issues.

Many Muslims deeply resented the publication of the cartoons, most of which were unquestionably offensive. Yet they expressed their anger in a democratic way, through letters to newspapers, peaceful demonstrations, and even boycotts, methods that Christian and Jewish organizations have used in the past in similar circumstances.

Only a radical minority of Muslims issued death threats and became violent, most of them belonging to radical organizations with the stated goal of Islamizing Europe. A civilization that believes in itself and its values would have engaged the moderate voices in a healthy debate over free speech and tolerance, while standing strong against the radicals who attempted to exploit the controversy for their own political purposes.

Unfortunately, most of the Western media caved in and left Denmark to fend for itself. The reaction in the United States is also particularly distressing. The State Department has flip-flopped, timidly defending the right to free speech, but defining the publication of the cartoons unacceptable.

Great Britain provides an excellent example of this timidity. Two weeks ago 500 protesters marched through the streets of central London with placards saying such things as "Europe you will pay, your extermination is on its way" and praising the four terrorists responsible for last summer's London bombings.

Scotland Yard did not arrest any of the protesters. But what kind of message does England send when a British retiree is charged with ``racially aggravated criminal damage'' for scrawling ``free speech for England'' on a wall, yet thugs dressed as suicide bombers are left free to incite the extermination of their host nation? Tolerance to the intolerants does not pay - it produces only more intolerance and creates the impression that we are unable to stand up for our values.

Lorenzo Vidino, a terrorism expert at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, is the author of "Al-Qaeda in Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad."

By Peter Ackerman and Ramin Ahmadi

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

(Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.)

For months Iranian activists and even moderate clerics have been concerned about the radical tendencies of Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the past few weeks - after he said that the Holocaust was a myth, called for Israel to be wiped off the map and banned Western music from state-run radio and television, the concern spread around the world.

But there is another development in Iran - this one positive and with great potential - that the world should not miss: civic defiance against Ahmadinejad's authoritarianism is increasing.

From the outset of his term, the new president's policies exhibited a volatile mixture of nationalism and radical Islamic social engineering. While touting Iran's nuclear program, he has promised to redistribute wealth to the poor and curb capitalists (without yet delivering on either promise).

Ahmadinejad's language has been replete with contempt for religious and ethnic minorities, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, rejection of compromise, and readiness for violence in dealing with the political opposition and minorities, including Kurds and Arabs. His performance is disturbingly reminiscent of those of European fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s.


While policy makers and pundits in the West are rightly chagrined by the language coming from Iran's new leader, less has been said and little has been done by the international community - now or in the past - to support ordinary citizens in Iran who have persistently been pressing for genuine democracy, the rule of law and economic opportunity. Iranians are risking imprisonment or worse by engaging in protests, not to satisfy American or European foreign policy, but because they are fed up living with fear, economic misery and arbitrary edicts from unelected clerics.

Against all odds, nonviolent tactics such as protests and strikes have gradually become common in Iran's domestic political scene. Medical professionals, teachers and workers have gone on strike. Last month, Tehran's bus drivers walked off the job, paralyzing the city. In the week of the presidential elections, more than 6,000 Iranian women took to the streets to protest discriminatory laws, especially the ban on women from running for the presidency.

Student activists have frequently resorted to strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations, and the violent response of the regime and repeated attacks of the paramilitaries have not succeeded in silencing them. From prison, a leading dissident and defector from the Revolutionary Guards, Akbar Ganji, is electrifying the country with hunger strikes, declaring the regime illegitimate.

Unfortunately these are uncoordinated actions, and their organizers have not known how to anticipate and counter the inevitable repressive countermeasures - beatings, detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions. While there is a grass-roots movement for equal rights and civil liberties waiting to be roused in Iran, its cadres so far lack a clear strategic vision and steady leadership.

Moreover, the failure of Iran's parliamentary reformists and the ensuing victory of Ahmadinejad have tumbled society into a mood of despair. But the new president's failure to deliver on any of his crowd-pleasing promises will surely create a new opportunity for Iranians who remain determined to resist repression and demand real economic reform.

That determination should also be reflected by the international community in what it does to support freedom and justice in Iran. Governments should increase pressure on Tehran to stop human rights abuses and release political prisoners. Nongovernmental organizations around the world should expand their efforts to assist Iranian civil society, women's groups, unions and journalists. And the global news media should finally begin to cover the steady stream of strikes, protests and other acts of opposition. A regime like the one in Tehran always wants to pretend that it is popular and legitimate, whether it is or not.

There is a historical legacy of such help being effective. Catholics in Europe and the United States aided the trade union Solidarity in Poland and the "people power" movement in the Philippines. African-American organizations gave crucial support to South African civic groups fighting apartheid. American labor unions backed the anti-Pinochet campaign in Chile. In each instance, the objective was assistance, not interference. That can also be the model in Iran.


The constituency for justice and equality in Iranian society is vast but inchoate. Yet it is those Iranians, and not the power-hoarding, self-enriching members of the repressive government, who will ultimately shape Iran's future. Their prospects will not be enhanced either by pleading with Iran's rulers for moderation or threatening external intervention.

As with a score of other peoples who transformed their countries from below - such as Poland, South Africa, the Philippines, Chile, Ukraine and Lebanon - Iranians themselves can summon the will and apply the nonviolent strategies that dissolve oppression.

Peter Ackerman is founding chairman of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, and chairman of the board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. Ramin Ahmadi is co-founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and an associate clinical professor at the Yale School of Medicine.

Venezuela ran a heart-warming full-page color ad in major newspapers last week titled "Venezuela is keeping the home fires burning in Massachusetts." Alas, it's not the home fires Venezuela is stoking; it's the fires of anti-Americanism. And some prominent Americans are helping.

According to the Venezuelan Embassy, the state oil company will deliver to Massachusetts consumers this winter as "humanitarian aid" 12 million gallons of heating oil at a discount of 60 cents to 80 cents per gallon. The embassy thanked Democratic Rep. Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts for being a partner in the transaction, which will distribute the oil through two nonprofit companies: Citizens Energy Corp., headed by Joseph P. Kennedy II, and the Massachusetts Energy Consumers Alliance.

According to Mr. Delahunt's spokesman, "It's the first time a major oil company has extended itself to this degree to help low-income people."

Mr. Kennedy claimed, "I wrote every single oil company asking them to give us a little break on the price of oil. ... I didn't hear back from one of them. The only one that came back was Citgo."

But is this really an act of corporate responsibility? Let's have a closer look.

Citgo, famous for its bright neon sign visible from Fenway Park, is no longer a "major company." About 10 years ago, it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) - the state oil company. Its earnings belong not to private shareholders but, supposedly, to the people of Venezuela.

According to the United Nations, Venezuela is a country where "poverty remains widespread, affecting nearly half the population. And up to one-third of the children in some impoverished rural states show signs of repeated or prolonged periods of undernutrition." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has taken money belonging to these desperately poor people to give to Mr. Delahunt's constituents.

Perhaps the point here is to embarrass U.S. oil companies into subsidizing Mr. Kennedy's organization. The profits of the private U.S. oil companies belong to their shareholders, not to their management. It is no more appropriate for companies to give away their profits than for banks to give away their depositors' accounts. Oil company shareholders should be generous in their charitable giving. The overwhelming majority of these shareholders, however, are not wealthy oil executives, but ordinary people holding mutual funds, pension rights and retirement accounts.

Americans have an obligation to help our neediest citizens. For many years, the federal government has had an effective program called the Low Income Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). We also have the Northeast Heating Oil Reserve, which contains about 80 million gallons. If needs are higher this year, why not increase funding for these programs instead of taking money from starving Venezuelans?

The real issue, however, is not social equity. Mr. Chavez is a committed and outspoken enemy of the United States. According to Mr. Delahunt, the problem is merely personal animosity between President Bush and Mr. Chavez.

In reality, Mr. Chavez is a demagogue in the tradition of Argentina's Juan Peron, Chile's Salvador Allende and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. Such leaders offer their people anti-American rhetoric in place of political and economic freedom. Their answer to abject poverty is to urge people to hit the streets and express their hatred of America. Mr. Chavez and his newfound friend, Cuba's Fidel Castro, are making a determined effort to undermine every U.S. policy and interest in the region.

If not for true humanitarian reasons, why would Mr. Chavez give money to Massachusetts? Simple. He wants to portray the United States as weak and poor. Why should anyone respect a country that can't even keep its own people warm in the winter without charity from Latin America? The world's only superpower is begging on street corners, and Venezuela has just tossed a coin into the cup.

Mr. Delahunt apparently has decided to join this effort. He consistently has defended Mr. Chavez, characterizing him as someone "who seeks greater power and influence for the developing world" and saying, "I respect his efforts to use Venezuela's energy wealth to improve the lives of the Venezuelan people."

Mr. Chavez's contribution as a critic of the Bush administration apparently trumps his role as an enemy of the United States.

America's adversaries are out in force all over the world. It's shameful when U.S. public officials offer them aid and comfort in the hope of picking up a few votes. What's next? Food packages from Syria?

Bruce M. Everett, a former executive with the ExxonMobil Corp., teaches petroleum economics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Massachusetts. His e-mail is chathams@aol.com.

The geographic spread of suicide attacks, which reached the Jordanian capital of Amman last week, tells an alarming tale: Unlike the suicide bombers of the '80s and '90s, the grievances motivating today's bombers are less concrete and more virtual and vicarious. To curb the recent spate of suicide missions we must understand this fundamental shift in the causes that give rise to human bombs.

Since modern suicide attacks began in the early 1980s in Lebanon, this tactic has been employed mostly by fighters in localized conflicts with identified belligerent parties that were geographically confined.

Traditionally, suicide missions have been used by organizations seeking to establish a national homeland or ward off a foreign occupier -- meaning that the attacks happened close to home. For instance, Hezbollah -- the pioneer of modern suicide bombings -- conducted the overwhelming majority of its suicide attacks in Southern Lebanon to rid its territory of the Israel Defense Forces. Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers, a radical insurgent organization fighting for an independent Tamil homeland, has restricted most of its estimated 200 suicide attacks against the ethnic Sinhalese to Sri Lanka proper.

Traditionally, recruits who turned themselves into human bombs have tended to be locals as well. More than 99 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers since 1993, for example, have been from the West Bank or Gaza. In over a dozen suicide bombings against its Turkish nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party similarly relied on local Kurdish recruits.

Most suicide bombings of the 1980s and 1990s were in response to occupation. But resistance to occupation does not explain some of the most fatal bombings the world has seen since 9/11 in Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, London, Baghdad, Riyadh, and now Amman. So what characterizes the new globalization of martyrdom? Three elements are critical:

First, the new globalized phenomenon of suicide attacks is transnational in nature and in its aspirations. Today's human bombs are more ambitious geographically and politically and are operated by cells connected to transnational movements. Modern martyrs often sacrifice themselves beyond their own borders, as became painfully apparent to the United States on 9/11. In Iraq, too, the overwhelming majority of suicide bombers are from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and other countries, but rarely Iraqis.

That the goals of the global jihad movement are transnational has recently been affirmed in a letter by Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in which he calls for the establishment of a caliphate ''in the manner of the prophet," to be spread over as many countries as possible. This leads followers to believe that apostate regimes such as the House of Saud or the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan must be overthrown in the process.

Second, the new martyrdom is driven by a humiliation that differs significantly from the concrete grievances of traditional suicide bombers. The motives of the bombers of Bali, London, and most probably those of Amman are not rooted in the humiliation of a personally experienced occupation.

Many of today's martyrs, in fact, have enjoyed a relatively comfortable upbringing. Theirs is a suffering and humiliation felt vicariously through the calamities of their brethren in Iraq and Palestine. They are humiliated partly by the guilt over living a relatively worry-free life in comparison with their brothers under occupation in the West Bank and the Sunni triangle.

The third fundamental element is the role of the Internet which, as global jihad scholar Reuven Paz has noted, has turned into an ''open university of jihad." The Web plays a crucial role in the indoctrination, training, and recruitment of today's martyrs. It exploits the humiliation and anger sensed by many Muslims, while offering them an opportunity to ''make a difference." It appeals to would-be-bombers to undo their fellow Muslims' plight by sacrificing themselves for the sake of a new, transnational Muslim nation.

Some have argued that ending occupation in Iraq and other places is the key to solving the jihadist problem. But we should be disabused of the belief that withdrawal alone will appease the new martyrs. Instead, the countries affected by suicide attacks must step up the battle for the hearts and minds of alienated young Muslims. This war of ideas should expose the hypocrisy of global jihad, but it must also consist of a more sensitive engagement with the Muslim world.

Story URL: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles /2005/11/18/the_new_martyrs_go_global/

Assaf Moghadam is a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's JFK School of Government and author of the forthcoming book ''The Roots of Terrorism."

By Daniel Benaim

October 26, 2005 - Harriet Miers' supporters have often pointed to her understanding of the Bush administration's priorities as one of her strong suits. One prominent religious conservative even claimed that "if Harriet Miers didn't rule the way George W. Bush thought she would, he would see that as an act of betrayal and so would she."

But Harriet Miers' professional collaboration with the president -- and the secrecy surrounding it -- is also a cause for concern. Her roles as personal lawyer and White House staff secretary raise a series of unanswered legal questions about what kinds of cases Miers is unfit to judge. The White House papers with the answers are hidden behind a shield of executive privilege, and Miers' own vague answers on a recent questionnaire have left the public and the Senate completely in the dark.

When a Senate questionnaire recently asked Miers to discuss how she might respond to conflicts of interest arising from her government service, she dodged the question. Miers simply cited the relevant law and said she would "resolve any potential conflict of interest by abiding by both the spirit and the letter of the law." Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee, said the candidate's responses to the questionnaire "range from incomplete to insulting." Miers apparently also dodged a recusal question in a private interview with Senator Dianne Feinstein, another Judiciary Committee Democrat.

Section 28-455 of the US Code requires a justice to recuse him- or herself "where [s]he has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy."

If Miers cannot elaborate on her White House record -- at least to discuss potential conflicts of interest -- then the Senate is being asked to make a leap of faith where it should be engaged in advice and consent. Miers’ reluctance to discuss her White House work and her refusal to offer substantive details on recusal are troubling and they should give any senator pause. They could be enough to torpedo her already precarious nomination.

Ironically, in picking such a close collaborator, the president may be depriving himself of a key vote on several cases that may soon reach the Supreme Court. Recent White House accounts suggest that Miers enjoyed a broad and intimate collaboration with the president, that Miers' "fingerprints are all over Mr. Bush's record in office." As a White House staffer, she "was the last person to see every scrap of paper headed for the Oval Office." On what kinds of cases should Miers be expected to recuse herself? We can’t know without more information about Miers White House work. But the list likely includes national-security cases (particularly the legality of military trials for Guantanamo detainees) and perhaps even the constitutionality of the ban on "partial-birth" abortion. Among these, ominously, are the very subjects that Miers' supporters have been keenest to point to as her niche on the Court.

And who decides when a Justice Harriet Miers would recuse herself? Exactly one person: Justice Harriet Miers. Supreme Court recusals are self-judging, and if recent history is any indication then justices tend to give themselves the benefit of the doubt. Yes, Clarence Thomas recused himself from a case involving his son's school. But William Rehnquist asserted his right to sit on a Microsoft antitrust case while his son was an antitrust lawyer at Microsoft, and Antonin Scalia recently penned an ornery memo rejecting "a no-friends rule" raising his duck-hunt with Vice President Dick Cheney as grounds for recusal before sitting on Cheney's case.

Justices have a long history of refusing to recuse themselves. In 1870, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase judged a case involving the issuance of greenback currency to fund the north during the civil war. In 1862, Chase himself had issued the greenbacks as Abraham Lincoln's Treasury Secretary. He effectively ruled his own behavior to have been unconstitutional.

Before divorcing and abandoning his wife, Julius Caesar famously remarked: "Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." Nobody can say whether Miers' work on these issues would actually compromise her independence as a judge -- but even appearance of impropriety is enough to warrant a recusal. Thankfully, recusal carries neither moral taint nor the implication that a judge lacks independence or maturity. In fact, at the appropriate moment it is the most -- and often only -- scrupulous thing a judge can do.

The Senate can't know how her work for the Bush White House might affect her judgment from the bench on particular cases, nor should anyone assume without proof that she'd be any less capable of judging events in which she was involved than Justice Chase. But the Supreme Court, the nation's final arbiter on many contentious political and cultural issues (not to mention the 2000 presidential election) must also be "above suspicion," and recusal is one way to guarantee that.

Will Miers refuse to recuse? The Senate must get concrete answers. The most obvious way to determine the range of cases she would need to refrain from judging would be for the White House to waive executive privilege regarding her tenure in the White House, but this option is such a non-starter that Charles Krauthammer recently suggested it as a pretext for Miers' withdrawal, a face-saving climb down from a looming confrontation with apoplectic and disappointed conservatives. Bush himself has already scorned the suggestion, calling it "a red line that I'm not willing to cross."

Though executive privilege is a murky and ill-defined area, legal experts say Miers can get around that stumbling block by simply offering an exhaustive list of legal issues on which she would publicly commit to recuse herself. Scrupulous disclosure on recusal in the form of a strong and specific statement would go a long way toward reassuring skeptics that Miers will be worthy of the leeway and deference that other justices currently claim, that she doesn't plan to be simply a member of the Bush White House wearing a judge's robes.

Daniel Benaim is a freelance journalist and a graduate student at The Fletcher School at Tufts.

Story URL: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10509

By Scott Borgerson

October 19, 2005 - POLITICIANS and scientists may debate why the earth is warming, but the fact remains: the Arctic ice cap, estimates say, has shrunk by nearly half in the last 50 years.

This is big news, and not just because the Arctic is a barometer for global climate change. The thawing of the Arctic will produce major geographical shifts, many of which will profoundly affect international relations. And the United States needs a foreign policy that takes account of this mutating Arctic map.

For starters, conflicting territorial claims among the countries that border the Arctic Ocean will rapidly acquire a new urgency. A quarter of the world's oil and natural gas resources lie in the Arctic, but until recently polar ice rendered many of these deposits inaccessible.

Now, with each passing year the warmest on record in the polar regions, the ice is melting, and more and more of these deposits are being tapped to feed the world's ravenous appetite for energy. With the price of oil soaring, wildcatters race to hoist derricks in waters where the ice has retreated. Miners, loggers and fishermen are also chasing newly exploitable natural resources.

Yet perhaps the most significant consequence of the melt is the rising potential for Arctic navigation. The polar thaw may lead to what would be the most transformational maritime project since the Panama Canal: an Arctic Bridge.

The holy grail of a shortcut from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific has lured explorers to extreme latitudes for centuries. Those explorers' dream could become a reality in our lifetime. An Arctic marine highway made possible by the dwindling of sea ice would cut existing oceanic transit times by days, saving shipping companies (and navies, smugglers and terrorists) thousands of miles in travel.

Several studies show that a trip over the North Pole is on average 5,000 nautical miles, or up to a week of sailing time, shorter than traditional routes through the Panama and Suez canals or, for ballooning megaships unable to fit through the canals, around the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.

Airliners have routinely flown over the Arctic for years to cut flying time, but ocean liners have only recently become able to navigate circumpolar avenues like the Northern Sea Route in Russia and the Northwest Passage in Canada.

A continued reduction in Arctic sea ice, supported by a growing network of ports, roads and railways, could radically transform trade patterns. Those able to adjust their mental maps and capitalize on this new seaway would surely benefit.

Admittedly, even going by the most optimistic projection, a fully navigable Arctic is unlikely to emerge for a decade or more, and depending on whose climate change model you accept, it could take much longer. But unless warming trends come to an abrupt halt, the Arctic region will surely witness increased activity in the foreseeable future and could, in time, become a hub of global activity.

The United States needs to articulate a clear, sustainable and environmentally aware Arctic policy that accounts for the changes now under way in the polar regions. Because the Arctic lacks a comprehensive legal framework akin to the 1961 Antarctic Treaty, which ended territorial claims and established Antarctica as a demilitarized region of international scientific cooperation, the United States should play a leading diplomatic role in adjudicating the growing international contest over the Arctic. It should also negotiate an Arctic security arrangement with Canada.

Finally, the United States needs to bolster its ability to operate in the Arctic Ocean. Three Coast Guard ships, two of which are 30 years old and "operationally challenged" after years of hard work in harsh polar environments, are the sum total of our polar icebreaking capacity.

The third ship is relatively new, but it isn't optimally configured for the traditional Coast Guard missions that will become increasingly important in a navigable Arctic. These include search and rescue, law enforcement, the regulation of mariners, the maintenance of navigation aids and - a horrifying notion, with single-hulled tankers that aren't ice-strengthened already steaming near icebergs - the cleaning up of the nearly inevitable oil spills in icy waters.

The United States can certainly improve its ability to operate in the Arctic. Russia, for example, has 16 icebreakers, some of them nuclear-powered. With the comparably sized New York Police Department covering a lot less territory than our thinly stretched Coast Guard, even a small increase in manpower and money would greatly enhance American presence in the polar regions.

Repairing the two tired icebreakers would cost only $500 million. Underscoring the need for action, the United States Commission on Ocean Policy last year described the refurbishment or replacement of Coast Guard icebreakers as a high priority.

American foreign policy in the Arctic has been largely adrift since the cold war. But the region is growing more and more important, and we need to pay attention lest this sea change pass us by.

Story URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/opinion/19borgerson.html?th&emc=th

Scott Borgerson teaches maritime studies, political geography and American foreign policy at the United States Coast Guard Academy and is a PhD candidate at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.

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By Dimitris Keridis

October 13, 2005 - FORTY-TWO YEARS after Turkey became an associate member of the European Union and following 30 agonizing hours of negotiations, the EU voted last week to invite Turkey to start talks that will likely lead to its becoming a full member of the European Union.

In what Jack Straw, Britain's foreign minister, has properly called "a truly historic day for Europe and for the whole of the international community," Turkey's step toward full acceptance in the EU marks the culmination of Western-style reforms, initiated first by the Ottomans, that go back two centuries.

For all the drama and ambiguity that clouded the start of Turkey's accession process, there is much to celebrate. A democratic and prospering Turkey in Europe will be a pillar of stability in the volatile Middle East, a valuable friend and partner of the West, and a powerful model for Muslim societies around the world.

The European Union was founded in 1957, by a group of European independent nation-states who saw the benefits of enhancing political and economic co-operation. Today, after five rounds of expansion, the EU counts 25 countries as members. However, Turkey's accession is unlike previous EU enlargements because it is a large country, heavily populated, poor, Muslim, occasionally disrespectful of human and minority rights, and with a militant secularist republic guarded by an assertive military. Consequently, the question of Turkish accession has produced deep-rooted anxiety within European and Turkish societies.

Indeed, polls suggest that only one-third of Europeans favor Turkey's accession.

Given these high strategic stakes, European leaders have taken a gamble choosing to engage rather than isolate Turkey in the calculated expectation that Turkey will follow Spain's and Poland's example, countries that liberalized and democratized in the 1970s and 1990s respectively as the way to joining the Union.

The United States has always been supportive of Turkey's aspirations -- hopeful that Turkish accession will provide a link to the Islamic world and increase US influence inside the EU. While Turkey is already becoming more ''European" and less ''Atlantic" in its foreign policy orientation, a stable and cooperative Turkey is essential for the success of US projects in neighboring Iraq.

To be sure, the road ahead will be long and full of bumps -- with full membership taking at least 10 years to achieve. If British accession to the EU was much resisted, Turkey should expect its own fair share of difficulties.

But it's important to remember that once negotiations start, they acquire a certain momentum that is not easy to reverse. In fact, there has been no case in Europe's history where negotiations, once started, did not lead to an offer of full membership. Public opinion is volatile, and there is every reason to believe that by keeping Turkey engaged and reforming, the number of pro-Turkish Europeans will only go up and not down.

For this to happen however, it will require some savvy politicking and diplomacy on the part of the Turkish government. The very term ''negotiations" is misleading. European law is not to be negotiated but adopted. Legalities aside, the process is profoundly political. Europe rests on a post-nationalist pulling of sovereignty that hard-line Kemalist nationalists in Turkey still find difficult to accept.

Moreover, Turkey cannot aspire to full membership without a normalization of its relations with all of its neighbors, but primarily Greece, Cyprus, and Armenia. Being supportive of Turkey's bid, Greece has sent a symbolically powerful message to its fellow Europeans that if Greeks can welcome Turkey anybody should be able to do so.

Ultimately, Turkey must reconfigure the European debate in its favor. It should refocus the discussion on the dynamism of its economy rather than its poverty, its growth, and its catching up potential rather than its size and the gap that separates it from the rest of the EU. In an anxiety-ridden and isolationist-inclined contemporary Europe, Turkey is a great challenge.

In essence, Europe's test is to prove that it remains relevant in an American-dominated world and that there is a Euro-liberal complement to the neoconservative policy of democratization based on persuasion rather than coercion. And that this, depending on local conditions, can be more effective and less costly to the Atlantic community as it tries to ''drain the swamp" upon which instability and terrorism feed.

Dimitris Keridis is the Constantine Karamanlis Associate Professor in Hellenic and Southeastern European Studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.