Cross Talk
Whose security and whose council?
It's fascinating, in all of this, to watch a nation in its trajectory of craze. There is full-grown craze which originates in its proponents and then intoxicates people with wild frenzy. The liberation wars, revolutions, and popular upheavals come under this category. Then there is also craze which goes off at half-cock. It has the risk of people who laugh at their own jokes. The proponents, intoxicated by their own idea, don't wait to hear from other people.
To cut to the chase, another ill-concocted craze may be in the offing. I say another because the country is yet to recover from the monumental failure of the caretaker system. Now who doesn't remember that once it was seen as the silver bullet for the ills of power transition? It was hyped up so much by those who believed in it that they didn't bother to find out if the people were also equally convinced.
The new craze is the heightened interest in the National Security Council. It is being played as an essential for political reforms like no cake is complete without icing. The idea has been endorsed by many opinion leaders already, and more of them will find it politically expedient to rally around it. There is a temporary lull due to the flood, and it will bounce back into national discourse after the water recedes.
So, no dribbling and slam dunk: Why do we need a National Security Council? Well, there are some countries in the world, which have this executive branch governmental body. Perhaps that is one good reason why we should also have it.
The other reason is more obvious. Since the army came to our rescue last January, it is only fair that a grateful nation should find them a rightful place at the nation's table.
The question is what good is it going to do if we create another layer within the government, which is already deficient of efficiency? If we are going to have to yank a derailed train back on the track, how does it make sense to start loading up the wagons?
Fine, other countries have it and we would like to keep up with the Joneses. A search in Google throws up the names of China, Taiwan, Iran, Israel, India, US, UK, Pakistan, Russian Federation, Turkey, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan as countries, which have a National Security Council. The oldest is in the US, created in 1947, and the newest is in the UK, created last March.
By definition, the council is responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising presidents and prime ministers on matters related to national security. In China, the council is known as the Central Military Commission, which is responsible for supervising the nation's armed forces. Vietnam and North Korea have commissions along the same line.
In the US, the National Security Council is the principal forum used by the president for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials and is part of the his executive office.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair formed the National Security Council in UK to combat terrorism.
The Supreme National Security Council of Iran includes amongst its other responsibilities the exploitation of materialistic and intellectual resources of the country for facing the internal and external threats.
In Pakistan, the National Security Council was set up as a ploy to give large powers to the country's president, who had traditionally been a figurehead, with actual powers lying with the prime minister.
The Indian National Security Council was created in 1988 but largely remained inactive without any representation from the military brass until Manmohan Singh breathed new life into it.
Recently the newly-elected French President Nicholas Sarkozy has put forward an idea to establish a National Security Council, but the French are already clamouring that it shouldn't be a copycat model of the American outfit, but a French-style one.
What will be the form of our National Security Council, should we decide to go ahead? Not much details yet and all we know, it will have representations from politicians, bureaucrats, army, and prominent citizens of other professions. But what will it do and how far will it go? Let us say it will do more or less a cross-section of what it does in other countries.
But is it the right time to have the National Security Council? The main reason why the caretaker government has been installed is to renovate our wobbling political structure, and strengthen the institutions, which were falling apart. And the State of Emergency came like an anesthesia prior to surgical intervention.
This government has done a good job with that, striking at the roots of corruption, forcing political parties so that they will undergo reforms, reconstituting key institutions, and restoring hope that a free and fair election can be held in 2008.
All that being as it is, what will the National Security Council change? In the US, where it originated, the institution has mostly remained under the fold of presidents. The council has gone through many fluctuations in its 60 years of age, remaining neglected by Truman, revived by Eisenhower, ignored by Kennedy, so forth and so on. The case against the sitting George Bush is that he has turned the National Security Council into a pocket organisation.
The upshot is that the National Security Council is a risky proposition for the same reason it also looks attractive. It requires a mature statecraft to handle a sophisticated apparatus, which requires sophisticated handling. In so much as it has to come, and come that it will, given the twist of political irony, I can only plead that it should be further considered before implementation and implemented after adequate scrutiny.
Why not wait until the next parliament so that people are also convinced that it is a council for their security? On that note, I rest my case.
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