Man at large

There were nice stories about his honesty, humility. Too nice for politics? Remember the ‘‘Incident of the File that was Slapped Rather Hard on the Desk’’. For Time, Singh is a pragmatist, can temper liberalisation to satisfy the rural poor and, in the words of a former colleague, can ‘‘transcend the battle’’. Singh, it concluded, may be ‘‘just what the country needs’’.

The Wall Street Journal interviewed India’s PM and highlighted his pledge to further open up India’s economy to the world and his view that India could offer lessons in how to avoid going ‘‘further down the road to the thesis that goes by the name of ‘clash of civilisations’’’. Manmohan Singh spoke of how India is negotiating a difficult path between the demands of security and the need to protect basic human liberties. He cited his government’s decision to repeal POTA.

India’s PM advised the EU, specifically. He cautioned it against rejecting Turkey’s application for membership, because it will send ‘‘a very wrong signal’’. In a few days, the European Commission is scheduled to publish its assessment of whether Turkey has done enough to meet the criteria that govern eligibility to join the EU. Turkey is very large, very poor and very Muslim. The debate over its inclusion in the EU is warming up.

When Mush met Bush

To The New York Times, Pakistan’s General explained why he dared not keep his pledge to step down as army chief.

Because that would jeopardise the national ‘‘renaissance’’ underway in Pakistan. Because he was freeing his country from extremism. That effort required ‘‘continuity’’.

The paper wasn’t convinced. When Musharraf met Bush, it put its ear to the wall and clinically picked out the words from the silences. Bush and Musharraf discussed Osama bin Laden, said the NYT, whom Bush no longer speaks of in public. Bush made ‘‘little effort’’ to persuade Musharraf to step down as army chief though he holds forth on democratisation in public. Bush did not persuade Musharraf to let American officials interview Abdul Qadeer Khan, the former head of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, though the CIA is publicly suspicious that the Pakistani intelligence service and military aided Dr Khan in his nuclear trade.

Apparently, on the campaign trail, Bush cites ‘‘Pakistan’s turnaround’’ as one of his biggest foreign policy achievements.

The UN catwalk

This year’s issues from South Asia at the UN have a ‘‘retro’’ look, scoffed the Christian Science Monitor. Who wants to hear India’s PM on India’s growing economic and strategic importance, and the country’s claim, for the nth time, to a place on the Security Council. The mind wandered to South Asian leaders’ ‘‘sartorial decisions’’.

To Manmohan’s gray achkan—very Nehru, ‘‘crisp and professional, but uncompromising’’. To the general ‘‘shabbiness’’ of Indian leaders at home, a ‘‘form of reassurance’’, an act of overcompensation by politicians seen to be ‘‘impossibly corrupt’’. To Musharraf’s sharp western suits abroad, a signal to the West of his will to ally. On to Hamid Karzai, ‘‘the greatest clotheshorse of them all’’, the man with ‘‘the least power but the most flair’’.

And before anyone should accuse the American media of trivialising South Asia’s Issues, an article in The New York Times cheerfully expounded on an Iron Law of American political history. Apparently, it has been a near-century’s worth of ‘‘beardless presidential leadership’’ in the US.

Going backward

Democracy was the good word last week. It peppered the speeches at the UN, not least by US President George Bush.

In The Washington Post, Fred Hiatt articulated a spreading unease. Ten years ago, he recalled, democracy seemed on the march, its progress looked inevitable. Today those assumptions seem ‘‘blithe’’. Democracy no more appears inevitable, it seems ‘‘distressingly reversible’’.

In Russia, an elected KGB apparatchik has reconstituted the security state without opposition at home or abroad. An elected leader in Thailand choreographs a clampdown on freedoms and rights. In Pakistan, the General promises never to fade away. China refuses to allow Hong Kong the freedoms it craves. After 9/11, ‘‘pushing for democracy strikes many policymakers as an unaffordable luxury’’.

There are few clear answers left about the best ways to promote freedom. Disagreements over Iraq have shown that even in a fully democratic world, the promised harmony may elude—democracies can fundamentally disagree.