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	A Troubled World seen from a Swedish Idyll by Michael Vatikiotis International Herald Tribune Sweden   10 August, 2005. Tallberg, Sweden.   Take a good number of responsible adults in professional and political positions, put them together in charming log-cabin hotels strewn along an idyllic Swedish lakefront and what do you get? A recipe for global disaster.   Much of the world's elite - business leaders, international bureaucrats, politicians, representatives from nongovernmental organizations and the like - appears to be gripped by anxiety over the state of global affairs. Judging from the talk at the 25th Tallberg Forum, a gathering of some of the world's leading thinkers, no one has confidence in global rules and institutions, which it is widely believed the United States has undermined. Globalization is no longer embraced as a promise but regarded as a threat.   A degree of anxiety is perhaps to be expected with the American adventure in Iraq going so badly and European integration seemingly stalled. Hovering like a ghostly trapeze artist near the top of the circus tent in which the forum's discussions took place, threatening to swoop down and mess up everything, was the specter of Islamic extremism. At one point, when asked what was so hard about bringing Turkey into the European Union, Marek Belka, the normally articulate prime minister of Poland, was reduced to muttering about differences over principles. He meant religion.   The other specter haunting proceedings was that of a diminished system of global government. "Multilateral cooperation is at a cross roads," suggested the incoming UN General Assembly president, Jan Eliasson. Top UN officials like Shashi Tharoor, under secretary general for public affairs, bravely presented the United Nations as on the brink of reform and renewal. But even he admitted that half the civil wars the United Nations ended restarted after the peacekeepers have left.   Participants, who numbered about 400, worried that the United Nations was heavy on process and light on representation. The idea of involving a better representation of society was chewed over; so was the notion of a broadened club of leaders, a G-20 instead of a G-8, where heads of state can discuss weighty issues and give better guidance to the United Nations. But as delegates - mostly from Europe, with sizable contingents from Africa and China, and a smattering of liberal North Americans - winced when they learned that John Bolton was appointed Washington's envoy to the United Nations, the futility of some of these idealistic notions was apparent.   Here was the scariest of all the issues chewed over the pickled herring and fresh salmon: What if the United States is no longer a benign force for good? The Europeans vented some of their frustrations. Robert Cooper from the Council of the European Union declared that a second center of power would help "keep the United States honest." There were the usual calls for Washington to sign up to treaties that the rest of the world has agreed do help keep us all honest. An American participant countered that the United States is moving away from global institutions that no longer serve its interests.   What a difference a decade makes. Ten years ago we were basking in the legacy of Pax Americana; the Cold War was won and free markets reigned supreme. Globalization was hailed as the new way of life in which everyone was promised the benefits.   Today much of the world still feels left out and alienated from this dream. European integration was blasted at the forum as being an elitist paradigm. It was pointed out that the same number of people remain mired in poverty today as there were in 1970. For all the talk about globalization, more than three billion people, or about half the world's population, still live without the benefits of technology, observed Ashok Khosla, an Indian entrepreneur involved in development work.   And yet, the human race is optimistic by nature. No one doubted that the United Nations will find a way to adapt; no one believes the United States can live for long without the rules and institutions embodied by the world body, and ultimately, as Tharoor politely observed, "The world is not trying to cut the United States down to size."   In fact, the leaders at this year's forum were more inclined to blame the world's ills on the way the news media interpret events than on any real shortcomings in the institutions of global government that they preside over. "We are exposed to more opinion than at any time in our history," declared Prince Hassan bin-Talal of Jordan. "We have info-taintment, info-terror. I would like to see some info-wisdom."   (Michael Vatikiotis is a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.)
	"Why I cannot be part of this Divisive War", by Robin Cook by Robin Cook The Guardian United Kingdom   Aug 2005   (Extract from Robin Cook''s resignation speech to the House of Commons, 17 March 2003).   This is the first time for 20 years that I have addressed the House from the back benches. I must confess that I had forgotten how much better the view is from here.   I have chosen to address the House first on why I cannot support a war without international agreement or domestic support.   The present Prime Minister is the most successful leader of the Labour Party in my lifetime. I applaud the heroic efforts that the Prime Minister has made in trying to secure a second resolution [at the United Nations]. I do not think that anybody could have done better than the Foreign Secretary in working to get support for a second resolution within the Security Council.   But the very intensity of those attempts underlines how important it was to succeed. Now that those attempts have failed, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.   The reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading partner - not Nato, not the European Union and, now, not the Security Council.   Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.   Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.   I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by Nato; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies. It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement.   Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq.   None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will ''shock and awe'' makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands.   For four years as Foreign Secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq''s nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam''s medium and long-range missiles programmes.   Iraq''s military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam''s forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days.   We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat.   Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create?   It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.   Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.   I intend to join those tomorrow night who will vote against military action now. It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.
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