Hot seats: facing up to the world in a glorious Alpine setting

Davos, Switzerland

EVERY year they come, to the jamboree staged by the World Economic Forum, high up in the Alps: kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, power-holders and glitterati of all kinds. There is always a smattering of arts types, and this year we have Emma Thompson, the actress, and Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist. Also Alice Waters, the chef (a kind of artist). And two rockers: Peter Gabriel and Bono. One morning, Bono and Al Gore put on a show, titled "A Unified Earth Theory: Combining Solutions to Extreme Poverty and the Climate Crisis." Nifty how that works out, huh?

Business is represented by men and women at its commanding heights, including Indra Nooyi, who runs Pepsi; Rupert Murdoch, who runs some of our favorite media outlets; and Bill Gates, who invented the modern world (or something). It occurs to me that I've never seen Gates out of a sweater. It then occurs to me that I've never seen him outside the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum--which takes place in the middle of the Swiss winter.

Henry Kissinger is a co-chairman of this event, and he makes a weighty observation. Every part of the world is changing significantly, and these parts are changing at the same time. Moreover, the changes are linked. Kissinger cannot think of a precedent for this in history. And at this gathering are several figures who occupy important places in this world convulsion.

Pervez Musharraf has a well-nigh impossible job--president of Pakistan. He comes to Davos in the wake of the assassination of one of his political rivals, Benazir Bhutto. He himself has survived assassination attempts. And his country is considered one of the world's touchiest powderkegs. In previous visits to Davos, Musharraf has appeared calm, cool, and crisp. This year, however, he seems somewhat flustered, under strain--a little off his game. One can well imagine why. Riding a tiger can be hard on the nerves.

Musharraf is eager to talk of Pakistan's upcoming elections. They will be "free, fair, transparent, and peaceful," he says. He defends the democratic progress his country has made--halting as that progress may have been. And he has a plea for his Western listeners: "Give us some time to adopt what you achieved over centuries." He admonishes us about how to "judge" a developing country: "Don't use Western eyes. Try to see it from the point of view of that country. We are arriving at democracy in our own ways."

As you know, this is the sort of relativism that makes many people groan. And some groaning may be in order. But I can't help smiling as I listen to Musharraf, because he reminds me of the good liberals and leftists by whom I was taught. "Ethnocentrism" was one of the biggest sins you could commit; we were not to see anybody through Western eyes.

Musharraf discusses two blights on his land: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The first are foreigners, he says, and have no right to be in Pakistan. The government is doing what it can to rout them. The Taliban are "from our population, and we have to wean them away." This is done by social and economic amelioration, and, of course, takes time. As for suicide bombers, they are vulnerable souls--often "below normal," mentally--and they are preyed on by wily and merciless political extremists. "If a person is miserable in this life," says Musharraf, "he dreams of being a V.I.P. in heaven." And suicide bombing, in this sick mindset, provides a ticket.

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The president insists that Pakistan is "the victim of misperceptions and distortions." Pakistan is a nuclear state, and "unfortunately we are seen as unstable." (You don't say?) People think that "our nuclear assets can fall into the wrong hands." Musharraf assures the Davos audience that this is not the case: There are sophisticated and multilayered controls in place, in accordance with the strictest international standards. And he objects to the phrase "Islamic bomb." No one talks of a Hindu bomb, he says, or a Jewish bomb, or a Christian one. "Why is this bomb"--Pakistan's--"an Islamic bomb?"

It is a point he has made before, and one of his more piquant.

THE CENTER OF IT ALL

Barham Salih occupies a hot seat, but perhaps not as hot as Musharraf's: He is deputy prime minister of Iraq. He says that a huge transition is taking place in Iraq, a great shift of history. He urges us to place Iraq's problems "in context." The entire Middle East is changing; Iraq is at the center of it all.

When the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Salih says, expectations were too high. The tyrant was gone, and many Iraqis expected to live happily ever after. Democracy would simply fall into place. Instead, the road has been very hard. Iraq has experienced "a tornado of terrorism," says Salih--terror committed in the name of Islam. And have Muslim leaders spoken out against it? Outside Iraq, he says, very few. Now, however, Iraq is at last on the way to beating extremism and terror. If it can be done in Anbar Province, it can be done throughout the country.