In an ideal world, the perfect solution to the terrorist attacks in the USA would have been for the military response to have been directed by the United Nations with the full backing of a Security Council resolution. The Security Council did pass a resolution on September l2 expressing its readiness to take all necessary steps to respond to the attacks. It also recognised the inherent right of individual or collective self defence under the UN Charter. But the UN has since effectively been sidelined.

The United Nations was set up after the second world war in an effort to create an international, representative body that could respond to attacks and crises. It was a consensual structure, one of whose missions was to help to sustain world peace. However, though the United Nations has on more than one occasion provided peacekeeping operations, it has never developed a mechanism for waging war and it has been circumvented in the recent attacks on Serbia and other crises. It is therefore still to fulfil one of the key aims of its founders. That, perhaps, lies in the future and could have been cumbersome to put in place on this occasion.

If Mr bin Laden is apprehended he should be taken before an international criminal tribunal set up by the United Nations, like those in session at The Hague to deal with crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Security Council would surely agree to extend the court's jurisdiction to cover this. In this way, the West would be seen to be upholding the rule of law, to which it is ideologically committed and which forms the basis of its own democratic societies, at an international level. Such action would invest these international institutions, with which one must hope the future lies, with great authority.

As it is President George Bush with the active assistance of Prime Minister Tony Blair, has sought to craft a wide coalition to support the `strike against terrorism'. This was a much higher level of response than the knee jerk open ended retaliation many had feared. As it now stands, the attacks are limited and focused and seek to weaken the Taliban's defences and to make it easier to locate and seize Mr bin Laden. It is when one seeks to look beyond this that the future becomes more cloudy. Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld has already said this `war' may last several years. It will involve mechanisms ranging from cutting off funds to terrorists (a US Executive Order has already listed eleven organisations whose assets will be frozen) to increased security measures at airports and public buildings. Will all terrorist groups eventually be included, such as the IRA and ETA and the Cuban exile variety, or only those whom the USA considers antagonistic to its interests?

Will the strikes be extended to other states which are thought to be harbouring terrorists, as the Taliban are bin Laden? The present coalition consensus, even with Britain, would not seem to extend beyond Afghanistan, though there is a much wider consensus generally against terrorism. President Fidel Castro, for example, recently described it as a "dangerous and ethically indefensible phenomenon, which must be eradicated", and offered to co-operate with other countries to do so.

The Arab and Moslem world is of course not itself a monolithic structure. There are differences in the political structures and in the degree of development in the various countries. There are differences in the attitude to Islamic fundamentalism and to a retrograde regime like the Taliban,for which there is little or no sympathy in many of these countries. But at the same time many of them have at best a complex relationship with the west, in some cases their formal colonial masters. There are also differences in the degrees of secularisation.

It is clear that there cannot be a purely military solution to the problems that exist and lie ahead. A solution must involve settlement of the situation of the Palestinians which fuels the terrorist agenda in the middle east, though this includes other issues. Former President Clinton had almost brokered a solution between Mr Barak and Mr Arafat. Jerusalem may have been the sticking point. Fresh efforts must be made to achieve a fair settlement which could hopefully lead to an end to the intifada. This would immediately relieve some of the tensions in the middle east and remove the main breeding ground for terrorists.

The world is on tenterhooks, not knowing where this will all end, where it may extend, what other terrorist strikes there could be, including the horror of chemical or biological warfare, and how there can be a `solution'. It is a `war' with no obvious end that `can take years'. The World Bank has already predicted a negative impact on the global economy, with the effect on developing countries being severe. And our regional leaders meet today to ponder the effect on tourism, aviation and other industries.

Will we enter, after this initial period, another cold war, with a divided world in which there are conspiracies, coups and counter coups? Many of the extremist actions which America undertook in the past were done in the context of the fight against Communism, when even flirting with Islamic fundamentalism was considered a permissible tactic, once it hurt the Soviets. Will this be another no holds barred situation which leads to an increasing polarisation in which "you are either with us or against us"? What role can small countries like our own play in this global debate that will inevitably involve some rethinking of foreign policy?

One can hope, perhaps, that the United Nations will not continue to be sidelined and will be urgently and fully involved in a search for a post-Taliban political solution. One can also hope that the West's ostensible commitment to international institutions will not be pushed aside, that that freedom of the open society which is the West's greatest achievement will not have to be sacrificed unduly in the fight against terrorists, and that America and Europe will continue to reflect on what exactly it is that they are trying to achieve and the best means of doing so. The Arab and Moslem world will also no doubt undertake some soul searching of its own and gain an increased awareness of its own internal contradictions. Mr bin Laden may end up rocking more boats than he had imagined.

Finally, it would be a good start if all countries would respond to the appeal by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to sign the l2 international conventions against terrorism drawn up by the UN and adopted by the General Assembly since l963. Only 5 have been ratified by more than l00 countries.