The non-aligned line up against America

With little media fanfare a meeting took place in Tehran last week that could have huge repercussions. The gathering of the 100-plus nations of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a club which brings together politicians from Equatorial Guinea, Turkmenistan, Venezuela, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia, will come as a surprise to many, partly because it still meets and partly because it was held in Iran.

As a 'child' of the Cold War, NAM was established back in 1961 as a forum for those nations declining to align themselves with either of the protagonists, the US and Nato or the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. Of course, non-alignment meant mostly anti-Western, invoking all the usual -isms: capitalism, imperialism, colonialism. Early leaders were India's Nehru, Egypt's Nasser and Yugoslavia's communist Tito, but there have

been a sprinkling of latter-day tyrants such as Robert Mugabe and, of course, Fidel Castro.

What became clear at last week's conference, however, was that the 47-year-old NAM recognised it had failed to become a significant voice in world affairs and was seeking a 'new direction' towards a 'new world order'. "The NAM desperately needs a new and bold initiative on the economic front," says Kaveh Afrasiabi, author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy, "otherwise its legitimacy may soon be questioned by its constituents, who happen to be the majority of the world's population inhabiting the 'Third World'."

This year's conference, Solidarity for Peace, Justice and Friendship, set itself an expansive agenda to discuss terrorism, reform, disarmament, human rights, world media and global economics.

Of even greater significance, though, was the debate over whether NAM members should join the UN Security Council - or develop NAM itself into a fully-fledged rival