Tag Archives: Iran

Change of Helm in Washington; Nirupama Rao to be the Ambassador

The road to becoming the Indian Foreign Secretary most certainly runs through the ambassadorships in Beijing, Islamabad and probably Kathmandu and Colombo. Nirupama did Beijing and Colombo and now after a successful stint as Foreign Secretary, is slated to become India’s most high profile ambassador – in Washington. It is customary to say that appointments like these take place at a critical or crucial juncture.  Is it a crucial time? Not more than at any other time.

credit: theindiaexperts.comAlthough a number of reasons can be found to explain why the Indo-US relationship is currently in a parlous condition. The biggest blow comes undoubtedly from the elimination of the U.S. from the MRCA competition, quite probably for purely technical reasons. But there is another side to the Nirupama story. That is the story of the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. After the performance of absolute cracker – Jacks like Robert Blackwill, Frank Wisner, Dick Celeste and many others, the performance of the current US ambassador in Delhi has been entirely forgettable. If it meant much to the U.S. to get short listed in the MRCA competition, one wouldn’t have guessed so from the activities or the lack of them at Roosevelt House. The U.S. ambassador’s office and residence was constantly buzzing during the time of the U.S. nuclear deal, but that was probably a stunning one – off performance – when the U.S. embassy mustered a huge public relations campaign on behalf of the deal, and followed it up with a command performance at the NSG waiver at Geneva.

Since then it’s all been downhill. No visiting congressmen in Delhi – or if there were, they kept a low profile. The result of all this is that Nirupama Rao has a job in hand- putting some heat into the relationship. As the PR blurbs say, the Indo- U.S. relationship is so multi-faceted that many parts of it run on automatic. So if the U.S. didn’t get the MRCA, it did get the torpedo deal, the C -17 deal and will probably get the howitzer deal. Institutionally the Indo-US relationship is incredibly strong, running as it does through 13 forums or dialogues. These include the Strategic Dialogue, Foreign Office Consultation, Defence Planning Group, Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism, the US-India Economic Dialogue, the CEO Forum, The Trade Policy Forum, The Energy Dialogue, Global Climate Change Dialogue, Information & Communication Dialogue, Science and Technology Forum, Education Dialogue and Health Cooperation Framework. That list should knock anyone out – but more importantly demonstrates how many joint bodies can be set up to produce very pedestrian results. In the entire run-up to the Obama visit probably one or two of these forums actually produced tangible agreements for the heads of state to sign.

The question also arises rather sharply, that if the state to state relationship runs through 13 standing forums, what can one ambassador do? Actually, she can do a lot. Because if even one or two of these forums actually click, the results can be spectacular. But this raises the important issue, of how much of the relationship is ‘managing’ and how much is old fashioned ‘diplomacy’? It probably is still a mixture, with more and more work between the two countries being conducted ‘outside’ the embassies and through the forums and through communities. Actually it was a US congressman (unnamed) who came to Delhi may years ago and said that U.S. foreign policy is controlled more through congress. According to him, other countries need to imitate China, in building up lobbies within congress rather than running formal diplomacy through the Embassy. This may or may not be true, but Nirupama has very little time to find out as she heads West to represent India in Washington. We certainly don’t want to repeat the NRI ambassador fiasco but if Nirupama can yet go beyond Foggy Bottom to get to grips with her job it would be worth watching.

Reconstructing Afghanistan’s natural balance

Why India must try to bring the United States, Iran and Russia together over Afghanistan

Imagine Afghanistan without extra-regional powers like the United States, NATO and others. Its stability would depend on the stability of the balance of power between Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. The external actors would broadly fall into two camps, based on the degree of convergence of their interests: China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in the red corner, and India, Iran and Russia in the blue. This was roughly the situation obtaining in Afghanistan in the second-half of the 1990s towards the end of which the red corner seized a dominant upper hand through the military success of Mullah Omar’s Taliban regime. After 9/11, the U.S. and NATO stepped in and disrupted the natural geopolitical dynamics of the region.

Once external powers withdraw Afghanistan the natural geopolitics will again kick into action: with the China-Saudi-Pakistan triad seeking dominance over the landlocked country against the interests of India, Iran and Russia. The United States has the power to set the future trajectory by choosing sides. The tragedy of the last decade is the sheer inability or unwillingness (complicity or incompetence?) of the United States to appreciate the intrinsic geopolitics of the region. It would have done much better for itself and for Afghanistan if it had recognised how the fundamental interests of the region’s powers were stacked up, and aligned itself accordingly.

The single most important reason for this, perhaps, was the dysfunctional relationship between Iran. There still is no love lost between Washington and Tehran. Worse, even as China consolidates its alliance with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the United States seeks to split India and Iran. For its part, India has shown no appetite for bringing about a rapprochement between the United States and Tehran.

This must change, and 2011 has opened a window for India, Iran and the United States to attempt to increase co-operation over Afghanistan. Writing in the Washington Post, a well-connected Saudi commentator has declared a US-Saudi split. The Pakistani establishment is checking how much support it will receive from China before deciding how much to part ways with the United States. Before the killing of Osama bin Laden upset the scoreboard, General Kayani and Prime Minister Gilani had asked Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, to cut his links with the United States. In the current circumstances China doesn’t have to do anything bold: it just needs to wait.

In contrast, even after Abbottabad, the United States remains wedded to a failed strategy of pretending that the Pakistani military establishment is its ally. This only strengthens the position of the China-Saudi-Pakistan triad, and weakens its own. New Delhi is unlikely to be persuaded that it enjoys a genuinely strategic relationship with the United States as long as the latter continues to scaffold Pakistan. Tehran has many reasons to be opposed to the United States. A good part of that is ideological. What gets less attention is the fact that the realists in Tehran have reason to be wary of the United States because they see Washington as the protector of both Israel and, more importantly, the Sunni bloc consisting of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. There are some differences between New Delhi and Tehran, but nothing that can’t be resolved if Washington were to change course. Russia enjoys good relations with both Iran and India, and is likely to prefer such a re-arrangement of relations.

If realism prevails in Washington, New Delhi and Tehran, their diplomats will be galvanised into working out how the three could co-operate, albeit in a limited context, over Afghanistan. It may be that nearly three decades of estrangement has left the tribal world of Washington policymaking with few advocates of making up with Iran. That’s why India has a role—it must muster up the imagination and diplomatic chutzpah to attempt this project.

It is frustrating to see resigned minds give up before even trying.

US Errs in Equating Wahabbism with Islam

After the execution of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden on May 2, U.S. military personnel organized a burial at sea for the Yemeni, complete with Islamic rites. Such an action is in line with a string of others from the U.S. side, that identifies Islam with what is an entirely separate faith, Wahabbism.

Since its discovery three centuries ago, the Wahabbi faith has evolved in a direction toxic to international harmony. Resembling the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in its absolutist and exclusivist doctrines, Wahabbism got traction by its success in convincing the Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia that it was the essence of Islam. In fact, its doctrines are a perversion of the mercy, benevolence and compassion of the true faith, which was revealed more than fifteen centuries ago to Prophet Mohammad.

The Al Sauds – in common with most other Middle East heriditary rulers – owe their ascension to power to western countries, in the case of Saudi Arabia, the then British Empire. The harsh dictums of the Wahabbi faith were found to be useful in convincing several unlettered bedouin that the Sufi variant of Islam favored by the Turkish caliphate was the antithesis of the faith, when in fact it expressed its moderate essence quite well. London used the Wahabbis to create a divide between the Caliphate and the Arabs, a policy justified by the rivalry between Turkey and the UK. Subsequently, in the 1950s and until the start of the 1980s, Wahabbism was found effective as an antidote to the Arab nationalism preached by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ahmed ben Bella and other secular leaders. In the 1980s, the new faith became the core of the CIA-created resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Since then, however, the ill effects of the policy of relying on fanatics to achieve geopolitical goals has become evident. The world’s “Archipelago of Terror” relies entirely on Wahabbism and its twin, Khomeinism, for recruits. Within Muslim societies, both Wahabbists as well as Khomeinsts are working ceaselessly to create and sustain regimes based on intimidation and injustice. Although the overwhelming majority of Muslims still have the moderate reflexes of the true faith (that revealed to Prophet Mohhammad, in contrast to that created by Abdel Wahab and Ayatollah Khomeini), sadly the US, the U.K. and other western countries persist in regarding Wahabbism as “pure” Islam.

Small wonder that so many Muslims are unable to understand that Wahabbism is not identical to Islam, but is in fact its antipode. It is to Islam what Communism is to Catholicism.

This is why it was wrong to have given a Muslim burial to Bin Laden. The man was not a Muslim but a Wahabbi. His life and beliefs were far removed from the qualities of mercy and compassion that suffuse the Quran. By pretending that those following his toxic creed are Muslims, the U.S. has made more distant the day when the Muslim Ummah will throw off the choking, constricting cloak of Wahabbism-Khomeinism that seeks to entomb the true faith for the benefit of a small elite of fanatics, the elite to which Osama bin Laden belonged.

The Voice of the Majority – 2 – Religion & Regime Stability?

In the first article of this series, the following was deemed self-evident:

  • The majority in every society or country expects its religion, its culture, and its belief systems to be respected and supported by its government.

A corollary of this self-evident fact is:

  • A regime that is seen, felt and recognized to be respectful and supportive of the majority religion tends in turn to be supported the majority of the people.

The events of the past 2-3 weeks demonstrate the truth of this corollary.

Does any one think Pakistan is richer than Egypt or Tunisia? Does anyone think that Pakistan provides its youth greater career opportunities than Egypt or Tunisia? Does any one think that Pakistan is less corrupt than Egypt? No.

Yet, we have not seen a single protest demonstration in Pakistan. And we have seen massive demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. The leader of Tunisia fled the country and his regime is in tatters. Yesterday, President Mubarak of Egypt announced his decision to step down in the face of huge protests in Cairo and Alexandria. Despite his 32-year reign, no one in Egypt has been willing to stand up in support of Mr. Mubarak. The Obama Administration and the Western European Governments have essentially dumped him.

The leaders of Tunisia and Egypt were and are secular men. They went out of their way to diminish the hold of religion on their people and they were ruthless against the proponents of the majority religion of their people. These leaders were the ones who created the education systems that educated the young men who have now risen against these leaders.

Look at the other regimes that seem to be trouble in the Middle East, Jordan, Bahrain, possibly Kuwait. These regimes, like Egypt & Tunisia, are generally secular; they have implemented western education systems and have discouraged overly strong influence of religion.

In each of these countries, the western educated segments are small and urban. The young “educated” people think of themselves as almost western and expect similar living standards. These “educated” youth are popular with American anchors who can interview them on American TV. They come across as just like young Americans or Europeans, young people who want the same things western young people want. It makes for lovely TV.

The Iranian students of 1978-1979 were just like these young people in Tunisia and Egypt. The Shah of Iran was like Ben-Ali of Tunisia and Mubarak of Egypt. He was dumped unceremoniously by his “bff” America and fled the country like Ben-Ali of Tunisia. Mubarak of Egypt seems made of sterner stuff and his fate is still unclear.

The Iranian Students that rioted in 2009 in Tehran were just like the Iranian Students of 1978-79, like Tunisian and Egyptian students we see today. But today’s Iranian regime is totally different. The Theocratic Regime in Iran has the support of the majority of Iranian people who are deeply conservative and religious. This is why the revolting Iranian students of 2009 received no support from the Iranian majority. This is why the Iranian regime could crush the revolt and tell the western world to bug off. And the Iranian regime won.

Today’s Pakistan is a basket case despite billions of dollars of U.S. aid. Actually Pakistan, a land with 170 million people, gets far less aid than does Egypt, a country of 80 million people. Yet, Pakistan has seen no riots about the price of bread, about the lack of jobs.

Is it because the Pakistani regime is as anti-secular as it can get? Is it because Pakistan’s religious establishment has a stake in supporting the regime, especially against American & European pressures? Is this why no American Anchor would dare to walk around Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar with a TV camera and crew to interview people in the streets? Is this lack of access to American TV another protective cover for the Pakistani regime?

President Mubarak’s Egyptian regime was a true loyal friend of America for 32 years. President Mubarak was the first to accept American Iraq, the first supporter of America’s War on Terror. President Obama chose Cairo, Egypt’s Capital, to deliver his major address to the world’s Muslims. Yet, the moment he became inconvenient, President Obama sent his envoy to Egypt to tell Mr. Mubarak to not seek an additional term.

In stark contrast, a U.S. Congressional delegation pleaded with Pakistan’s President Zardari to obtain a release of an American Diplomat who has been held in jail despite his diplomatic immunity. The Congressional delegation failed. And this is a Pakistani Government that is accused of being duplicitous and diverting American anti-terror aid to the Taleban, America’s enemies.

This is the difference between leaders/regimes that cultivate & placate the majority religion in their countries and leaders/regimes who scorn their majority religion under the banner of being “secular” and “modern”. Support of the majority gives the first set their power and immunity from America’s pressure. The second set! They get nothing from their majority because they gave the majority nothing.

How does this discussion relate to core India or US-India Relations? That is the topic for the next article.

War Strategy in Afghanistan and Regional Concerns

The long awaited review of U.S. and NATO strategy in Afghanistan was completed by the Obama administration in December 2010. The publicly released version of the report claimed major gains against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban, particularly in the core areas under their control for long including the Helmand and Kandahar provinces. However, the report acknowledged that the gains were fragile and could be undone unless the Pakistan army acted against the Taliban operating from safe havens in the NWFP and FATA with equal vigour.

The broad goal of the U.S.-NATO-ISAF war strategy in Afghanistan is to ensure that Afghanistan acquires the stability that is necessary to be able to control its territory so that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are prevented from operating successfully from its soil against the U.S. and its allies, and also to reduce the risk of a return to civil war. The U.S. plans to transfer all combat responsibilities to the Afghan security forces by 2014. President Obama cannot afford to lose a war on his watch and yet hope to win re-election in 2012. The exit strategy will be based on a phased drawdown with not more than 10,000 troops being withdrawn each year till an “equilibrium that is manageable” is achieved. The U.S. and NATO troops are still thin on the ground while the Taliban has shown a marked degree of resurgence.

Afghanistan lies on the strategic crossroads between South Asia and Iran, West Asia, the Caucasus and the Central Asian Republics. Its regional neighbours have important geo-political and energy security interests in the area. Neighbours like India have invested over US$ 1 billion and immense time and effort in the post-2001 reconstruction of Afghanistan, but have been completely marginalised in U.S.-NATO-ISAF discussions for the resolution of the ongoing conflict.

The foremost concern of Afghanistan’s regional neighbours is that the coalition forces will begin their deadline-mandated exit before putting in place a strong alternative force to continue their work. A major apprehension is that the Taliban will defeat the weak and poorly trained Afghan National Army, take over Kabul, extend their reach to the countryside in due course and once again begin to practice their peculiar brand of Jihad and cultural bigotry. Both Iran and China are wary of the return of Wahabi Islam to Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s regional neighbours, including the CARs, China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Russia, must come together to seek a solution to the conflict. This would involve putting together a regional force, preferably under a UN flag, to provide a stable environment for governance and development till the Afghan National Army can take over. The diplomatic aim should be to work towards a stable Afghan state, which is governed by a dispensation that is neutral between India and Pakistan. It is in the regional interest to support the continued operational commitment of U.S.-NATO-ISAF forces beyond July 2011 till the situation comes under control and security can be handed over to the Afghan National Army.

(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.)