Mum shouldn’t have been the word

Mum shouldn’t have been the word

Source: By SEEMA MUSTAFA: The Free Press Journal

U K Prime Minister David Cameron inadvertently forced India to take a declared position on the US proposal to invade Syria, limited or otherwise.

After a long bout of silence, New Delhi was shocked on the eve of general elections, to find that the British government had listed it as one of the countries supporting the US military action against Syria. It had been listed by the British government as one of the countries supporting US military action.

The mandarins controlling foreign policy realised that the silence, made even more fashionable by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, was not working to India’s advantage and fielded the MEA spokesperson to clarify that the government was certainly not supporting the proposed limited strike on Syria. A very delayed and subdued reaction, at a time when the non- aligned world had expected big country India to come out in support of rights and justice. And yet another example of the mealy mouthed approach that has come to define Indian foreign policy, where old friends have been discarded, but new friends still not really found, except for the US and Israel who continue to cast a heavy shadow on most Indian foreign policy and even defence responses.

The injustice of US strategy for Syria can escape only the most hardened and blinkered governments. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is a fine example these days of a sovereign country that will not allow unilateral will to be imposed on weaker nations, whereby military might becomes the sole criterion, with rights, laws, international covenants, and indeed the United Nations itself being wilfully flouted. China is supporting Russia, and one would have expected India to take the lead in raising a voice against the unilateral military action that has already turned West Asia into a cesspool of chaos and conflict, instead of this self- imposed silence that really did translate as support for the US President Barack Obama.

From being a player and a country well- respected in West Asia, India is now seen by even the so- called friendly regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and of course the Arab League, as a supporter of US imperialism and Israeli Zionism. Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt (once a very close friend) and of course the hapless Palestinians, have all raised quiet diplomatic fingers against the Indian silence, that in the current scenario favours American unilateralism. From a reliable friend, India has reduced its role to that of a bystander, unreliable when the US pressure escalates from a nudge to a push as happened in the case of Iran.

For years, New Delhi blocked overtures from Iran to join the Iran- Pakistan- India gas pipeline that would dramatically increase our energy resources, citing security reasons at one point, and price on the other. It had no hesitation, however, in joining the US- backed Turkmenistan- Afghanistan- Pakistan- India pipeline that would go through even more ‘ insecure’ territory, and thus be a non- starter from the word go. Iranian ministers and officials continued trying to convince India to avail of their country’s tremendous energy resources, but with no luck, as Prime Minister Singh made it clear down the line that he did not want the US to be offended.

Now that growth has dropped, the rupee has crashed, and the price of oil and gas is being reviewed and increased within weeks at a time, it was ironic to hear Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily speak of increasing energy cooperation with Iran.

This was a sign of his desperation, but clearly he has been directed to keep his mouth shut, and hunker down, instead of trying to ease the situation by taking up the old Iranian offers. There seems to have been no discussion, or even an attempt to understand the fallout of US interventions in West Asia on India. A country that is obsessed with terrorism, to a point of arresting innocents as terrorists, does not seem to realise that the US backing of extremists in Syria will have an impact on India and South Asia.

The well- armed extremists, now being led by the al Qaeda, who are currently engaged in fighting the Assad regime, will turn their attention to other countries and causes later. And given the fact that the al Qaeda and the Pakistan terror groups and the Taliban all have close links and shared cadres, India will most certainly be amongst those who will feel the heat. But somehow our mandarins are trained not to think so far ahead, and confine their strategic wanderings to Afghanistan, Pakistan and at the outer limit, China at best.

Apart from this very ‘ practical’ facet that feeds into New Delhi’s “ pragmatic” foreign policy, India has in the past years lost ground in the world outside the US- influenced bloc. Geopolitical positioning around the Syrian conflict had given clear indication of a US decline, with its unilateral position being for the first time really challenged by other countries, including European nations. There were murmurings, but barely audible, when the US invaded Iraq. These became a little louder, but barely so, when the American troops and NATO allies bombarded Libya. But this time around, even the NATO coalition is breaking, with the Cameron government unable to go along with its larger ally because of a “no” from the British people and their Parliament.

Except for France, all other NATO member nations are facing pressure from their people, with even hardnosed Germany unable to support Obama in his continuing misadventures in West Asia. India was thus expected to take a position even earlier and it is sad that the response has come really as a ‘ denial’ to UK’s mistake.

Silence has been misconstrued, and given the fact that elections are imminent, the Congress Party clearly felt that it could not continue to hide under ambiguity. The US is on the decline. It has become the ‘most hated nation’ in most parts of the world, and governments responsive to their people will find it difficult to continue supporting Washington on all and every issue. Russia under Putin is asserting itself. China is not very keen to cross swords at this stage of its expansion, but has made it apparent that it will not hesitate if required to pick a side.

And given the continuing cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, it is not difficult to guess where its ‘ pick’ will lie. Even ‘ puppy’ Britain cannot move for fear of alienating its vocal and assertive people, with West Asia leading the anger against the Americans. Old friend Pakistan has turned against the US completely, with Afghanistan without the Karzai government, constituting hostile territory as well.

Even a so- called limited strike on Syria will open yet another Pandora’s box in the region, with consequences that will strike at the heart of US plans for the region and the world. The government of India thus needs to open her windows and doors, and air out policy in the gush of fresh air and thought.

Courtesy: http://www.ksgindia.com/study-material/today-s-editorial/9124-12-sept-2013.html

Stakes high on Syria

Stakes high on Syria

Source: by Harsh V. Pant: The Tribune

IT almost seems as if West Asia is perpetually stuck in a crisis mode. It is a region now where multiple crises co-exist easily, where regional actors now seem perennially preoccupied with fanning the flames of sectarian strife and where external actors are perpetually involved in fruitless crisis management. So even as the Egyptian military junta was the focal point of regional and global attention because of its ruthless assault on the supports of Muslim Brotherhood, the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime has changed the calculus for everyone.

Now even Barack Obama finds himself at a place where he would have least liked to be at the beginning of his second term as the US President - on the verge of starting a fourth war in West Asia in little more than a decade. Obama's foreign policy has so far been caution writ large. But Bashar al-Assad has called his bluff.

For nearly a century now the world has been united against the use of chemical weapons, so horrifying in World War I. Waging war against his own people, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has used them previously during the past year, but never on the scale of the August 21 attack in which thousands of people were affected and at least 1,400 killed. Rockets loaded with a nerve agent were allegedly shot into residential neighborhoods of the Damascus suburbs, constituting one of the deadliest uses of chemical agents since they were outlawed nine decades ago.

The Obama administration has publicly asserted that the Syrian government used the nerve gas sarin to kill Syrian citizens. The French government has emphatically suggested that the suspected chemical attack near Damascus last month “could not have been ordered and carried out by anyone but the Syrian government”.

This was the 'red line' that Obama had publicly suggested Assad would not be allowed to cross. So now the credibility of the American foreign policy is at stake. The argument goes that if there is no response, the Assad regime would use them again, on an even larger scale, and other dictators in future conflicts would calculate that they, too, could use these ghastly weapons at no cost.

The problem has always been that Obama has had no larger Syria policy so far. For more than two years he has insisted that Assad must go, but has taken few steps to hasten that departure. During this time millions of people have been displaced from their homes, Al-Qaida has found a safe haven in the country and violence has spread to neighboring Lebanon and Iraq, with Israel, Jordan and Turkey also at risk. There has been an extraordinary failure of leadership by the US President. While deciding on intervention in a fateful Middle East war, the President has chosen a minimalist option, which is likely to fail.

Not surprisingly after raising hopes that attacks were imminent in Syria, Obama had to back down in the face of opposition from the US Congress facing widespread ridicule. Syria's envoy to the UN suggested that Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron — who last week ruled out military action after failing to get parliamentary approval - had "climbed to the top of the tree" but didn't know how to get down, and so had deferred the decision to the lawmakers.

The Syrian Opposition Coalition released a statement urging Congress to support military action, saying that if the international community does not respond to Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons; it would set a dangerous example for other dictatorships around the world. But in Washington, London and Paris, the spectre of Iraq war looms large and domestic politics in these countries is by and large opposed to the nascent military plans being drawn up by their respective governments.

Syria today stands at the heart of the geopolitical struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran in West Asia. There is little likelihood that a war against Syria would remain limited. It will engulf the whole region as Syria is the only major ally left of Iran in the region and Tehran will do its utmost to protect the Assad regime in Damascus. Because of this, The biggest danger for the Western forces is that they might get drawn into a more protracted struggle, “mission-creep”, risking an open-ended military commitment that many fear might be as dangerous as another Iraq or Afghanistan.

At the moment, the most attractive option for the West is to engage in short swift punitive strikes against the Assad regime targeting military sites linked closely to the regime — the headquarters or barracks of elite units so as to get the regime's attention and to persuade him not to resort to chemical weapons in the future. This will be politically acceptable and will give an appearance that something is being done. But this is unlikely to solve the problem and may even prolong the ongoing civil war in Syria. The West also doesn’t want many of the groups fighting the Assad regime to win because of their extremist ideology.

Obama's heart is not in this war but he has few good choices left. He has boxed himself in a corner and now he needs to show that he can lead from the front as opposed to leading from behind which has become his mantra. But the stakes are huge not only for the US but for the larger international community which has been preoccupied with various West Asian crises for far too long.

Courtesy: http://www.ksgindia.com/study-material/today-s-editorial/9048-07-sept-2013.html