Round The World

New Delhi, 20 January 2009

New Obama Administration

CHALLENGES FOR INDIAN DIPLOMACY

By Prof. Chintamani Mahapatra

  School of International Studies (JNU)

While the Americans celebrate making of new history with the swearing in of the first-ever African-American as the 44^th President of the United State, the Indian ruling elite needs to seriously ponder over the challenges from the Obama Administration.

The jubilation over the electoral victory of a non-white witnessed in large parts of the world, including India, will soon end with the enormous task ahead for Barrack Obama who swept the last November US presidential election by selling the dream of change to American citizens as well as to the citizens of the rest of the globe.

Eight years of Bush Administration were enough to buy President George Bush the lowest-ever popular opinion rating in US history. He has also been blamed for creating the worst image of the country abroad, more particularly in the Islamic world. Even in traditionally friendly Muslim countries, the Bush Administration earned nothing but hatred in the streets, if not in the governing circles.

His inability to push his own idea of an independent Palestinian State; his administration's failure to capture and punish the master mind behind the 9/11 terrorist attack; the invasion of Iraq in the pretext of dismantling non-existing weapons of mass destruction; American and NATO failure to bring order to the strife-torn Afghanistan; treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib; confinement of suspected Islamic terrorists without trial for years in Guantanamo Bay and a few other policies indicating US unilateralism made President Bush unpopular at home, in Europe and in several Islamic countries.

Obama as a presidential candidate vowed to alter America's image abroad, promote multilateralism in international decision-making and resolve differences with countries, such as North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria through dialogue and diplomacy. He also promised to end occupation of Iraq, enhance efforts to end Taliban and Al Qaeda-led violence in Afghanistan and others.  

But little did he imagine that the US economy and the global recession would come to confront him from day one of his administration. All the hopes dangled, expectations raised and promises made would now come as litmus test for the new Obama Administration.

While many countries around the world have begun preparations to engage or disengage the US in their foreign policies, the Indian foreign policy community has also been intensely debating the course of relationship between India and the US in the next four years. There are largely two schools of opinion in India: One is highly optimistic and is

of the view that Indo-US relations have matured enough not to be overturned by political changes in the US from Republican rule to Democratic Administration. It seeks to explain that the forward movements in bilateral relations spanning defense and security, economic, people-to-people contacts, cultural relations and particularly the emerging strategic partnership during the eight-long-years of Bush Administration had bipartisan support. Thus, there is not adequate reason to believe that Obama Administration would do anything that could derail the onward march of Indo-US relations.

In other words, this school argues that substantive structures of bilateral relations between the two countries have developed resilience and cannot be easily dismantled without costing both India and the US enormously. The other school of thought, however, remains unconvinced of these arguments. The US failure in Iraq, upcoming challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the hurdles erected by the continuing financial and fiscal crisis, it is argued, could make Pakistan and China more relevant to the US under the new Administration than India. 

Pakistan would be needed to tackle the worsening conditions in Afghanistan and Chinese cooperation would be necessary to fix the deteriorating global economic recession. Indications are quite clear that India would not be visible in the Obama Administration's radar for sometime. Vice President-elect Joe Bidden recently came to Islamabad, then went to Afghanistan, stopped over in Iraq and then returned home. How far is New Delhi from Islamabad? And it was a post-26/11 trip by the soon-to-become US Vice President.

Moreover, the Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton has spoken about more massive aid programme for Pakistan and Obama himself has promised to raise taxes on companies responsible for outsourcing US jobs. The non-proliferation agenda of Obama Administration also augments suspicion in certain quarters that while seeking Senatorial ratification of the CTBT, President Obama would do little to set in motion the timely implementation of Indo-US civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.

Pessimism specially dominates the analysis on Obama's stand on the Kashmir issue. Resolution of the Afghan problem has been now linked with solving the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan. There has been talk about the appointment of a new Special Envoy for South Asia. The US activism on Kashmir issue has got a shot from the unfortunate and uncalled for linkage between Mumbai terrorist attacks and Kashmir issue by none other than British Foreign Secretary during his recent visit to the region. The British have followed the Americans wherever they have gone—both in diplomacy and military interventions. This was yet another latest attempt by London to show the spirit of solidarity with some advisors in Obama's team who appear to be overly excited about solving the Kashmir problem by ignoring terrorism suffered by India.

No government official from India has drawn linkages between British military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan with 7/11 incidents. Why is London doing it? The challenge before Indian diplomacy will be to de-link such harmful British opinions from some suspected advisors in Obama's team.

Secondly, India has to make it clear now that fiddling with the Kashmir issue will not solve but prevent peace from dawning in Afghanistan. Pakistan during the Cold War made fun of US nonproliferation policy and went ahead with making nuclear weapons in exchange of its support to American war efforts in Afghanistan against the Soviets. Now it is trying to perpetuate its support to terrorism in Kashmir and other parts of India with the hope that the US and UK would buy its support for continuing the war in Afghanistan and in exchange support or remain silent over its anti-India activities.

Let us face it. The challenge has come for Indian diplomacy. Keeping quiet or making less noise in international forums over such developments would only hurt Indian interests. This does not mean that Obama dislikes India. Obama just does not look at India as a trouble spot or an adversary. He does not consider India a must country to be co-opted to resolve America's problems. He is correct in the first assessment and wrong in the second. Who has to correct his administration's wrong assessment? Only successful Indian diplomacy can do it.---INFA

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