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Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests.
The election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America was truly historical.
Despite the fact that his father was a Kenyan and mother a white American, he was identified more with the African Americans, an identity he used well. The wave in his favour swept away any attempted mischief by some opponents to use his middle name “Hussein” in a negative connotation. It would have been terrible for America if this sabotage was allowed to work.
President Obama’s public relations acumen which galvanized the American people does not cease to amaze. Taking the Independence route from the old capital Philadelphia, to Washington D.C. for his inauguration, for instance. He also brought the dormant civil rights issue to the fore, garnering applause.
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Most important, he brought the politically reluctant African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities back as one: Americans, the vision of the founding fathers of the country.
Every American President goes through the inauguration ceremony. The difference is how each of them weave their way to the event. Barack Obama gathered history and its people to the oath of office podium.
The core of President Obama’s inaugural speech on January 20 was that his predecessor honestly tried for the betterment of the US, but his policies were wrong. “We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, begin the work of remaking America”, was the theme of his promise to the US and the world. He sent a message to the Muslim world to rebuild bridges, but told Pakistan the time to deliver on terrorism had come.
Outgoing President George W. Bush’s graciousness in relinquishing office and wishing his successor well may go down well among both the Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress as they settle down to the job of legislation.
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To say the new President of the US has landed in a whirlpool of challenges will be an understatement. The country has been hit by an economic meltdown that is making it ever more dependent upon the global economy. This is a weakness that the US had not faced for decades.
This obviously demands new thinking, and a new approach in foreign policy and strategic objectives. There is a world outside that is waiting to see how President Obama and his new team move.
No one is quite sure yet how Barrack Obama’s mind will work, despite his inaugural speech. Will he follow President Bill Clinton’s line, especially since he has appointed Mrs. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State? Or will he have a mind of his own which will transcend both President Clinton and President Bush?
People and statesmen both inside the US and outside will be holding to Obama to his campaign speeches and promises.
Election campaigns are to a large extent meant raise the adrenalin and poke holes in the strategy of the opponent. But Obama does not appear to have made too many outlandish promises, especially in the area of foreign policy except raising some serious hopes on Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan.
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Set pieces of foreign policy thoughts can however be rudely intercepted. The Israeli incursion into Gaza in the last week of December and the three weeks of bombings by Israeli jets has made the Arab-Israeli conflict the immediate issue on the table.
Both the Israelis and the Hamas have lost sympathy in this 3-week conflict which left more than one thousand Palestinian civilians dead. But with a new American President whose mind is yet to be discovered fully, Israel apparently felt the issue could not be left to float.
There are a number of “hot-spots” left to deal with apart from the Middle-East. They include withdrawal from Iraq, which is not going to be easy; the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, terrorism and dealing with the Al Qaeda and Taliban is proving to be intractable so far.
It would be wise for him to find a new approach to Iran because any attempt at a military solution to Tehran’s nuclear programme could set the region on fire; and the North Korean nuclear issue is pending with Pyongyang periodically spinning new positions with some quiet abetment from China to gain bargaining points.
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Then, of course, there are larger issues like Sino-US relations, the Asia Pacific region, relations with Russia, energy and global warning.
Leaving aside the larger issues for the moment, what does President Barrack Obama portend for India? The answer lies in the time frame and route the new President would like to take to achieve American strategic objectives abroad, and how he priorities each milestone.
There appears to be a common perception that American foreign policy is generally fickle and executed at the whims of the Commander-in-Chief of the time. Aspects of this perception may be partially true because personalities do matter, but the objectives have been well set following World War-II. Only new developments like terrorism and separatism have come to intervene to compel partial readjustments.
Since World War-II it has been the avowed policy of successive American governments to establish western democracy all over the world and dismantle Communism. The policy succeeded in most cases, but sometimes at terrible human cost. Vietnam, Cambodia and Iraq are some examples.
The strategy of “Peaceful Evolution” in sabotaging communist rule from the inside broke up the Soviet Union, and China is the next target. President Obama would have to see if the human costs of adventures like Cambodia and Iraq were worth it, and whether the Iraqi adventure was misplaced. Was President George W. Bush misled by neo-conservatives and the oil lobby?
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Previous US administration including the Clinton administration played many games with India and India’s security. If American policy makers in and outside the government continue to express concern over proliferation they must check their own track records over proliferation in South Asia.
They must face the truth squarely that it was they who kept a benevolent eye on China’s nuclear and missile proliferation to Pakistan since even after the Cold War was over India continued to be seen in some quarters as aligned with the pro-Soviet/Russia bloc to obstruct US interests. Pakistan was seen as an ally. That set the proliferation monster out of the bag.
In some manners, this is similar to the case of Wahabi terrorism. It is easy to create a monster but difficult to eradicate it.
Unfortunately, till the end of the Bush regime it did not appear the top US officials really understood the problem of terrorism emanating from Pakistan.
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It does not seem that there was a political determination to fully eradicate the roots of terrorism and dismantle their perpetration from Pakistan’s power structure.
The whole issue is still being viewed in the narrow tunnel of American interest in the region and Central Asia on the one hand, and protecting the American soil. It appears that the policy makers were willing to sacrifice some American lives and interests abroad for this greater goal.
If this policy is not reviewed urgently and efforts are made to roll up their menace from roots upwards, efforts to eradicate terrorism may fail.
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President Obama’s strategic policy team must understand two things. First, Pakistan’s military and security establishments are not going to give up the main Taliban led by Mullah Omar. It has become an extension of their foreign policy in Afghanistan and represents Pakistani power and influence in Afghanistan.
In turn, Mullah Omar and the Taliban are unlikely give up Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The US made the best offer of official recognition to Taliban as the Afghan government in 1998-99 in exchange for Osama, but was turned down.
Osama is mortal, but there is no guarantee his movement will crumble after his death. He has made Al Qaeda a religion, and has written a scripture of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism.
Therefore, the only path to a decisive war against terrorism must start from the General Headquarters (GHQ) of the Pakistan army.
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One can say with a certain conviction that a danger of an Indian surgical strike on Pakistani terrorist camps is now over. But one cannot say with any certainty that an Indian strike will not take place if another Mumbai-like attack from Pakistani soil takes place.
If this happens, it may be more than surgical strikes on a few terrorist camps. Raising the flag of possible nuclear conflict to restrain India will not work. A nuclear war is a bogey, and even if there is a nuclear war Pakistan may have to reconstruct itself from radioactive archeological records.
The new American strategic team including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who needs no introduction to South Asia, especially India and Pakistan, must carefully review the Pakistan army’s “India Doctrine”.
Pak army Chief General Asfaq Kayani made it very clear in Brussels last October at a NATO conference that there was no meeting ground with India historically, politically and culturally.
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It must also be realized that Pakistan is a society that is dividing. The civil society, including the business community and a large section of the liberal media are moving away from the army-politico-intelligence mindset about India and the Kashmir fixation. This is the force that can bring peace, stability and development to South Asia.
They need support, not the Pakistan army which gets billions of dollars of arms and equipment. This is the force that can defeat terrorism and obscurantism from inside Pakistan.
Of course, there is some agitation in India on how Obama is going to deal with the Kashmir issue. His remark about appointing a special envoy for Kashmir is a disturbing thought.
Former US Ambassador to India and an influential voice among Democrats, Frank Wisner is of the view that the President will not touch Kashmir. Others are not so sure.
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The While House and the State Department might read the report of British Foreign Secretary, the good Mr. David Miliband’s views that the cause of terrorism was the Kashmir issue. The British foreign policy head must have read up leaflets of Pakistani propaganda on Kashmir before he embarked on his India and Pakistan tour earlier this month.
He was left with eggs on his face and tried to retrieve his position without much success.
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It will not only be naïve but outright dangerous to raise the Kashmir issue. The India-US relations have been carefully built over the last eight years. There were many near slips, swords drawn but blood not split, before it finally arrived on an even platform.
There is a military relationship, technology exchange agreement, and a nuclear deal on which some fingers are still crossed.
New Delhi and Washington still have to walk together on important and tricky issues like CTBT, FMCT and proliferation at large. There is no dearth of proliferation hawks among the Democrats waiting to pounce on India.
Therefore, the Obama administration should try to build on what started towards the end of the Clinton administration and worked through the eight years of the Bush administration. Let Kashmir be resolved between India and Pakistan.
It is possible to take the next step to strategic cooperation. “Partnership” may still be too strong a word.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s and not of Sify.com
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