US stance on Iran poll results

THE much-awaited elections in Iran have had surprising results. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former mayor of Tehran, who based his campaign on attending to the needs of the poor masses, and on adhering to the ideals of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, defeated former President Ali Akbar Hashmi Rafsanjani, who had a more moderate image in the West.

After President Khatami’s two terms, when the elected government was committed to reform even as while the dominant clerical establishment adhered to the conservative line of Imam Khomeini, we now have both the power structures under the control of the traditionalists, who will take a more independent line.

President Bush has already expressed doubts about the transparency of the election process, and Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader and a partner in the Sharon coalition, has voiced concern about the implications of the result. The president-elect’s focus is on domestic concerns rather than foreign policy. He has declared Iran’s commitment to the elimination of poverty by a more just utilization of the country’s oil wealth, as also to the continuation of the policy of nuclear development for peaceful purposes. The decisive power rests with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who may still show regard for western concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

With its emphasis on encouraging democracy, the US cannot allow concerns about the possible implications for stability in the region to prompt active hostility. In his meeting with Chancellor Schroeder of Germany, President Bush laid stress on Iran responding to western concerns about its nuclear programme. However, some persons who were victims of the over a year’s siege at the US embassy in Tehran in 1979/80 claim to have identified the president-elect among the young revolutionary guards who participated in the siege. This has been denied though menacing statements continue about the US response should Iran not abandon its nuclear-enrichment plans.

This implies that the new president, who is a product of a nationalist upsurge in the country, is expected to show greater concern for US sensitivities than a more pragmatic figure like Rafsanjani. However, Mr Ahmadinejad has shown his independence of approach by stressing that the policies of the US do not have much relevance to Iranian concerns.

President Bush’s doctrine of pre-emption, though somewhat bruised after the experience in Iraq, provides him with the option of enforcing a regime change where the local government poses a possible threat to US security. The newly elected president in Iran, in expressing his view that the West was decadent, was responding to the inclusion of Iran in the “axis of evil” by President Bush. He had also accused Iran of backing militant organizations, such as Hezbollah, and of posing a threat to the security of Israel.

The direction a major country like Iran has taken in the Middle East, following democratic elections, is bound to accentuate the differences among policymakers in Washington. Though Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emphasized the US commitment to encourage the democratic process in the region, there is an upwelling of anti-US sentiment that is reflected in the elections wherever they are held. As the majority of the established regimes in the region that go along with Washington’s dictates are autocratic, it is not yet clear whether the US backs them for the sake of stability or because of the risk being challenged by new leaders thrown up by the democratic process.

The US has the military might and technology to impose its will, including regime change. However, despite the fact that Saddam Hussain was a tyrannical dictator, his removal through foreign intervention has unleashed violence that shows no signs of abating. Indeed, whereas there was little sign of terrorist activity against his regime, his removal has created conditions in which extremists and terrorists have gathered together in Iraq in growing numbers.

US intelligence estimates that the terrorist threat will increase in the region. This raises issues about a regional approach that would ensure long-term cooperation against extremism. However, thus far, US policies have created a hostile reaction, notably Washington’s tendency to back Israel even when it displays total disregard for Arab and Islamic sensitivities. The new Palestinian leader is having a serious problem reining in the militants when Israel continues its policy of assassinating individuals and insists upon freedom of action to resort to force at will. The roadmap, which President Bush presented three years ago, is already in tatters, and this is the main cause of anti-US feeling in the entire region.

The current US strategy in Iraq has had some apparent success, because the Shias and Kurds, that together constitute 80 per cent of the population, took part in the elections last year, and power was handed over to the elected government over a year ago. But there is a sufficient degree of hostility to the “occupation”, not only by Sunnis and Baathists, but also by nationalists to sustain the insurgency.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, underlined two aspects of the crisis in Iraq that increased opposition to continued US involvement in Iraq. He stressed that the insurgency would have to be put down by the Iraqis themselves, which suggests that the US will be less and less engaged in the security operations against militants. Secondly, he estimated that it might take 12 years to put down the insurgency.

If the US maintains its pro-Israeli stance, and does not help to promote a two-state solution in Palestine, based on substantial Israeli withdrawals and the agreement to make East Jerusalem the capital of Arab Palestine, violence and instability will continue in the region. This is evident from the situation in supposedly pro-US countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where dissatisfaction with US policy has been growing.

Even in Afghanistan, though the election of Hamid Karzai as president was seen as a significant gain by the US, it appears that the result of elections to the National Assembly next September might be less palatable, as corruption persists, and the real problems of the people have yet to be addressed. The call by the US for encouraging democracy may sound fine, but the basic reliance on force to pursue national objectives is proving to be counterproductive.

As the call for ending poverty in Africa is proving, the real problems of the world are not amenable to solution through democracy alone. Indeed, poverty and deprivation that are exacerbated by corruption and poor governance create an environment of lawlessness and misery that is not conducive to democracy or even effective governance.

Wealth is concentrated in a few hands while the bulk of the population suffers from poverty in its extreme form, which translates into malnutrition, poor health care, even lack of potable drinking water. The developing countries have seen their living standards fall, while the benefits of science and technology and of all the advances in health care and education go to the wealthy countries.

The sense of deprivation is not limited to Africa, but is especially strong in the Middle East, where the fruits of oil wealth benefit a few, while the great majority remains mired in poverty. This was the secret of the success of Ahmadinejad in Iran. He lived modestly, unlike established leaders like Rafsanjani, who had become wealthy during his years of power.

What is being planned for Africa is as urgent as it is justified. Much of Asia and most of the Islamic world are not prosperous, and many years of investment and transfer of technology are required, before countries with proud histories can recover their dignity through progress. The Middle East deserves focus because neither its political problems, such as those in Palestine, nor its economic backwardness are being tackled, specially in populous countries like Iran, and Afghanistan.

The US has adequate financial resources and a strong military deterrence in its fight against terror. However, stability and progress will come only if the world, and the wealthy nations in particular, shift their priorities to addressing the root causes of terrorism. Solutions to long-lasting political disputes, such as those of Palestine and Kashmir, and addressing problems of poverty have to take precedence over building weapons of mass destruction.

The role of the UN, and other multilateral organizations has to be reinforced. In sum, the priorities for global action have to be set right, with poverty alleviation ahead of political democracy.

The writer is a former ambassador.M

A strategic defence pact

THE signing of a 10-year defence pact between the United States and India is the culmination of a post-cold war process to strengthen relationship between the two countries which, in the words of the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, “goes beyond security, proliferation or regional issues”.

The newly established defence relationship is designed to achieve two main objectives: to help advance America’s strategic goals in Asia and to help India become a ‘major world power’, which may project its military presence beyond its borders.

About 18 months ago, the two countries had agreed on “strategic partnership”, which, according to the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, was based on “common values and common interests”. The defence pact is a logical offshoot of that strategic partnership.

The defence pact, signed by US Secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee, stipulates the joint production of weapons and cooperation in missile defence. The pact also calls for increased military ties and for joint defence production and procurement. To meet the criticism that the US is not serious about selling high-tech weapons to India and cannot be trusted as a long-term supplier, the agreement provides for the setting-up of a bilateral “defence procurement and production group” to oversee defence trade and prospects for co-production and technology collaboration. However, at least for the foreseeable future, co-production is likely to mean re-assembling in India of CKDs produced in the US, with little or no technology transfer to the Indian side.

Interestingly, the New York Times has quoted a military analyst as suggesting that the US decision to sell the F-16 plane to Pakistan may have been aimed at inducing India to buy American products. “India would have gone its merry way,” he said. “But the announcement of Pakistan getting the F-16s changes the game. For years, India has coasted on Russian and locally made fighter jets. Now, if its adversary gets real new American planes, it has to have them too.” From the US government perspective, the New York Times adds, “weapons sales to Pakistan and India strengthen the American presence on the Chinese border and open new markets throughout Asia for military contractors, which are looking more to foreign buyers as the Pentagon budget comes under pressure.”

Rhetoric is usually a standard part of almost all joint statements, if one of the parties is a South Asian country; but the use of phrases like “unimaginable” and “unprecedented levels of cooperation” by the new framework for the India-US defence relationship, unveiled in Washington on June 28, is not entirely unjustified.

The defence pact is a clear indication that the US no longer treats India and Pakistan as equal competitors in South Asia and that it has finally accepted India as the dominant power in the region. Pakistan is a valued US ally in the war against terrorism and continues to be even a major non-Nato ally. But the US has a deeper and a more meaningful strategic relationship with India. The defence agreement is a significant development in the context of overall India-US relationship and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s forthcoming visit to the United States from July 18 to 20.

It should be a matter of concern for Islamabad that the US has ignored Pakistani apprehensions that the supply of the latest missile defence system to India will disturb the strategic balance of power in South Asia. The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system is a big step beyond Washington’s earlier offer for sale of PAC-2 which India had rejected.

Unlike previous Patriots, which operate by getting close to targets and blasting them out of the sky, PAC-3 interceptors have no explosives, relying instead on kinetic energy (hit to kill concept) to eliminate short and medium-range missiles carrying nuclear, biological or chemical warheads. A PAC-3 system carries smaller but four times more missiles than PAC-2 (16 vs 4) and has a longer range (150 km vs 70 km). Until last year, 175 PAC-3 systems were inducted into the US army.

There is a real danger now that the transfer of PAC-3 to India will lead to an anti-missile race in South Asia, compelling Pakistan to either seek the same or similar anti-missile system for itself. This will necessarily mean an indecent increase in defence expenditure. The Pakistan budget for 2005-2006 has already increased the defence outlay by 15 per cent. A steep rise in military expenditure is bound to wipe away the benefits of economic growth achieved recently by Pakistan and keep the social sector as starved as before.

The price India has paid is in the form of dropping its demand for a UN cover for joint military operations. Beside other things, the defence agreement envisages the deployment of Indian troops in undefined US-led “multinational operations” around the world regardless of whether these are authorized by the United Nations or not. Of course, the text of the agreement does not specify that these operations would be US-led and adds the rider “when it is in their common interest”.

But multinational operations have always meant for the Americans subordination of all participating forces to overall US command and control. This has happened right from Somalia to Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Exclusive control over “multinational operations” has been a non-negotiable element of US military strategy. It may be recalled that it was the Congress opposition to India’s joining any multinational operation other than a UN-led “Blue Helmet” force which forced the Vajpayee government to scuttle the proposed deployment of Indian troops to US-controlled Iraq in July 2003. Ironically, it is now the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh that has agreed to do what it bitterly opposed two years ago as an opposition party.

The US is cultivating India as its lever to realize a goal that has now become fundamental to its strategy: to remain firmly embedded in Asia at a time when the continent is emerging as the world’s new centre of gravity and China as America’s would be challenger. According to an article in The Hindu (July 1, 2005) a senior US official told a closed-door gathering of strategic analysts in New Delhi last month that “the worst outcome for the United States, is an Asia from which we are excluded”.

The key challenge for the US over the past 100 years has been to “remain engaged everywhere and not allow any other industrial power to dominate a given region”. Continuing, he added, “If I were China I could be working on kicking the US out of Asia..... Right now we have a lot of alliances but there is no architecture embedding us in Asia. This worries us.” It appears the June 28 defence pact between India and the United States is seen by Washington as a vital element in the planned architecture.

The new US tilt in South Asia, as reflected by the defence pact, is not a sudden development but the result of a gradual convergence of interests between New Delhi and Washington after the end of the Cold War. The first high level discussion on their strategic interests took place in January 1992 in New Delhi, at the first meeting of the Indo-US army steering committee attended by Lt. General Johnny Corns of the US pacific command from the US side and Lt. General V.K. Sood from the Indian side.

At this meeting the US side reportedly expressed its concern about the spread of “Islamic fundamentalism” in the region. The US side was also of the view that in the most volatile part of the world, which included the Islamic crescent from Turkey to Malaysia, it was only India that could act as a regional stabilizing force.

It may be recalled that during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s South Asian visit a few months ago, India accepted the Chinese offer for a strategic partnership and both sides declared 2006 as “the year of India-China friendship”. India now enjoys the unique distinction of being “the strategic partner” of both the US and China. It will be a feat of Indian diplomacy if it can manage to maintain this contradictory posture for long.

As far as the US is concerned, it will be a net gainer from the defence agreement. Besides advancing American strategic interests in Asia, the defence pact will expand the global market for American defence contractors, especially at a time when the Pentagon budget is coming under pressure. The US arms sales are a highly profitable way of sweetening the overall strategic partnership package negotiated with India. But it is not clear what real good the defence pact will do to India in particular and Asia in general. And have the policymakers in New Delhi taken into consideration the very damaging consequences for South Asia if the hapless region gets sucked into the emerging US-China rivalry?

The writer is a former ambassador.

Oil and security

THE bid by a Chinese state-owned firm for Unocal, a California-based oil and gas company, has triggered understandable concern.

Oil is a strategic commodity; China has a dictatorial government. Last week an overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives voted for a measure that would impede the bid for Unocal. But however widespread and understandable, these concerns are mistaken. The reason is that China is an oil importer.

US reliance on oil exporters with unsavoury and potentially unstable governments is a genuine security problem. To meet global demand, all producers except Saudi Arabia are pumping oil at full capacity, which means that fairly modest disruptions — an exceptionally cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere, for example, or an uptick of civil unrest in Nigeria’s oil region — can trigger a shortage.

To stave off a price spike that could skewer the US economy, the United States relies on Saudi Arabia to act as a swing producer; this gives the undemocratic Saudi regime troubling leverage. Add in the possibility that some other oil exporter — Venezuela? — might choose to withhold supply to blackmail the United States, and the argument for cutting domestic fuel consumption through auto mileage standards and other tools is clear.

Oil importers such as China are different, however. They have no interest in suppressing oil production to drive up prices; to the contrary, if China gains control of Unocal it will want to boost production as much as possible, which would push world prices downward and so help the United States. Those who refuse to draw comfort from this prospect argue that China might route all of Unocal’s output to its own consumers, thereby depriving Americans of a source of energy.

That is not actually practical, but even if it were, it would just mean that China would buy less on the open market than it would have otherwise. So there’d be less supply on the world market, but less demand also. The effect on US gasoline prices would be zero.

China might pose a threat to US oil security if it bought so many foreign oil fields and oil companies that it had more energy than it needed. This would put it in a position to satisfy its own consumption while hurting the United States by holding production down.

But this is a far-fetched scenario. As of the end of 2004, China imported a hefty 3.2 million barrels of oil daily; by 2020, according to Booz Allen Hamilton, a management consultancy, this gap is likely to quintuple. China’s stated goal is to lock in half of its imports by owning the sources or by signing long-term supply contracts.

But it’s not sure to achieve that ambition, let alone the far more extreme one of achieving an oil surplus. In any case, Unocal certainly isn’t big enough to vault China into self-sufficiency. Its combined oil and gas output comes to around 450,000 “barrels of oil equivalent” each day, according to Booz Allen Hamilton. That’s 15 percent of China’s current import needs and 3 percent of the needs projected in 2020.

Far from wanting to buy Unocal in order to gain leverage over this country, the Chinese are simply trying to protect their own economy against a future jump in oil prices. There’s nothing wrong with that.

— The Washington Post

Terrorist attack on pluralism

THERE are two ways of looking at the attack on the Ram Janmabhoomi-cum-Babri masjid complex in Ayodhya where a makeshift temple has stood since the demolition of the masjid some 14 years ago. One is that it is a terrorist act which India is experiencing every now and then. The other is that some elements are bent upon disturbing pluralism and homogeneity in the country and they particularly chose Ayodhya to stoke the Hindu-Muslim tension.

If we take the first possibility the normal reaction would be to tighten the security and improve the intelligence apparatus to foil such occurrences. New Delhi has done that and has re-alerted the states. Still a high-level inquiry is needed to know all about the attack. There is no doubting that the Congress-ruled centre and the Mulayam Singh Yadav-ruled Uttar Pradesh, which have been jointly asked by the supreme court to protect the complex till the disposal of the case, were not as vigilant as the situation demanded. It has been officially announced that the centre had warned that religious places in the country could be attacked.

The second assumption is more credible because despite many attempts in the last eight to ten years, no communal disturbance of consequence has taken place. Apparently, this is not to the liking of the Sangh parivar which thrives in an atmosphere where it can arouse suspicion against the Muslim community and where the Hindus look under siege in their own country. It is unfortunate but the reaction of the parivar has been on these lines.

The parivar has interpreted the terrorist attack as an attack on Hinduism. (I was amused to see Jaswant Singh saying so because he is supposed to be sober). Strange, the five terrorists who were killed even after piercing through the first barricade should have posed a threat to the entire Hindu community of more than 800 millions. But then the parivar has to exaggerate things. Its agenda is different. It wants a Hindu rashtra instead of the plural society we have.

The parivar believes that it is a godsend opportunity to reinforce its Hindutva stance and wants to exploit it to the hilt. Little does it realize that the Hindus by and large voted against the BJP in the last general elections for having tried to saffronize society. The mood in the country is different. The parivar has not been able to sell the mandir despite its several attempts.

The manner in which the militants’ attack was decimated in no time shows that if the government is determined to deal with a situation, it cannot go out of hand. This was in contrast to the BJP government under Kalyan Singh who was at the back of the masjid’s demolition. Top BJP leaders watched the destruction with glee. A photo of Uma Bharti riding the shoulders of Murli Manohar Joshi is a testimony to the BJP’s doing. L.K. Advani called on the crowd then to throw burning tyres on the road to stall the central forces which, in any case, did not act. Then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao was a “reluctant partner” at the centre.

The intention of the RSS is clear. It wants to have the maximum political mileage out of the attack and does not seem to mind any fallout, even violence. That is the reason why it has entrusted the job of agitation to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the parivar’s militant group. Within an hour Praveen Tagodia announced a countrywide bandh for a week. A few incidents of disturbances have already taken place.

At present the BJP has preferred to stage its protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, not at the complex in Ayodhya. However, one doesn’t know whether at some stage Advani may have another yatra to reprove his credentials.

Narendra Modi, as he is, has announced Rs 10 lakh as compensation for every injured jawan at Ayodhya. He should be spending the money on the rehabilitation of thousands of people hit by the floods in the state. The Gujarat riot victims are far from settled. He needs every penny. Worse, he is setting new precedents. He could have sent money to Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav or, still better, to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The BJP-ruled states have been behaving since their defeat at the polls as if they are a category by themselves, ruled by Nagpur and not New Delhi.

The incident does, however, underline the importance of a settlement at Ayodhya. The case has been going on for years and the end is nowhere near. Even the Liberhan commission, appointed 14 years ago to find out the gamut of the demolition of the mosque, is still continuing with limitless extensions. It suits the Sangh Parivar to keep the pot boiling because the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri masjid dispute is its main plank.

But what is not understandable is why the non-BJP parties in the NDA are playing into the hands of the parivar? The stake is pluralism and more. The parivar does not realize that the foundation of the democratic structure is laid on the foundation of secularism.

Once that is weakened, the entire edifice may come crumbling down. The parivar expects the Hindu rashtra emerging from the ruins.

Like Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s famous speech of August 11, where he foresaw Pakistan as a secular country, Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech on December 13, 1947, at the Allahabad University was equally significant. He said: “We aim at a strong, free and democratic India where ... communalism, isolation, untouchability, bigotry and exploitation of man by man have no place, and, while religion is free, it is not allowed to interfere with the political and economic aspects of a nation’s life...All this business of Hindu and Muslim and Christian and Sikh must cease so far as our political life is concerned, and we must build a united but composite nation where both individual and national freedoms are secure”

Islamabad’s quick condemnation of the attack was welcome. So was the statement by Hizbul Mujahideen which characterized it as “anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim.” However, it is unfortunate that the Lashkar-i-Toiba, which is a suspect in the terrorist act, continues to have its headquarters in Pakistan. According to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the terrorist camps are still intact in Pakistan; the infiltration has decreased because of India’s vigilance, not by any Pakistani action.

Assurances by New Delhi and Islamabad that the peace process will continue indicate the confidence which the two sides have developed in each other. The redeeming factor is that both Manmohan Singh and President General Pervez Musharraf have hit it off well. They can take care of the fallout from incidents like the one at Ayodhya.

However, the disconcerting part is that Islamabad does not want to proceed on the confidence building measures until Kashmir is sorted out. This is like waiting for the cows to return home.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.