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UPA government must overcome fear

After a recent visit to China, the prominent American strategic thinker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrote that it was “timely and historically expedient” for Washington to enter into a strategic dialogue with Beijing on applying their combined experience vis-À-vis the North Korean nuclear problem to resolving the potential crisis with Iran. From all accounts in the Chinese media, the leadership in Beijing attentively received Mr. Brzezinski. His demarche offers much insight.

Especially so, since our own Iran policy needs an exit strategy. Constructing a friendship with Iran has not proved easy for successive Congress governments. In the early 1990s, when the Congress was last in power on its own steam, North Block was scared stiff that if New Delhi reached out to Tehran, the International Monetary Fund would be annoyed. The phantoms of fear, alas, have been stalking the corridors of South Block too during the past 2-3 years.

The Foreign Secretary’s recent visit to Iran has been a timely initiative. But there is no substitute to reviving our traditional political exchanges with Iran at the highest level. A visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to that country will just be the bold signal needed today. Iran is poised to move to the centre stage of the energy scene, and is set to play the key role of a regional power.

The United Progressive Alliance leadership, which scores political brownies by citing China’s pragmatic examples, could learn from Beijing’s statecraft. Mr. Brzezinski highlighted three points. First, in “wide-ranging private conversations,” Chinese leaders impressed upon him that the magnitude of their country’s internal transformation made it vulnerable to global political and economic instability. China is especially worried about the consequences of any major eruption of violence in the Persian Gulf.

Secondly, China is “geopolitically a status quo power.” It says that in dealing with Iran, the U.S. must be guided by strategic patience. Mr. Brzezinski says, “In China’s view, the United States should avoid being drawn into tit-for-tat salvos” but should rather focus on a formula that “effectively forsakes the allegedly unwanted nuclear option.” Thirdly, Beijing offered help in breaking the U.S.-Iran stalemate. But the U.S. should be “more active in the negotiating process with Iran.”

China’s motivations are no doubt largely self-centred. Iran is a major supplier of oil to China. China, which plans to invest hugely in Iran’s oil and gas fields, intends boosting its bilateral trade to more than $100 billion annually in the near term. It also supplies weapons and industrial products to Iran and participates in major projects such as the Tehran metro.

Mr. Brzezinski strongly advocates that the U.S. and China become equal stakeholders in resolving the Iran question. Chinese leaders implied in conversations with him that in actuality, Iran did not pose as serious a crisis as North Korea did, since unlike Pyongyang, Tehran had consistently denied any intent to acquire nuclear weapons.

Curiously, the Chinese offer came just ahead of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) representing the consensus view of all 16 American spy agencies regarding the Iran issue. Coincidence or not, the NIE quintessentially echoed the line of thinking in Beijing. Two conclusions made by the NIE are simply staggering. First, “Tehran’s decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic, and military costs.” Secondly, “opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence…might — if perceived by Iran’s leaders as credible — prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons programme.”

Why has the Bush administration chosen to come out with the NIE at this point? Indeed, there are straws in the wind. It needs no reiteration that like Banquo’s ghost at Macbeth’s banquet table, the uninvited presence at the conference on the Middle East in Annapolis on November 27 was that of Iran. The historic decision by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the flag-bearer of the U.S. regional strategies in the Persian Gulf for over three decades, to invite Iran for its summit in Doha on December 2 could not have been taken in isolation. Saudi King Abdullah meaningfully entered the GCC conference hall in Doha flanked by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. The first-ever invitation by the Saudi King to the Iranian President to participate in the Haj signals to the Muslim world that Riyadh will not be party to isolating Iran. This happened even as U.S. President George W. Bush schedules his first ever visit to the Persian Gulf, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

New Delhi needs to think hard about the shifting templates of the Middle East’s geopolitics. All indications are that Russia and China anticipated, months ahead, the inevitable collapse of the U.S.’ containment policy toward Iran. How such wisdom eluded our government, remains a question mark. If the U.S decides now to march towards a constructive engagement of Iran — which seems likely — where does that leave the UPA government? The latter must first unscramble the omelette.

That is to say, it must rapidly deconstruct what it precipitated under American pressure — and then try to rebuild. Not an easy task.

The LNG deal with Tehran negotiated by the National Democratic Alliance government has all but perished following the UPA government’s somersault under American pressure at the International Atomic Energy Agency over the Iran issue. No one talks anymore about our grandiose plans of a “north-south” transportation corridor via Iran. The gas pipeline project languished while the government used one lame excuse after another to drag its feet.

The State Bank of India’s curb on normal trade with Iran is completely illogical. Evidently, Washington pressured us. While doing so, the Bush administration kept us in the dark about the NIE sailing into view. Now, what sort of a “strategic partnership” with the U.S. — and what sort of a “friendly” President in the White House — are we talking about? Washington took our government’s naiveté for granted.

It is plain common sense that India has a congruence of interests with Russia and China in optimally exploring the primacy that Iran places on Asia for its energy exports. That is why the Iran pipeline becomes crucial. That is precisely why Washington wants to stifle the project. The spectre that haunts Washington is the emergence of an Asian energy club involving Russia, Iran, China, and India. The U.S. apprehends that such an Asian grouping — first proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2003 — will disrupt its strategy of global domination. Through its lukewarm attitude towards the Iran pipeline, the UPA government has tacitly collaborated with the U.S. global strategy.

In fact, our government went beyond that. Through a policy of masterly inactivity, it allowed India’s relations with Iran (and Russia) to drift. The government overlooked that India’s transition to the post-Cold War multipolar world will remain incomplete as long as relations with Iran (and Russia) remain stagnant.

Again, the government let the NDA’s mutual understanding with the Iranian leadership in countering the Taliban in Afghanistan become history. An air of ambivalence envelops our attitude towards the Taliban’s political accommodation that is sought by the Anglo-American coalition working in Afghanistan. However, the fear of displeasing Washington deters India from closely consulting and coordinating with Tehran and Moscow.

There is also a larger problem. Our strategic pundits would rather see no evil — and hear no evil — about the Bush administration’s policies in the region. What emerges is that Washington is having the best of both worlds through its so-called “de-hyphenated” policy toward India and Pakistan. In the name of the “war on terror,” it supplies Pakistan dozens of F-16 aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons at subsidised prices. And in the name of “inter-operability” and “strategic cooperation,” it is pulling out all the stops to become India’s number one arms supplier. Our admirals and generals have begun merrily lending their voices to denigrating Russia’s relevance as a strategic ally — as if they have seen the end of history.

Thus, no matter the aggravation of the U.S-led “war on terror” in India’s neighbourhood, our strategic community is afraid to say in public that Iran or Russia constitutes a factor of regional stability. A neighbourhood policy worthy of a regional power demanded that the UPA leadership talked with visitors such as Henry Kissinger the way China’s leadership unfailingly does with doers such as him or Mr. Brzezinski. Our strategic thinkers never tire of claiming India’s destiny to become a “balancer” in global politics. The U.S. policy of containment of Iran was a test case. But the UPA government promptly ducked. Fear over the fate of the nuclear deal gnawed at the government.

The UPA government must conquer its fear of Washington. “GenNext” in the Congress will not know, but seniors will recall Rabindranath Tagore’s immortal words: “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high… Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

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