A recent opinion poll by the BBC showed that only 6% of people are in favour of the Taliban.
And no, you look afghanistan from a pakistani perspective, not american one.
India being left out of Afghan matrix
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A recent opinion poll by the BBC showed that only 6% of people are in favour of the Taliban.
And no, you look afghanistan from a pakistani perspective, not american one.
forcetrip
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And you view them how again? as someone who is going through what they are going through? now the only thing i agree with you is that the taliban are a necessary "problem" with no solution in sight. I pray that my children dont have to face anyone as ignorant as them.
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Pa jang kay mari kegi the sitting looters and warlords in Karzai Govt are no saint either they had committed the same attrocities.
Anyway thats not point of debate here
Pa jang kay mari kegi
No dear sister(hope you dont mind me saying it), that is not the case. They specifically target people and specific category of people. They entered people's houses, killed everybody they saw. The above sentece of yours can be accepted in termes of PA and ANA, if civilians get killed by their fire power you can understand why, but not the way they masacared people, based on their beliefs, regional affiliation or ethnicity.
the sitting looters and warlords in Karzai Govt are no saint either they had committed the same attrocities.
Anyway thats not point of debate here
Yes, they are not any better, i do agree with you. Gulbudin, Rabbani, Sayaf, Muhaqiq, Fahim, Dostum are not any better. By the way, the Taliban are also the War and drug lords, nobody can say they are peacelords. Except the above morons are not killing people anymore, but Gulbudin and Mullah Omar are still slaying the people.
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i am not saying taliban are good! but hey they are better than the crap in place now isn't that true? statistics speak for themselves! was the country safer then or now? and please don't tell me literacy rate has sky rocketed in Afghanistan since they left! in 10 years how many schools & colleges have been established????
DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Taliban torch boys? school in Lower Dir
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TOI editorial page, dated 05th April 2010.
Fighter
Indias goodwill-hunt in Afghanistan needs a degree of hard power to complement it
Ashok Malik
Anyone who follows office politics will be familiar with the POPO principle. POPO Pissed On and Passed Over refers to a hardworking individual whose integrity and work ethic get him nowhere, who finds himself overlooked for rewards and promotions, sidelined by craftier colleagues. Partly because hes too straight and naive and partly because he just doesnt know how to play the game, Mr POPO ends up as a spectacular underachiever.
In the past few weeks, Indian foreign policy has convinced itself it is a victim of the POPO principle. Indian diplomats have found America and its allies strangely unresponsive to their core security concerns. The Barack Obama administration seems to take this country for granted. To top it all, Pakistan is exultant, believing it has trumped India yet again.
Afghanistan has been both the trigger and the setting of this snubbing. India is being edged out of the reckoning in Kabul. Of the two recent conferences to discuss the worlds most troubled region, it was not invited to the one in Istanbul. At the other conference, in London, the host governments proposal to do a deal with a section of the Taliban and exit, supported enthusiastically by Islamabad, won the day. Indias protests didnt gain much traction.
India feels cheated, even a little bewildered. From building power transmission infrastructure to highways, from enhancing health and education capacities to training election officials, it has done a lot in Afghanistan. Often it has attained its social sector goals with more efficient spending than extravagant western aid agencies. Yet, this has gone under-recognised.
In a sense, India is talking the wrong currency. The harsh truth is the conflict in Afghanistan and neighbouring provinces of Pakistan has reached a stage when a stakeholders commitment is gauged in terms of boots on the ground. When project Afghanistan started off in October 2001, it was both a nation-building and a containment (of the Taliban-al-Qaeda) enterprise. In 2010, in a very substantial measure, containment has become the priority.
As it happens, India has contributed to the nation-building aspects in Afghanistan but not quite to the containment of Islamist militia. It has no soldiers in Afghanistan and, frankly, there is no political stomach or civil society resolve to send soldiers into that country. Instead, India has put forward good works, goodwill among ordinary Afghans and cultural influences as proof of its irreversible interest in Afghanistan.
The debate on Indian troops in Afghanistan is a decidedly tricky one. After 9/11, India offered to send in soldiers with the American forces and the Northern Alliance. Washington vetoed it. Instead, it used New Delhis offer to blackmail Islamabads generals into joining the war. The story has moved since then, but India hasnt. Today, not only has India forgotten that post-9/11 offer as a rare moment of bravado or perhaps thoughtlessness it has practically shouted from the rooftops that it will not send its regiments into Afghanistan. Instead, ministry of external affairs (MEA) officials have indicated that if the Americans leave Kabul, so will the Indians.
Consider the message being sent. Not only will India not send troops, it will not even hold out the threat of sending troops. This is almost a form of unilateral disarmament. It allows adversaries to make advance calculations. As for friends or potential friends, it has them see India as much less of a stakeholder in Afghanistan than India sees itself. Despite the honesty of its intentions, Indias strategic establishment has to be alive to this gap in perceptions.
To be fair, the issue is larger than merely Afghanistan. India has big power aspirations, at least regional power aspirations. Yet, it runs an astonishingly risk-averse foreign policy that is completely incommensurate with its ambitions. The refusal to even consider
threatening to send troops to Afghanistan is a sample of this attitude.
There are other examples. The India-United States nuclear deal ran into opposition within the MEA bureaucracy, not because it was a bad deal but simply because old habits and mindsets were not comfortable with dramatic change. Going back further, it was fortunate Atal Bihari Vajpayee ordered the Pokhran tests only two months after becoming prime minister in 1998. Had he waited longer, had he considered wider consultations, the system would have dissuaded him. The timing would never have been deemed perfect: Sir, we cant do it this month, there is a United Nations conference on human rights. It will send a bad signal.
A corollary to a risk-averse foreign policy is a misreading of how far soft power can get you. As is evident in Afghanistan and elsewhere, India has enormous reserves of soft power. Yet, there are severe limits to what soft power can achieve if it does not have a degree of hard power complementing it.
Essentially, India has two great power templates before it: the US and the European Union. Both are multicultural and democratic, both have economic heft and cultural leverage. The US combines these attributes with military muscle. The EUs militarism is limited to conferences on climate change. Which one does India want to be?
The writer is a political commentator.
Fighter
Soft Power, Hard Battles
Indias goodwill-hunt in Afghanistan needs a degree of hard power to complement it
Ashok Malik
Anyone who follows office politics will be familiar with the POPO principle. POPO Pissed On and Passed Over refers to a hardworking individual whose integrity and work ethic get him nowhere, who finds himself overlooked for rewards and promotions, sidelined by craftier colleagues. Partly because hes too straight and naive and partly because he just doesnt know how to play the game, Mr POPO ends up as a spectacular underachiever.
In the past few weeks, Indian foreign policy has convinced itself it is a victim of the POPO principle. Indian diplomats have found America and its allies strangely unresponsive to their core security concerns. The Barack Obama administration seems to take this country for granted. To top it all, Pakistan is exultant, believing it has trumped India yet again.
Afghanistan has been both the trigger and the setting of this snubbing. India is being edged out of the reckoning in Kabul. Of the two recent conferences to discuss the worlds most troubled region, it was not invited to the one in Istanbul. At the other conference, in London, the host governments proposal to do a deal with a section of the Taliban and exit, supported enthusiastically by Islamabad, won the day. Indias protests didnt gain much traction.
India feels cheated, even a little bewildered. From building power transmission infrastructure to highways, from enhancing health and education capacities to training election officials, it has done a lot in Afghanistan. Often it has attained its social sector goals with more efficient spending than extravagant western aid agencies. Yet, this has gone under-recognised.
In a sense, India is talking the wrong currency. The harsh truth is the conflict in Afghanistan and neighbouring provinces of Pakistan has reached a stage when a stakeholders commitment is gauged in terms of boots on the ground. When project Afghanistan started off in October 2001, it was both a nation-building and a containment (of the Taliban-al-Qaeda) enterprise. In 2010, in a very substantial measure, containment has become the priority.
As it happens, India has contributed to the nation-building aspects in Afghanistan but not quite to the containment of Islamist militia. It has no soldiers in Afghanistan and, frankly, there is no political stomach or civil society resolve to send soldiers into that country. Instead, India has put forward good works, goodwill among ordinary Afghans and cultural influences as proof of its irreversible interest in Afghanistan.
The debate on Indian troops in Afghanistan is a decidedly tricky one. After 9/11, India offered to send in soldiers with the American forces and the Northern Alliance. Washington vetoed it. Instead, it used New Delhis offer to blackmail Islamabads generals into joining the war. The story has moved since then, but India hasnt. Today, not only has India forgotten that post-9/11 offer as a rare moment of bravado or perhaps thoughtlessness it has practically shouted from the rooftops that it will not send its regiments into Afghanistan. Instead, ministry of external affairs (MEA) officials have indicated that if the Americans leave Kabul, so will the Indians.
Consider the message being sent. Not only will India not send troops, it will not even hold out the threat of sending troops. This is almost a form of unilateral disarmament. It allows adversaries to make advance calculations. As for friends or potential friends, it has them see India as much less of a stakeholder in Afghanistan than India sees itself. Despite the honesty of its intentions, Indias strategic establishment has to be alive to this gap in perceptions.
To be fair, the issue is larger than merely Afghanistan. India has big power aspirations, at least regional power aspirations. Yet, it runs an astonishingly risk-averse foreign policy that is completely incommensurate with its ambitions. The refusal to even consider
threatening to send troops to Afghanistan is a sample of this attitude.
There are other examples. The India-United States nuclear deal ran into opposition within the MEA bureaucracy, not because it was a bad deal but simply because old habits and mindsets were not comfortable with dramatic change. Going back further, it was fortunate Atal Bihari Vajpayee ordered the Pokhran tests only two months after becoming prime minister in 1998. Had he waited longer, had he considered wider consultations, the system would have dissuaded him. The timing would never have been deemed perfect: Sir, we cant do it this month, there is a United Nations conference on human rights. It will send a bad signal.
A corollary to a risk-averse foreign policy is a misreading of how far soft power can get you. As is evident in Afghanistan and elsewhere, India has enormous reserves of soft power. Yet, there are severe limits to what soft power can achieve if it does not have a degree of hard power complementing it.
Essentially, India has two great power templates before it: the US and the European Union. Both are multicultural and democratic, both have economic heft and cultural leverage. The US combines these attributes with military muscle. The EUs militarism is limited to conferences on climate change. Which one does India want to be?
The writer is a political commentator.
Fighter488
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Kabul Dur Ast
Karzais looking elsewhere. Has India lost whatever leverage it had in Kabul?
Pranay Sharma
http://img687.imageshack.us/i/kabulcheckpost20100405.jpg/
Shiny shells A security checkpost on the outskirts of Kabul
How Indias Helping
- Committed $1.3 billion onvarious projects.
- Built the 218-km Zelarang-Delaram highway to enable south-western Afghanistan to access the Iranian port of Chabahar.
- Constructed the 220KV DC transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul and a 220/110/20KV sub-station at Chimtala.
- Built the Salma Dam power project (42 MW) in Herat province (to finish by 2011).
- Constructing the Afghan parliament building (to be completed by 2011).
- Helped expand the Afghan national TV network, provided uplink and downlink facilities over all of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
- 84 small projects in areas of agriculture, rural development, education, health, vocational training and solar energy.
- Gifted three Airbus aircraft along with essential spares to Ariana Afghan Airlines. Also,
- 400 buses, 200 mini-buses and 105 utility vehicles.
***
The city of Kabul always seems swathed in the ambience of indolence and insouciance, depending on the direction in which you are looking. In the city centre of Charahi Ansari, under the mellow afternoon sun, families mill around shops, restaurants and kabab corners. Some simply loiter around, relishing the balmy spring season after months of bitter winter. But turn around and you watch in horror the ugly scars of a city that hasnt had any respite from violence for nearly 25 years.
In Charahi Ansari itself, you find pieces of evidence. These testify to the wounds inflicted on India. There, in a corner, stands the charred shell of the Park Hotel. Opposite the hotel stands what was once a guesthouse. It could be mistaken for an ancient ruin, but for the thick layer of soot covering it. These two buildings were the targets of wanton attacks on February 26terrorists had triggered off an explosive-laden vehicle, tossed grenades and fired at random, killing 10, including seven Indians.
http://img209.imageshack.us/i/kabulcheckpost20100405.jpg/
Young targets An Afghan takes aim with a toy pistol in a Kabul market
These devastated buildings are also monuments to what has been called the proxy war involving India and Pakistan in Afghanistan. (India, however, rejects the word proxy, claiming it hasnt targeted Pakistanis there.) They are depressing symbols of the collateral damage India has been suffering ever since the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and the Haqqani faction of the Taliban have taken to hitting soft Indian targetsthose brave, faceless footsoldiers of Indian diplomacy labouring in a precarious environment to enhance Indias interests in Afghanistan, and who become a face with a name only through a violent death. The Indian embassy in Kabul has been targeted twice in two years. A diplomat and a military attache have died. Elsewhere, an engineer was beheaded.
The Indo-Pak battle for influence in Afghanistan is as old as the American invasion of that country. Pakistan had always roiled at the ouster of the Taliban, whom they had fashioned into a fighting force to acquire control over Kabul and through them gain what is called strategic depth. To the paranoid Pakistani, India always loomed on his eastern border; a strong Indian presence in Afghanistan or an independent Kabul could strategically sandwich his country. Once the Taliban rallied back, and the post-9/11 dispensation in Kabul floundered, Pakistan began to target India.
http://img528.imageshack.us/i/kabulcheckpost20100405.jpg/
Indian engineers at work at the Afghan parliament construction site
But the game is becoming deadlier and bloodier now. American President Barack Obama favours a political solution, wants to negotiate with the Taliban, stabilise Afghanistan, and withdraw a substantial number of troops at the earliest to appease a domestic audience. This has given the necessary opening to Pakistan to regain its lost influence in Kabul. And its trying to achieve the goal quite ruthlesslyby commissioning terror groups to muscle India out.
Theres no question of retreating from Afghanistan, says a senior Indian diplomat. Such brave words are perhaps for public consumption, for there are tell-tale signs of India scaling down its presence here. Nearly 50 per cent of Indian personnel working on various projects in Afghanistan have been sent home. The Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabulthe only childrens hospital in the countryis without an Indian doctor; any medical guidance from New Delhi is rendered through teleconferencing. And though four other medical missions are working now, India isnt taking on any new projects, content to complete the two on handthe Salma dam and construction of the Afghan Parliamentof the $1.3-billion worth of Indian projects initiated here. The SEWA (Self-Employed Womens Association) scheme, hugely popular as it empowered Afghan women, has been put on hold; Indian-run vocational courses have been suspended; and the training of Afghan civilian personnel, whether in government or civil society, will only be imparted in India now (see infographic).
http://img522.imageshack.us/i/kabulcheckpost20100405.jpg/
Treatment through videoconferencing at the Indira Gandhi childrens hospital
A senior MEA official justifies the scaling down saying no new projects are being taken up because we have not been asked to by the Afghan government. He points out that many of the 3,500 Indians in Afghanistan now are there of their own accordand are not working on Indian government projects. If some of them now want to return to India, how can we stop them, he asks.
Considering the popularity of these projects, its debatable whether India would have desisted from proposing new projects to the Afghan government. New schemes would have augmented further the formidable soft power India already enjoys hereBollywood remains extremely popular, and now even TV serials command an enviable following (TV star Smriti Irani is fast becoming a household name). India remains the favourite destination of Afghansthe Indian embassy and four other missions here issue 350 visas daily, a fact borne out by the packed thrice daily flights between Kabul and New Delhi.
So is it that President Hamid Karzais government doesnt want Indians here?
http://img384.imageshack.us/i/indianengkabul20100405.jpg/
Indian engineers working out at a gym in Kabul
Karzai has been an ally of New Delhi, well disposed to India because of, among other things, having studied here. He has also had testy relations with Pakistan, distrustful of its machinations and proximity to the Taliban. Most Afghan observers say things began to change when Karzai began to reach out to Pakistan last year. Partly, he did this out of desperationthe US and other western powers began to gun for him months before the November election, believing he didnt serve their interests. In addition, Obama unveiled his new Afghan policy, opting for a surge in Afghanistan and promising a scaling down of American troops by mid-2011. This fanned the already existing speculation that the Obama administration wasnt really averse to the return of a reformed Taliban.
Boxed into a corner, Karzai began to play a few cards of his own. He opened channels of communication with the Taliban to cobble together an arrangement. He reached out to Mullah Baradar, an influential Taliban leader. Karzais audacity stung Pakistan, which was kept out of the negotiations. Islamabad retaliated, arresting Baradar and sending the message loud and clearpeace in Afghanistan cannot be contemplated without a role for Pakistan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan was shuffling its own cards, launching an unprecedented crackdown on the Pakistan Taliban in the tribal areas. It earned the country crucial brownie points, convinced the Americans that army chief Ashfaq Kiyani was serious about his intent to fight terror, and enabled Pakistan to claw back from the margins to occupy centrestage in the unfolding drama in Afghanistan. Some, however, say its more the British than the Americans who have allowed Islamabad to emerge as the sole arbiter for peace and stability in the war-torn country.
Karzai decided to blow with the wind. He toured Pakistan recently, described it as the twin of Afghanistan and showered lavish praise on Islamabad. Its through Pakistan that Karzai now hopes to strike a peace deal with the Taliban, and share power with them. To this end, the Afghan president has convened a peace jirga for April 29. Says Haroun Mir of the think-tank Centre for Research and Policy, Karzai will try to get his deal with the Taliban approved by the jirga.
http://img697.imageshack.us/i/fashionkabul20100405.jpg/
The veil is still there, but fashion is back too; mannequins display the latest cuts
But why convene a peace jirga? Mir says Karzais position in Parliament has been undermined, and he believes the best option for him is to get the support of tribal elders who command clout outside the house, among the masses. Karzai is also planning a Kabul Conference later to consolidate his support base and win legitimacy for the jirgas decision.
An indubitable survivor, Karzai knows his peace plan could run into rough weather, particularly as his own cabinet colleagues are opposed to it. Many of his colleagues belong to ethnic minority groups or are dubbed liberal Pashtuns, leaders who had suffered tremendously under the rule of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. They are opposed to any deal with either Pakistan or its proxy, the Taliban. Which is why a senior Afghan government advisor admits, Karzai has lost the game in his mind as he feels cornered from all sides. Though he is talking about a deal with the Taliban, even he knows that it will be like signing his own death warrant. Well have to wait and watch on what he does ultimately.
Obviously, Karzais machinations have made India nervous. In a rethink of its own policy, India has indicated that the rehabilitation of Taliban soldiers who joined the movement for money and are now willing to abjure violence is acceptable. But it remains steadfastly opposed to the reintegration of the Taliban, or sharing power with them. As a senior Indian diplomat puts it, If that happens, it will mean not only a legitimisation of the Taliban ideology but also a clear indication of throwing the Afghan constitution into the dustbin.
http://img199.imageshack.us/i/fashionkabul20100405.jpg/
The OPD is bustling at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul
There are many here who blame India for its plight. They say India was not assertive about its presence here, thus failing to win the confidence of those who, hemmed in between Iran and Pakistan, considered it a natural ally. Says Moridian Dawood, advisor to the Afghan foreign minister, India seems apologetic about its presence. Its a regional player and must behave like one, instead of insisting on a benign presence with a penchant for staying in the background.
Many in the Afghan establishment echo Dawoods view, pointing out that even Karzai had told Indian officials that since New Delhi didnt have the stomach to back him in the face of US opposition, he had no choice but to throw his lot with Pakistan. Not only Karzai, many liberal Pashtuns complain that India didnt openly back them, preferring to cultivate its old friends in the erstwhile Northern Alliance. No doubt, India tried to correct this perception, locating many projects in the Pashtun-dominated provinces rather than at places where ethic minority groups are in a majority. But this has not quite earned it enough dividends.
http://img519.imageshack.us/i/fashionkabul20100405.jpg/
Should Karzai and the Taliban strike a deal, Afghanistan could again slip into chaos, imperilling Indias $1.3 billion investment and the energy it expended to acquire a salience here. No wonder, Indian officials are burning the midnight oil, trying to refashion its Afghan policy. Should it put its weight behind the groups which constituted the Northern Alliance, a formation thats bound to oppose a return of the Taliban? Or should it play both ends, refrain from shutting the door on the Pashtuns? Says Dawood, I dont believe this is the end-game. But India, which enjoys so much popular support among Afghans, must have the stamina and patience to stay the course. It cant afford to run away.
www.outlookindia.com | Kabul Dur Ast
Fighter488
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India to stay in Kabul: PM to tell Obama
Indrani Bagchi | TNN
Washington: Amid rising concern that the US may agree to Islamabads insistence that India be kept out of Afghanistan, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Barack Obama are looking for ways to repair the bilateral relationship.
Bilateral issues, the regional situation and the US-India disconnect on Afghanistan will dominate discussions when they meet today. The discussion was deemed significant enough for Singh to advance his arrival here by a day.
The PM will stress that India will continue to have a presence in Afghanistan regardless of anything the US or Pakistan does there.
In his meeting with Obama, the PM will emphasize that an Af-Pak solution cant be achieved by letting Pakistan have a veto on Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon will push for direct Indian access to Pakistani-American LeT operative David Coleman Headley, when he meets his counterpart, General James Jones, here this week.
India committed to keeping Afghanistan moderate, safe
Washington: The US is increasingly seen to be in harmony with the Pakistani mantra of reconciliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
To that extent, PM Manmohan Singh will tell Obama that India will continue to maintain its presence in Afghanistan regardless of the US position.
We will continue to play our role in Afghanistan, said sources. Afghanistan is in Indias periphery and India has core interests in keeping a moderate, democratic Afghanistan that does not become a hotbed of Pakistan-sponsored or assisted extremism.
Indias concerns stem from two things: Pakistan has, according to reports, asked the US to ensure that India closes operations in two of its consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar.
Second, Pakistan, according to Indian intelligence, continues to support terror groups like LeT and Haqqani network to target Indian interests in Afghanistan.
On Friday, Afghan security forces nabbed a suicide bomber squad on the outskirts of Kabul that was expressly intended at getting Indian diplomats and embassy. India considers this to be a serious threat and the PM will stress this in his discussions.
On a larger scale, sources said, the PMs discussions with Obama will cover issues of Asian security, where India has a different view from say, Australia, which has put forward its own plans on an Asian architecture. India wants to emphasize maritime security, where its view coincides with the US, but may not do so with China.
In the past few months, while the military situation in Afghanistan has improved, the PM is likely to make the case that the political situation has got more fragmented.
Hamid Karzai, for instance, according to Indias assessment, is feeling increasingly threatened by the prospect of an increased Pakistan role in the future of Afghanistan.
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The OPD is bustling at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health in Kabul
www.outlookindia.com | Kabul Dur Ast
Everything is good except this one!!!! They have to name everything in and outside India with Gandhi's name!!!! Here in India every new project is now named after Rajiv Gandhi. From sea links to air port, from IIM to research centres!! Why they just name India Gandhistan or Congressland?
Fighter488
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Another brilliant peace of realistic analysis by M K Bhadrakumar. He explores a subject from so many angles that one is always left with a feeling of 'FULFILLED'! 
A must read till the end.
Fighter
COMMENT
By M K Bhadrakumar
Senior Indian officials in their private briefing insist there was "almost a Zen-like spiritual quality" to the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United States President Barack Obama in Washington last Sunday. However, the question being posed by the Indian strategic community is still: "Does Obama care about India?"
At the bottom of such poignantly contrasting characterizations of statecraft lie two factors. First, the residual feudal mindset of the Indian invariably attributes what are in reality flaws in policies to personal vagaries in the thinking of the leader. It's not so simple. Statecraft is a complex crucible where the witches brew is a broth
of many strange ingredients that might or might not include "a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd as homeward he did come", as the first witch in William Shakespeare's Macbeth claimed.
Second, generally speaking, India faces an existential dilemma insofar as it is never quite willing to admit it is solely responsible for giving its own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely. It fails to account for its "leap of faith", a phrase commonly attributed to the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard - believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable without empirical evidence.
Sunday's meeting between the "flying Sikh and the peacenik" - to borrow the words of an Indian editor - was keenly awaited. There is a lot of angst in Delhi about the orientations of the Obama administration's South Asia policies. Somehow the fizz has gone out of the US-India relationship. This was most conspicuous from the fact that the two sides almost underplayed the Manmohan-Obama meet. The usual hype was lacking in the White House press statement.
According to the Indian strategic community in Delhi, the fault lies entirely at the doorstep of the Oval Office. Simply put, Obama is a different man from George W Bush, who was by implication a passionate lover of India through a longstanding family relationship with the country.
The Indian strategic thinkers take umbrage that the Obama administration is determined to end the fighting in Afghanistan and as a means of securing that objective, seeks the Taliban's reintegration and reconciliation. They feel badly let down. They want the fighting to go on and on till the Taliban are bled white and vanquished from the face of the earth.
The fact of the matter, however, is that those Indians are almost completely alone in the region in clinging on to their one-dimensional view of the Taliban as a 100% Pakistani clone. Almost all major regional powers of consequence to the Afghan situation - Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Central Asian states - agree on the limited point that there is need of an inclusive pan-Afghan solution to the present problem if the peace dividends are to be enduring.
In Delhi, arguably, the Indian establishment also has grudgingly come to be aware that the "reintegration" of the Taliban is something that mainstream Afghan opinion itself desires and the international community seeks and India, therefore, doesn't have the locus standii to be unilaterally prescriptive.
But the so-called Indian hawks shall have nothing of such blasphemous thoughts.
There is also some sophistry here. The heartache among the Indian hawks about the reconciliation with the Taliban is actually all about their deeply flawed assessment of the Afghan situation in the past eight years. The sad reality is that the overwhelming bulk of the Indian strategic community has no clue about the fundamental aspects of the Afghan problem and harbors simplistic notions about its long-term ramifications for regional security and stability not only with regard to South Asia but Central Asia as well.
A Clausewitzean war
The Indians never really comprehended at anytime during the past eight years or so that this has been a Clausewitzean war that is also linked to the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a world security body, the long-term US military presence in "Inner Asia" and the US's containment strategy toward China's rise and Russia's resurgence. The result has been plain to see. Pakistan was shrewd enough to assess the potentials of the war and to work out its geopolitical positioning, whereas Indians find themselves in near-total isolation.
Besides, Indians overlook that Obama represents the US interests and his mandate is to show "results" in an increasingly hopeless war that is becoming unpopular in the West. The Afghan conflict has become unsustainable politically and financially over the medium term and become a futile war that is locked in stalemate with no real victors.
Also, a gifted politician like Obama has no intention of committing political hara-kiri as the campaign for the presidential election of 2012 draws close. He cannot continue with the war simply for the sake of pleasing the Indians and getting the US-India partnership in the "war on terrorism" to be waged ad infinitum. For argument's sake, it is highly doubtful such misconceptions would have figured even in Bush's grotesque world view.
Obama has an extremely erudite mind and sizes up that despite the shenanigans of the Pakistani military, he needs to forge a working relationship with Islamabad to extract as much cooperation as possible in bringing the fighting in Afghanistan to an end. All indications are that Obama conveniently looks away from raising dust over the Pakistani generals' doublespeak in the fight against terrorism since he is coolly logical about his priorities at this point in time.
He estimates that just as in Delhi, the political elites in Islamabad also have a zest to be co-opted as the US's principal instrument of geo-strategy in South Asia. He will be extremely unwise not to exploit the factors of advantage in the US's favor.
Having said that, Obama isn't overlooking, either, that the Indians almost instinctively sweat under their collar as he forges closer working relationships with the Pakistanis. He has therefore repeatedly made assuaging gestures toward the Indian leadership, stressing that the long-term imperatives of US-India relationship are not to be hyphenated with the emerging US-Pakistan partnership in Central Asia. Alas, he cannot help it if US-Indian cooperation in critical fields such as agriculture or education do not appear sexy enough to the Indian strategic community.
Despite Delhi's claims to be an emerging regional power, the hard reality is that relations with Pakistan remain the core issue in its foreign policy. A senior Indian journalist present at the Indian officials' briefing in Washington on the Manmohan-Obama meet on Sunday pointed out that there were as many as 30 direct or indirect references to Pakistan and, in fact, during the Q&A, 11 out of 13 questions from the media persons related to Pakistan. As he pointed out, "If she [the Indian official] had refused to answer any questions on Pakistan because the subject of her press conference was the highest level Indo-US meeting, there would have been only her opening statement and two questions: one about Obama's forthcoming visit to India and another about the sanctions Obama wants to impose on Iran soon."
Obama can't pressure Pakistan
The Indians have a point in saying that in a comparable situation over the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the Americans would have bombed India to the Stone Age if Delhi refused to hand over its own Headley. Especially if it insisted on keeping him behind the purdah (veil) somewhere in detention in a south Indian city and argued that it had a "plea bargain" with him.
But then, these are the realities of world politics. The US never ever has hidden its inability to treat other nations as equals or its John Waynesque ways in world politics: that might is right under all circumstances. Neither has it given up its prerogative to pursue its national interests first and foremost even at the cost of other nations sacrificing theirs.
To be sure, if the Indian perceptions of recent years in the promised land of the US-India strategic partnership turned out to be full of weeds and bleached bones, is it Obama who is at fault? The Indians could have easily learnt from the Iranians who live in their close neighborhood or the Iraqis in Mesopotamia who were their ancient partners in the civilized world millennia ago, how ruthlessly self-centered the US could be when the chips are down.
Yet Obama is an exception. He has not hidden his genuine warmth toward India and all the values of humaneness that Indians can legitimately claim as their historical legacy. More than that, as a pragmatist and patriot, he is intensely aware that ignoring or neglecting the relationship with India will deeply injure the US geopolitical interests in the Asian continent.
All the same, Obama's primary loyalty will still be toward his own American people. He must give overriding priority to safeguarding America's homeland security and the American facilities and lives overseas and as Vladimir Lenin once told Leon Trotsky, if it becomes necessary for securing peace in Afghanistan, he may even have to wear a petticoat.
However, that doesn't confuse Obama's true role as a democrat when his team deals with the tough generals in Rawalpindi.
Finally, what disheartens sections of the Indian strategic community most about Obama is that he is revamping the architecture of the US's Asia-Pacific strategy. They placed a touching faith in the US's grit and capacity to thwart China's rise and in that struggle, they visualized India's role as the great Asian "balancer".
It is Obama's misfortune that he is presiding over the global economic downturn as it exposes the US's inexorable decline as a superpower. At any rate, the Indians were naive to have overlooked that the US and China were locked in a deadly embrace of interdependence that didn't allow them the luxury of going beyond an occasional sparring. The bitter truth is the Indians are unwilling to admit that they misread the tea leaves when Condoleezza Rice led them up the garden path and today they would rather place the blame on Obama.
They are unwilling to ask searching questions about the entire basis of the global vision that the Indian policy makers subscribed to in the recent years, especially since 2005. Is Obama to be held responsible for India's gross neglect of its neighborhood policy, its cavalier demolition of India's traditional ties with Iran, the deliberate atrophying of its profoundly strategic partnership with Russia or India's unpardonable failure to come to terms with China' rise?
Again, the US is justified in securing its hardcore interests by striving to establish a vice-like grip over Indian policies but ultimately it should have been up to the Indian leadership to have created space for the country to maneuver in the highly volatile international system in order to pursue their interests rather than be boxed in.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
A must read till the end.
Fighter
COMMENT
The flying Sikh and the peacenik
By M K Bhadrakumar
Senior Indian officials in their private briefing insist there was "almost a Zen-like spiritual quality" to the meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United States President Barack Obama in Washington last Sunday. However, the question being posed by the Indian strategic community is still: "Does Obama care about India?"
At the bottom of such poignantly contrasting characterizations of statecraft lie two factors. First, the residual feudal mindset of the Indian invariably attributes what are in reality flaws in policies to personal vagaries in the thinking of the leader. It's not so simple. Statecraft is a complex crucible where the witches brew is a broth
of many strange ingredients that might or might not include "a pilot's thumb, Wreck'd as homeward he did come", as the first witch in William Shakespeare's Macbeth claimed.
Second, generally speaking, India faces an existential dilemma insofar as it is never quite willing to admit it is solely responsible for giving its own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely. It fails to account for its "leap of faith", a phrase commonly attributed to the 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard - believing in or accepting something intangible or unprovable without empirical evidence.
Sunday's meeting between the "flying Sikh and the peacenik" - to borrow the words of an Indian editor - was keenly awaited. There is a lot of angst in Delhi about the orientations of the Obama administration's South Asia policies. Somehow the fizz has gone out of the US-India relationship. This was most conspicuous from the fact that the two sides almost underplayed the Manmohan-Obama meet. The usual hype was lacking in the White House press statement.
According to the Indian strategic community in Delhi, the fault lies entirely at the doorstep of the Oval Office. Simply put, Obama is a different man from George W Bush, who was by implication a passionate lover of India through a longstanding family relationship with the country.
The Indian strategic thinkers take umbrage that the Obama administration is determined to end the fighting in Afghanistan and as a means of securing that objective, seeks the Taliban's reintegration and reconciliation. They feel badly let down. They want the fighting to go on and on till the Taliban are bled white and vanquished from the face of the earth.
Thus, they feel "deeply disturbed" about what is unfolding and feel cheated that the Obama administration "shunned advance consultations on Afghanistan with its Indian partners".
The fact of the matter, however, is that those Indians are almost completely alone in the region in clinging on to their one-dimensional view of the Taliban as a 100% Pakistani clone. Almost all major regional powers of consequence to the Afghan situation - Iran, China, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Central Asian states - agree on the limited point that there is need of an inclusive pan-Afghan solution to the present problem if the peace dividends are to be enduring.
In Delhi, arguably, the Indian establishment also has grudgingly come to be aware that the "reintegration" of the Taliban is something that mainstream Afghan opinion itself desires and the international community seeks and India, therefore, doesn't have the locus standii to be unilaterally prescriptive.
But the so-called Indian hawks shall have nothing of such blasphemous thoughts.
There is also some sophistry here. The heartache among the Indian hawks about the reconciliation with the Taliban is actually all about their deeply flawed assessment of the Afghan situation in the past eight years. The sad reality is that the overwhelming bulk of the Indian strategic community has no clue about the fundamental aspects of the Afghan problem and harbors simplistic notions about its long-term ramifications for regional security and stability not only with regard to South Asia but Central Asia as well.
A Clausewitzean war
The Indians never really comprehended at anytime during the past eight years or so that this has been a Clausewitzean war that is also linked to the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a world security body, the long-term US military presence in "Inner Asia" and the US's containment strategy toward China's rise and Russia's resurgence. The result has been plain to see. Pakistan was shrewd enough to assess the potentials of the war and to work out its geopolitical positioning, whereas Indians find themselves in near-total isolation.
Besides, Indians overlook that Obama represents the US interests and his mandate is to show "results" in an increasingly hopeless war that is becoming unpopular in the West. The Afghan conflict has become unsustainable politically and financially over the medium term and become a futile war that is locked in stalemate with no real victors.
Also, a gifted politician like Obama has no intention of committing political hara-kiri as the campaign for the presidential election of 2012 draws close. He cannot continue with the war simply for the sake of pleasing the Indians and getting the US-India partnership in the "war on terrorism" to be waged ad infinitum. For argument's sake, it is highly doubtful such misconceptions would have figured even in Bush's grotesque world view.
Obama has an extremely erudite mind and sizes up that despite the shenanigans of the Pakistani military, he needs to forge a working relationship with Islamabad to extract as much cooperation as possible in bringing the fighting in Afghanistan to an end. All indications are that Obama conveniently looks away from raising dust over the Pakistani generals' doublespeak in the fight against terrorism since he is coolly logical about his priorities at this point in time.
He estimates that just as in Delhi, the political elites in Islamabad also have a zest to be co-opted as the US's principal instrument of geo-strategy in South Asia. He will be extremely unwise not to exploit the factors of advantage in the US's favor.
Having said that, Obama isn't overlooking, either, that the Indians almost instinctively sweat under their collar
as he forges closer working relationships with the Pakistanis. He has therefore repeatedly made assuaging gestures toward the Indian leadership, stressing that the long-term imperatives of US-India relationship are not to be hyphenated with the emerging US-Pakistan partnership in Central Asia. Alas, he cannot help it if US-Indian cooperation in critical fields such as agriculture or education do not appear sexy enough to the Indian strategic community. Despite Delhi's claims to be an emerging regional power, the hard reality is that relations with Pakistan remain the core issue in its foreign policy. A senior Indian journalist present at the Indian officials' briefing in Washington on the Manmohan-Obama meet on Sunday pointed out that there were as many as 30 direct or indirect references to Pakistan and, in fact, during the Q&A, 11 out of 13 questions from the media persons related to Pakistan. As he pointed out, "If she [the Indian official] had refused to answer any questions on Pakistan because the subject of her press conference was the highest level Indo-US meeting, there would have been only her opening statement and two questions: one about Obama's forthcoming visit to India and another about the sanctions Obama wants to impose on Iran soon."
Obama can't pressure Pakistan
The Indians have a point in saying that in a comparable situation over the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the Americans would have bombed India to the Stone Age if Delhi refused to hand over its own Headley. Especially if it insisted on keeping him behind the purdah (veil) somewhere in detention in a south Indian city and argued that it had a "plea bargain" with him.
But then, these are the realities of world politics. The US never ever has hidden its inability to treat other nations as equals or its John Waynesque ways in world politics: that might is right under all circumstances. Neither has it given up its prerogative to pursue its national interests first and foremost even at the cost of other nations sacrificing theirs.
To be sure, if the Indian perceptions of recent years in the promised land of the US-India strategic partnership turned out to be full of weeds and bleached bones, is it Obama who is at fault? The Indians could have easily learnt from the Iranians who live in their close neighborhood or the Iraqis in Mesopotamia who were their ancient partners in the civilized world millennia ago, how ruthlessly self-centered the US could be when the chips are down.
Yet Obama is an exception. He has not hidden his genuine warmth toward India and all the values of humaneness that Indians can legitimately claim as their historical legacy. More than that, as a pragmatist and patriot, he is intensely aware that ignoring or neglecting the relationship with India will deeply injure the US geopolitical interests in the Asian continent.
All the same, Obama's primary loyalty will still be toward his own American people. He must give overriding priority to safeguarding America's homeland security and the American facilities and lives overseas and as Vladimir Lenin once told Leon Trotsky, if it becomes necessary for securing peace in Afghanistan, he may even have to wear a petticoat.
However, that doesn't confuse Obama's true role as a democrat when his team deals with the tough generals in Rawalpindi.
Finally, what disheartens sections of the Indian strategic community most about Obama is that he is revamping the architecture of the US's Asia-Pacific strategy. They placed a touching faith in the US's grit and capacity to thwart China's rise and in that struggle, they visualized India's role as the great Asian "balancer".
It is Obama's misfortune that he is presiding over the global economic downturn as it exposes the US's inexorable decline as a superpower. At any rate, the Indians were naive to have overlooked that the US and China were locked in a deadly embrace of interdependence that didn't allow them the luxury of going beyond an occasional sparring. The bitter truth is the Indians are unwilling to admit that they misread the tea leaves when Condoleezza Rice led them up the garden path and today they would rather place the blame on Obama.
They are unwilling to ask searching questions about the entire basis of the global vision that the Indian policy makers subscribed to in the recent years, especially since 2005. Is Obama to be held responsible for India's gross neglect of its neighborhood policy, its cavalier demolition of India's traditional ties with Iran, the deliberate atrophying of its profoundly strategic partnership with Russia or India's unpardonable failure to come to terms with China' rise?
Again, the US is justified in securing its hardcore interests by striving to establish a vice-like grip over Indian policies but ultimately it should have been up to the Indian leadership to have created space for the country to maneuver in the highly volatile international system in order to pursue their interests rather than be boxed in.
The existential angst in the Indian mind is in actuality nothing else than the experience of human freedom and responsibility. India is an emerging power in the world order and it cannot insist on living an inauthentic existence.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
karan.1970
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Everything is good except this one!!!! They have to name everything in and outside India with Gandhi's name!!!! Here in India every new project is now named after Rajiv Gandhi. From sea links to air port, from IIM to research centres!! Why they just name India Gandhistan or Congressland?
Directly proportional to the % of time the public of INdia elected Congress to run the country vis-a-vis all other parties put together...
ramu
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Everything is good except this one!!!! They have to name everything in and outside India with Gandhi's name!!!! Here in India every new project is now named after Rajiv Gandhi. From sea links to air port, from IIM to research centres!! Why they just name India Gandhistan or Congressland?
This is not ideal but in a Government led by Congress, key players can't see beyond the Gandhis for obvious reasons to impress 10 Janpath and for reasons unknown. I am not a great fan of dynasty politics but people in India love the Gandhi family ans this is a mystery I cant reason.
Fighter488
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This is not ideal but in a Government led by Congress, key players can't see beyond the Gandhis for obvious reasons to impress 10 Janpath and for reasons unknown. I am not a great fan of dynasty politics but people in India love the Gandhi family ans this is a mystery I cant reason.
This is what is called ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY, and Gandhi's are masters of it right from Nehru era. Congress leadership is nothing but a slave of Gandhi family. And it seem to last for ever !
Fighter
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