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India
makes a meal of Iraq dilemma
By Ninan Koshy
(Posted with permission from
Foreign Policy in Focus)
Responding to the United States request to send troops to occupied, post-war
Iraq, India's army is going full steam ahead with preparations for possible
deployment. Meanwhile, Indian policymakers are grasping for justifications that
the mobilization would be under a United Nations umbrella and would serve the
national interest, neither of which is plausible.
This futile groping would have found no place on India's agenda if the
authorities in the Ministry of External Affairs had heeded the relevant
resolutions of the UN Security Council and the Indian parliament.
In early May, Washington asked New Delhi to depute a sizable Indian military
unit to help restore law and order in Iraq. Both US President George W Bush and
his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated the request to India's Deputy
Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani during his June US visit.
In between those dates, on May 23, the Security Council ratified Resolution
1483, making no mention whatsoever of the UN assuming a peacekeeping role in
Iraq or offering the proverbial umbrella that some Indian government leaders
and critics see as an argument for the country's troop deployment.
 The
resolution states that the US and the United Kingdom "as occupying powers under
unified command" are the "Authority" in Iraq. "Other states are working now or
in the future may work under the Authority," the resolution reads. The
declaration is equally clear that "personnel, equipment and other resources"
rallied by willing member states "to contribute to stability and security"
shall be "under the Authority". So whatever India's form of engagement takes in
Iraq, it will be under the "Authority", the occupying powers. The UN has
absolutely no role in the stabilization and security operation in Iraq. By that
token, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan voiced his disapproval to India's
Foreign Ministry on June 10 of India sending troops to Iraq.
What is also disturbing is that New Delhi does not seem to bother about the
most important issue to be considered with regard to the risks on the ground in
Iraq. The US is now engaged in counter-insurgency operations there. Such
operations have always proven difficult and trying for both US forces and US
politics. The almost daily guerilla attacks against US forces in Iraq have
resulted in more than 50 soldiers' deaths since Bush declared the end of major
military operations. Indications are clear that combat intensity and its
strategic significance will increase with the steadily rising resentment in
Iraq against foreign military presence. The political situation in Iraq is
highly volatile.
The London Evening Standard on June 20 published "confessions" from US soldiers
that they had fired indiscriminately and left wounded fighters to die or even
shot them. A senior British statesman was quoted as saying that US conduct was
creating "a cycle of mistrust, hatred and revenge reminiscent of Vietnam",
adding, "This situation is undoubtedly dangerous not only for the Americans and
the Iraqis but for the British forces, administrators and aid workers." One may
add that the situation is dangerous for any other troops that step into the
Iraqi quagmire.
Because large-scale reintroduction of US troops in Iraq will expose the
misjudgment Washington has made about Iraq and because US military intervention
is already so discredited, the Bush administration wants to induct large
numbers of troops from other countries - such as India - to assist in Operation
Desert Scorpion, euphemistically called a stabilization program. The US hopes
such participation will give the operation the much-needed respectability of an
international exercise for the pacification of Iraq.
Indian policymakers seem to be impressed by US statements that the Indian role
in Iraq will be very significant. In an interview given to the daily The Hindu
on June 19, US ambassador Robert Blackwill said that India could play a "major
role" and serve on the "inner board of directors" managing the security of Iraq
in its "transition to democracy". India, the ambassador said, would be at the
"center of the security side" with a few other countries. This, he added, would
"inevitably have consequences for India's influence on the political and
diplomatic side".
A special correspondent of The Hindu reported on June 21 from New Delhi,
"Though analysts feel that the possibility of immediate deployment is remote,
the army had started planning for the task immediately after a political
conference attended by several countries identified by the Anglo-American
combine for contributing to troop duties in Iraq. The ball was set rolling
immediately after the conference, following consultations between American and
Indian officials from the ministries of defense and external affairs. As a
result, the army factored for an overseas mission in its operational plans in
early May itself and since then it has been quietly fine-tuning the details and
working out the arrangement of ensuring uninterrupted supply lines."
But what will be the consequences of India sending troops to Iraq? Writing
under the byline of B Raman, one of India's topmost security experts said in
the June 18 edition of Asia Times Online, "Indian troops would get sucked into
a bloody counter-insurgency operation as the surrogates of the US, losing
whatever goodwill India had earned in Iraq and the rest of the Arab world in
the past." He added, "India would become the target of the new breed of jihadi
terrorists born out of the Iraq war, thereby making the counter-terrorism task
of the security forces in India even more difficult than it is today." (See
India and the desert scorpions, Jun 18)
Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee says that a decision on deployment
will be made only after a national consensus is reached. He seems to ignore the
fact that a national consensus on the occupation of Iraq already exists. In
April, parliament, in a unanimous resolution, "deplored" the US-led attack on
Iraq and called for a quick withdrawal of coalition forces from that country.
Sending Indian troops under the command of the occupying forces will blatantly
violate the spirit of this resolution. It will only serve US interests, not
India's, not Iraq's.
Dr Ninan Koshy knkoshy@vsnl.com
is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, author of
The War on Terror: Reordering the World (LeftWord Press, New Delhi, 2003), and a
regular analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.
(Posted with permission from
Foreign Policy in Focus)
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