India shifts gear on Iraq
policy By M K Bhadrakumar
India's relations with Iraq appear poised for
transformation, with Iraq's interim foreign minister,
Hoshiyar Zebari, scheduled to visit New Delhi this
month. The visit will mark the first political exchange
to take place between India and the Iraqi interim
government, headed by Iyad Allawi, since the US-led
Coalition Provisional Authority formally handed over
"power" in June.
The visit assumes significance
from several angles. Without a doubt, the move by
India's United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to
re-establish contacts with Baghdad at the political
level in the post-Saddam Hussein era could not have come
except on the basis of a deliberate, calculated decision
to shift gear on India's Iraq policy.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that India's
communist parties, on which the coalition government
relies for support, are tooth and nail opposed to India
stepping down from its high moral ground and dealing
with the Iraqi interim government that the communists
continue to brand as the "stooges" of the United States.
Conceivably, the fact that Zebari's itinerary also
includes visits to China and Pakistan comes as a signal
to the Indian left that Delhi must not paint itself into
a corner over Iraq - which would leave the UPA
government with no room for diplomatic maneuvering in an
admittedly fast-changing regional scenario.
The
fact remains that India's policy towards Iraq became a
first-rate political controversy domestically, with a
broad swathe of public opinion resolutely opposed to
India becoming any part of the US-led "coalition of the
willing" in Iraq. Translated into plain terms, this
foreclosed the UPA government's options to deploy any
Indian troops to occupied Iraq. In the Indian
parliament, constituted after the May general elections,
Iraq figured as the first major foreign policy debate.
The issues surrounding Iraq came to center stage as a
litmus test of the UPA government's resolve to pursue
the "independent foreign policy" that its Common Minimum
Program (policy agenda) envisages.
If the UPA
government sought any room for flexibility, it, too, was
significantly diminished by the protracted negotiations
over three Indian nationals being held hostage by Iraqi
militants through the months of July and August.
But the UPA government remained acutely
conscious that a dogged "standstill" over the evolving
Iraqi situation, characterized by aloofness and abject
disengagement in such dogmatic terms, did not exactly
constitute a template of diplomacy. It made the first
move to discuss the paradigm with its allies of the left
at a meeting hosted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in
late September. At the meeting, a consensus would seem
to have emerged that short of any commitment of Indian
troops being deputed to an Iraq under foreign military
occupation, India must strive to be active in Iraq - and
there are several things that India could still do by
way of constructive engagement with a traditionally
friendly country like Iraq.
The possibility of
India lending a supportive role in the holding of
January elections in Iraq was mooted as one concrete way
of India "re-engaging" itself with the Iraq problem. The
left sought an assurance that any role that India would
play in Iraq should not be seen as indicative of any
political endorsement of the "coalition of the willing"
and, secondly, that Indian policy must factor in the
reality that sovereignty was yet to be transferred to
the Iraqi people by the occupation forces.
The
UPA government is acutely conscious that India is being
left behind over the Iraq problem even as the
international community is moving forward. Several
factors come into play. Firstly, it is possible for
sections of Indian opinion to keep on arguing
dogmatically that the Allawi government is neither a
representative government nor is it heading a sovereign
country. But, New Delhi has been witnessing that, all
the same, Iraq's neighboring countries and even those
countries that had strongly opposed the US invasion of
Iraq, have incrementally begun to veer round to having
official dealings with the Iraqi interim government:
Allawi had a summit meeting with the European Union just
ahead of the India-EU summit meeting. Meanwhile,
Russia's not-so-subtle turnaround over Iraq was also
keenly noted in Delhi - culminating in President
Vladimir Putin's telephone conversation with Allawi and
the latter's scheduled visit to Moscow next week. The
foreign minister of the Iraqi interim government already
visited Moscow in August.
But it was the
international conference at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on
November 23 that came as the real eye-opener for Delhi.
Virtually all of Iraq's neighbors - as well as "Old
Europe", Russia and China - all participated (including
the Pakistani diplomat who has been designated as the
United Nations secretary general's envoy on Iraq).
India, however, which aspires to a role in the affairs
of the Gulf region that is of vital interest to it, was
not invited to the conference.
Meanwhile, last
week, Iran hosted a regional conference relating to Iraq
that was attended by the interior minister of the Iraqi
interim government - an event that comes on top of the
visits of the vice president and foreign minister of the
Iraqi government to Tehran in recent weeks. Iran had
even signaled its interest on an early visit by Allawi
to Tehran - its rejection of the original "transfer of
power" to Allawi by the US notwithstanding.
Secondly, India has to keep in view, whether it
wants to admit it or not, the "Pakistan factor". The
fact of the matter is that Pakistan has been placed in a
somewhat similar predicament as India is, with domestic
public opinion heavily opposed to the US occupation of
Iraq and the government of President General Pervez
Musharraf searching for flexibility in proceeding at
tandem to the maximum extent possible with the US's
regional policies. Yet, a number of factors point to a
strong likelihood that Musharraf is moving forward into
a pronounced role in Iraq: the visit of the Iraqi
defense minister to Islamabad on November 23; the
first-ever military exercise between the Pakistani army
and the Royal Saudi land forces in "desert conditions"
in Saudi Arabia in the first week of December;
Musharraf's stopover in Istanbul late last month for
discussions with the Turkish leadership over the Iraq
situation; the meeting between Musharraf and US
President George W Bush held on December 4; and,
presently, the visit of Musharraf to the United Kingdom,
where he us due to hold talks with Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
There had been speculation in the past
regarding a likely role for Pakistani forces in the
northern Kurdish regions bordering Turkey. Indeed, US
forces are increasingly finding themselves in a tight
spot as "peacekeepers" in northern Iraq - caught up
within the contradictions of Washington's close links
with the Kurdish militia and its sensitivity to Turkey's
concerns over any Kurdish national identity emerging
within Iraq's territorial space. Conceivably, Turkey
would trust Pakistan, a traditional key ally, to tread
softly on Ankara's profound concerns over the direction
that the Iraq situation has taken of late.
Fourthly, and most importantly, India has to
weigh carefully the broad implications of its Iraq
policy for the overarching strategic partnership with
the US that it is assiduously forging. Washington would
be justified in posing the question: what does a
strategic partnership amount to when India cannot be
counted on to be cooperative toward the single biggest
challenge to the US's global standing at the moment? In
fact, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage made
much the same point in diplomatic terms during his visit
to Delhi in June soon after the UPA government assumed
office - where he told the Indian leadership that short
of committing Indian troops in Iraq, there were many
things that India could still do.
India has
belatedly realized that with the passage of time, the
Allawi faction is merging into the Iraqi political
landscape. As Delhi would see it, whatever might have
been the background of the Allawi faction's immaculate
conception and its calibrated induction into Baghdad, it
is expected to be a participant in the January elections
and will have prospects of figuring in a significant way
in the period ahead. Most certainly, Delhi would
acknowledge that it is not for it to pre-judge which
Iraqi faction is legitimate and homespun - and which is
not. After all, one cornerstone of Indian policy has
been that given the fragmented Iraqi polity, Delhi must
engage all Iraqi factions.
Nonetheless, Delhi
can be expected to keep the Iraqi foreign minister's
visit low-key. The fact remains that there will be
sensitivity about steering the shift in policy away from
domestic controversy. The UPA government's largest
constituent, the Congress Party, is particularly
conscious of the Muslim opinion in the country that is
exercised over the Bush administration's perceived
hostility towards Islam. Delhi's predicament is
essentially one of steering a pragmatic foreign-policy
course toward Baghdad through the troubled waters of
domestic public opinion that may not be sufficiently
enlightened in its comprehension of the complex factors
involved - and might get mired in emotional outcries
that could play into the hands of the UPA government's
political rivals at home.
M K
Bhadrakumar is a former Indian career diplomat who
has served in Islamabad, Kabul, Tashkent and Moscow.
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