India-External Affairs
Publihed in B&E-27 January 2007
Poodle(ism) is not pragmatism!
On Iran issue, and the Saddam hanging, India must oppose the American insanity with rabid fervour
What could India’s reaction to the latest sanctions (in the last week of December 2006) imposed by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iran be termed as? Does such a response reinforce Amartya Sen’s view that Indians are inherently argumentative? That moral dilemmas rather than pragmatism rules the Indian mind when it comes to taking tough decisions on the external affairs front, is an argument presented by those who see India asserting Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear development (which is the official External Affairs Ministry statement) as a statement laced with domestic political considerations in mind rather than taking cognizance of the geo-political realities. The basic problem with the above arguments is that such critics, most of them with more than obvious western alliances, view foreign policy to be divorced from domestic politics. Such realists see external relations from hallowed precincts, where economy and ideological imperatives have no room to interfere.On a more condescending note, speaking to B&E, Prashant Dixshit, the most well known former Deputy Director of Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, said, “After all, the foreign policy of a state must reflect the sensibilities of the nation at large, else it will be devoid of the requisite legitimacy conferred on it by the people.” But the fact is that the world should view the nation’s current posture on Iran’s peaceful nuclear ambitions as purely a rational choice – and that too keeping less in mind the popular sentiments of the country (we know, the Leftists would be seething with happiness at this for a change, but the fact is that popular sentiments within the country are clearly not anti-Iran or anti its nuclear ambitions per se, but anti Ahmadinejad’s regular balderdash comments), and worrying more about India’s options in the eventuality of the US adopting a belligerent stand on Iran issue – and reneging on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
And those who feel that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would create an imbalance in the Arab world, creating further fissures among the Shias and Sunnis, also need to pay some heed to the fact that on Iraq or Iran, India cannot afford to portray itself as a poodle of the US, given the unbelievably ludicrous adherence to declaring war that has been shown by US in the past. The other so-called realist argument runs on the premise that India’s statement on Iran is at variance with the approach it adopted by voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September 2005 & February 2006. Of course it is, and one has to commend the brilliant strategists who have shrewdly manipulated India’s official stand, first to ensure that the US Senate passes the nuclear deal, and then, once the deal had been passed, cleverly retracing our previously anti-Iran focus. It was only a few years ago that the world witnessed animated discussion in the Security Council on Iraqi nuclear bomb and how Saddam was creating roadblocks for IAEA inspectors. And then suddenly, diplomacy was abandoned at the altar of politico-military expediency. Why should India now commit itself to a position on Iran, which may be difficult to retract, if Bush decides to go berserk once again? With the cherry on the cake being the absolutely unacceptable hanging of Saddam by the American machinery (despite how it was portrayed to the outside world, that those were legitimate Iraqis ‘judging’ the man), what is most surprising and sad is the way Indian diplomatic and political circles have failed to show vociferously rabid opposition to the same. This is one chance that India has to intellectually put across to the world the insanity being spouted by the Bush bandwagon. And we’re not even trying. At least, that’s not pragmatism!
What could India’s reaction to the latest sanctions (in the last week of December 2006) imposed by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Iran be termed as? Does such a response reinforce Amartya Sen’s view that Indians are inherently argumentative? That moral dilemmas rather than pragmatism rules the Indian mind when it comes to taking tough decisions on the external affairs front, is an argument presented by those who see India asserting Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear development (which is the official External Affairs Ministry statement) as a statement laced with domestic political considerations in mind rather than taking cognizance of the geo-political realities. The basic problem with the above arguments is that such critics, most of them with more than obvious western alliances, view foreign policy to be divorced from domestic politics. Such realists see external relations from hallowed precincts, where economy and ideological imperatives have no room to interfere.On a more condescending note, speaking to B&E, Prashant Dixshit, the most well known former Deputy Director of Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, said, “After all, the foreign policy of a state must reflect the sensibilities of the nation at large, else it will be devoid of the requisite legitimacy conferred on it by the people.” But the fact is that the world should view the nation’s current posture on Iran’s peaceful nuclear ambitions as purely a rational choice – and that too keeping less in mind the popular sentiments of the country (we know, the Leftists would be seething with happiness at this for a change, but the fact is that popular sentiments within the country are clearly not anti-Iran or anti its nuclear ambitions per se, but anti Ahmadinejad’s regular balderdash comments), and worrying more about India’s options in the eventuality of the US adopting a belligerent stand on Iran issue – and reneging on the Indo-US nuclear deal.
And those who feel that Iran’s nuclear ambitions would create an imbalance in the Arab world, creating further fissures among the Shias and Sunnis, also need to pay some heed to the fact that on Iraq or Iran, India cannot afford to portray itself as a poodle of the US, given the unbelievably ludicrous adherence to declaring war that has been shown by US in the past. The other so-called realist argument runs on the premise that India’s statement on Iran is at variance with the approach it adopted by voting against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September 2005 & February 2006. Of course it is, and one has to commend the brilliant strategists who have shrewdly manipulated India’s official stand, first to ensure that the US Senate passes the nuclear deal, and then, once the deal had been passed, cleverly retracing our previously anti-Iran focus. It was only a few years ago that the world witnessed animated discussion in the Security Council on Iraqi nuclear bomb and how Saddam was creating roadblocks for IAEA inspectors. And then suddenly, diplomacy was abandoned at the altar of politico-military expediency. Why should India now commit itself to a position on Iran, which may be difficult to retract, if Bush decides to go berserk once again? With the cherry on the cake being the absolutely unacceptable hanging of Saddam by the American machinery (despite how it was portrayed to the outside world, that those were legitimate Iraqis ‘judging’ the man), what is most surprising and sad is the way Indian diplomatic and political circles have failed to show vociferously rabid opposition to the same. This is one chance that India has to intellectually put across to the world the insanity being spouted by the Bush bandwagon. And we’re not even trying. At least, that’s not pragmatism!
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