Posted on 03/29/2009 3:33:09 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Clearly, the new Administration in Washington has little time for New Delhi. India, however, needs to put its own house in order before crying hoarse over the changing winds in Washington.
India is realizing it’s difficult to be out of the limelight after getting used to it. For the last eight years under the Bush Administration, India occupied a pride of place in the strategic calculus of the US. India was wooed as a rising power, it was seen as a pole in the emerging global balance of power, it was acknowledged as the primary actor in South Asia, de-hyphenated from Pakistan, and then it was given what it had long desired -- a de facto status as a nuclear weapon state. From a problem state that could never say yes, India emerged as a state that the US could do business with. It was all too good to last for long. And now one of the architects of the US-India strategic partnership during the Bush period, Shyam Saran, who was the Indian Prime Minister’s Special Envoy during the negotiations over the nuclear pact, is asking India to hedge its bets in light of what he views as Sino-US strategic convergence.
Clearly, the new Administration in Washington has little time for New Delhi. From a nation that was just a few weeks back seen as an emerging power that can provide answers to global problems, India is now viewed primarily as a problem that the Obama Administration needs to sort out. It is instructive that the only context in which Obama has talked of India yet is the need to sort Kashmir out so as to find a way out of the West’s troubles in Afghanistan. Most astonishingly, the Obama Administration has asked India to make the first move towards peace in the region by pulling back troops from its Pakistan border. This is just so that the US can get more Pakistani support when it decides to launch a bigger military offensive in Afghanistan in a few months time. The talk of a strategic partnership between the two democracies, meanwhile, has all but disappeared. The new Administration is so busy fighting day to day battles that it has little time for grand strategy.
Moreover, whatever foreign policy hands it has displayed so far reveal an Administration that actually has little time for friends. Growing emphasis on US ties with China has alarmed Japan. A letter to Russia suggesting a bargain whereby the US would not go ahead with missile defence in return for Russia helping to convince Iran not to pursue nuclear weapons programme has alarmed Poland and Czech Republic. An eagerness to negotiate with Iran has alarmed the Gulf States and Israel.
Asia is clearly emerging the new pivot of US foreign policy but it doesn’t look like India has a place in the new priorities. When Clinton decided to make Asia her first destination as Secretary of State, the original Policy Planning Staff transition memo apparently suggested that India should be included in the itinerary. But it was an idea not deemed worthy of execution.
The Bush Administration had started looking at India as part of the larger Asian strategic landscape. The new Senior Director of East Asia, Jeff Bader, who will now be looking at India is a China expert and knows little about India and/or South Asia. While the previous Administration’s love-fest with India was driven by Bush himself, Obama seems to have little interest in South Asia beyond the obvious in getting US troops out of Afghanistan at the earliest. Hillary Clinton was seen as the great hope for India, but it was she who made it clear early on that the most important bilateral relationship in the world is the US-China relationship. Richard Holbrooke went to India as part of his effort to carve a new policy for Afghanistan and howsoever Indians would like to think that India and the US share a common interest in tackling terrorism and extremism from the turbulent territory between the Indus and the Hindu Kush, the US has so far been lukewarm to the idea of involving India in its larger strategy towards Afpak.
Don’t the islamo-fascists despise Hindus as much as they despise Christians and Jews? Hmmm.....
Don’t worry, guys.
As all my liberal friends said, 0bama shows the depths of his wisdom by reflexively doing the opposite of what Bush did. See, Bush made friends with powerful nations to attack and disrupt terrorist movements. 0bama is so beyond our mere mortal intellects, he understands that terrorists are just “friends we haven’t met yet”.
That’s why 0bama’s making these changes to our foreign policy. It’s also why he is releasing Guantanamo detainees in the U.S. and giving them welfare to get them started on their new lives in America: it’s termed the “Londonistan Option”.
I know lots of Indians in this country who voted for Obammie the Commie.
They think he is soooo smart. Plus it's cool to vote for someone other than a white.
This is hardly surprising. Obama can’t offend America’s former allies fast enough, as this writer notes.
And he is pro-Muslim. He wants to give Israel to the Palestinians and Kashmir to the Pakistanis. For starters.
By the way, a bit off topic, but I love this writer’s name:
Harsh V. Pant
Me, too, and the ones I know that couldn't vote told me that that they would have voted for him if they could. It's just bizarre to me that they don't make the connection - they come here, work hard, use their talents to do well, then vote for the party that despises achievers. What are they thinking?
It’s quite simple really, they wager (correctly might I add), that Democrats in general and by extension Obama are more willing to pander to ethnic minority interest groups and thus they voted for him. This is a more important priority for most voters than any reflected glory of U.S. interest.
The author is also wrong on one major point, India’s irrelevance isn’t new-found. India has been, continues to be, and will likely be irrelevant for decades.
Simple.
Most Indians who come to the US, pass through the US university system.
Want to guess where they might have picked up their politics from?
They are thinking what all minority voters think when they flip the lever for a Dem: here is someone that will take care of ME. Eff the country. Eff everyone else.
At the rate we’re going, one day we are going to need a powerful, democratic ally to have our back. Wonder who that will be?
To be fair — Mc wasn’t much of an alternative. Huckabee should have won the nomination, or Mitt Romney
Huckabee is a whack-job who colluded with McCain to shut Romney out.
Romney would have had the best chance at winning and being fairly moderate, but look what he did with Romneycare. Hardly a true conservative.
If you know of others that are disgusted with Obammie the Commie and fear that he is going to do to the US (where the Indians I know headed for to escape the limits in their own country) what socialists and corrupt politicians did to India, please let me know. I would be very much heartened to learn they are out there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.