|
Indo-Pak ties under Obama – confused signals from Washington DC |
 |
India is getting very confused signals from Washington and is wondering whether President Obama will reverse the strategic partnership policy the Bush Administration had forged with this country marked by the signing of the historic nuclear agreement and working on the members of the NSG to grant it a waiver. That India does not figure in Obama’s priorities in Asia at all unlike China and Japan became clear from the fact that there was no reference to this country in the first foreign policy document drawn up bythe new Administration which was issued soon after President Obama was inaugurated. Ignoring India, the document said the US will “maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia; work to build an infrastructure with countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity; and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.”
The exclusion of India from the agenda raised many eyebrows in South Block though some experts warn against putting too much weight on the first foreign policy document put forward by the new US Administration. Some say the document is a sign of things to come, though many dismiss it as more a public relations than a serious policy document. However, the former Indian envoy to Pakistan and a commentator on foreign affairs, G. Parthasarthy, has admitted, that there is no clarity in US policy towards India. He said, “We don’t appear on the radar so far as Obama is concerned.”
Obama before his election victory and subsequently had said many things which treaded on the toes of India. His utterings on Kashmir, for instance, were not viewed kindly in India though his warning to Pakistan to link future aid to its satisfactory performance on fighting terror were welcomed in political circles in New Delhi. Perhaps warned by his foreign policy advisers, especially the new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who as the First Lady during the reign of President Bill Clinton, knows how sensitive India is to any talk of third party mediation, Obama has given up his attempt to burn his fingers. He had earlier planned to appoint Bill Clinton as his envoy on Kashmir. His remarks on Kashmir in at least two interviews had caused a certain amount of anxiety in New Delhi. He sought to link the resolution of the Kashmir issue to the waiver against terror in Afghanistan and said a resolution of the Kashmir dispute would help Pakistan focus more seriously on fighting against the pro-Al-Qaeda militants on its side of the border with Afghanistan. India saw it as Obama wanting India to sacrifice its territory to help him win a war against militants in Afghanistan, something no country would accept it. Obama perhaps saw a writing on the wall. He refrained from appointing Bill Clinton as his envoy on Kashmir [which Clinton may have politely declined] and confined the mandate of the special envoy he appointed in the region, Richard Holbrooke, to only Pakistan and Afghanistan and not India. This means he has decided not to hyphenate India’s Kashmir dispute with Pakistan to the latter’s fight against insurgency in its tribal belt.
India may, however, have to be ready for its strategy to counter a fresh pressure to sign the CTBT and NPT.
Unlike the Bush Administration which did not ratify the CTBT treaty, the Obama Administration is likely to dust off the proposal and go ahead with its ratification. This will give the US the reason to build pressure on India to sign the two treaties which New Delhi has so far resisted calling them discriminatory. New Delhi resistance may once again come in the way of full implementation of the Indo-US agreement on civil nuclear cooperation which was signed with much fanfare. After this the Bush Administration worked hard with other countries to get India a waiver from the NSG. New Delhi’s whole future programme of nuclear power production may run into jeopardy if the other countries such as France, Russia and Britain, the prospective clients of India, adhere to US advice which is, however, unlikely as the NSG is unlikely to reimpose the ban on India because of the consideration of their companies winning business contracts in India.
India should, however, be happy that even if the Obama Administration is not showing any tilt towards Pakistan, at least it is leaning on Islamabad to stop it from stoking the fires of terrorism. As the victim of terrorism at the hands of Al-Qaeda which carried out the 9/11 terror attacks on US soil, America cannot but sympathise with India for the 26/11 Mumbai blasts. The fact that American and Israeli nationals were also killed is all the more reason for the US to force Pakistan to act on India’s demand to bring the culprits of the Mumbai attacks to book. Pakistan’s acknowledgement of the link of Mumbai attackers to the groups prospering on its soil, its action against them and now the setting up of a probe team, all this owes to the pressure built by the US under the Bush Administration which is likely to continue under the new administration. Obama has made it clear to Pakistan that it cannot pocket aid and yet wink at terrorists at the same time. He has made it clear in one of his first statements that aid would be tripled but it would be linked to its performance on the ground in the war on terror to the satisfaction of the US. The US missile attacks on Pakistani soil on January 24 which killed 20 people four days after Obama was sworn as President of America is the proof of his pledge made earlier that the US forces would not hesitate to go inside Pakistan if there is actionable intelligence report that terrorists were hiding there.
|
