India's Incredulous Foreign Policy
Even after months of the first vote against Iran, India has not come out with a clear and reasonable foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran.
Its true that Indian government faced immense domestic pressure and criticism after it first voted in IAEA meeting in September 2005. But the pressure mostly came from Left coalition partners who have a tendency to criticize every move of the government. The demands made by Left are not clear to anyone (I suppose even the people in communist party of India do not know the reason behind their own demands). The communist party of India would criticize every move to get foreign investment in India while their counterparts in China are making hay with the investment from all over the world. Since the Left parties are supporting the current government from outside without holding any official position for themselves, they seem to believe that they acquire a righteous, do-good-er stand over the government and like a big (nagging) brother, they should keep the younger brother on tabs. The Manmohan Singh government should have and, to some extent, has acquired an ignoring, complacent attitude towards the demands of Left.
With that in mind, it is not clear why India has not spelled its policy towards Iran as yet. India considers people of Iran as its traditional friends. However, as India should know from the experience of Pakistan, the policies of government of a country do not entirely represent/help the cause of the people of that country. The governments may act/have acted on the whims of few important religious leaders without listening to moderate common man. The current rule in Iran is of a hardliner who knows politics and diplomacy as much as he would know theory of relativity and rocket science. It is difficult to trust Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who give speeches of wiping of Israel and shifting all the Jews to Alaska. India should understand that supporting the government of a country does not mean supporting its people unless the country is a full democracy and not an oppressive regime like Iran.
If India considers Iran its traditional 'ally', it should have engaged Iran, like Russia, in a separate discussion front so as to keep Iran within framework of IAEA and not let it destroy the seals of IAEA in Iran's nuclear plants and start the enrichment of uranium. India should have tried to bail out its old friend from this world crisis. This would have shown India as a pro-active responsible nuclear power who is ready to assume responsibilities capable of solving a world crisis. However, India chooses to keep quiet and watch the crisis from an assumed hypothetical (shall I say, non-aligned) distance and then take a decision depending on the 'consensus' of the crowd. Much like a weak coward person who watches two man fighting from a distance and only enters the fight to beat the person who the crowd starts beating up. If India had requested for a dialogue and Iran had shunned any meaningful dialogue with India, it would have clarified the nature of alliance with current Iranian government.
With the seals of IAEA broken by Iran itself, the crisis of Iran has definitely gone beyond the realms of IAEA, within which India has wanted the crisis to be solved.
If India thinks that US is getting paranoid about the fears of Iran developing nuclear weapons (which will take about 10 years) and then distributing them to terrorists, then India should have explained that position to US and others. India should have considered US as an equal partner and talk openly with it rather than just listening to demands of US and taking them as a form of pressure. It is too early to fear about assumed Iranian nuclear weapons getting in hands of terrorists
or being used in a war with Israel (which has a nuclear cover of US anyways). And this point of view should have been conveyed to US as a friend.
In the end, I would say that shying away from taking a stand in a crisis of friends is not something a man or a responsible country should do.
Its true that Indian government faced immense domestic pressure and criticism after it first voted in IAEA meeting in September 2005. But the pressure mostly came from Left coalition partners who have a tendency to criticize every move of the government. The demands made by Left are not clear to anyone (I suppose even the people in communist party of India do not know the reason behind their own demands). The communist party of India would criticize every move to get foreign investment in India while their counterparts in China are making hay with the investment from all over the world. Since the Left parties are supporting the current government from outside without holding any official position for themselves, they seem to believe that they acquire a righteous, do-good-er stand over the government and like a big (nagging) brother, they should keep the younger brother on tabs. The Manmohan Singh government should have and, to some extent, has acquired an ignoring, complacent attitude towards the demands of Left.
With that in mind, it is not clear why India has not spelled its policy towards Iran as yet. India considers people of Iran as its traditional friends. However, as India should know from the experience of Pakistan, the policies of government of a country do not entirely represent/help the cause of the people of that country. The governments may act/have acted on the whims of few important religious leaders without listening to moderate common man. The current rule in Iran is of a hardliner who knows politics and diplomacy as much as he would know theory of relativity and rocket science. It is difficult to trust Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who give speeches of wiping of Israel and shifting all the Jews to Alaska. India should understand that supporting the government of a country does not mean supporting its people unless the country is a full democracy and not an oppressive regime like Iran.
If India considers Iran its traditional 'ally', it should have engaged Iran, like Russia, in a separate discussion front so as to keep Iran within framework of IAEA and not let it destroy the seals of IAEA in Iran's nuclear plants and start the enrichment of uranium. India should have tried to bail out its old friend from this world crisis. This would have shown India as a pro-active responsible nuclear power who is ready to assume responsibilities capable of solving a world crisis. However, India chooses to keep quiet and watch the crisis from an assumed hypothetical (shall I say, non-aligned) distance and then take a decision depending on the 'consensus' of the crowd. Much like a weak coward person who watches two man fighting from a distance and only enters the fight to beat the person who the crowd starts beating up. If India had requested for a dialogue and Iran had shunned any meaningful dialogue with India, it would have clarified the nature of alliance with current Iranian government.
With the seals of IAEA broken by Iran itself, the crisis of Iran has definitely gone beyond the realms of IAEA, within which India has wanted the crisis to be solved.
If India thinks that US is getting paranoid about the fears of Iran developing nuclear weapons (which will take about 10 years) and then distributing them to terrorists, then India should have explained that position to US and others. India should have considered US as an equal partner and talk openly with it rather than just listening to demands of US and taking them as a form of pressure. It is too early to fear about assumed Iranian nuclear weapons getting in hands of terrorists
or being used in a war with Israel (which has a nuclear cover of US anyways). And this point of view should have been conveyed to US as a friend.
In the end, I would say that shying away from taking a stand in a crisis of friends is not something a man or a responsible country should do.
posted by insideout at
9:47 PM
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