11 April 2010
Tarun Vijay
The US president's “New Start” policy to reduce nuclear arms could soon lose credibility if his secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton continues to show public affection towards despotic and autocratic regimes, forgetting the basic decency to respect time-tested democracies and an Indian leadership committed to preventing nuclear proliferation.
It's not the first time she has hurt Indians. Should she be doing it just to get a foothold in an Islamic republic that can be pushed, manoeuvred and compromised with dollar grants and hence is needed to facilitate more US role in the region? India certainly doesn't need the mercy or charity of Washington. We will take care of Indian interests in the region, with America's cooperation or without it. If today the leadership is weak and yielding to US pressures, it's only a matter of time before we will replace it with a more youthful and nationalistic one.
Hillary must remain loyal to her country's interests. It's not her mandate to take care of Indian sensitivities. Yet, is she really serving American values by embarrassing India at a security summit? Can Obama and Hillary reverse all that was once represented by Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln?
A flabbier Pakistan, fattened on US dollars and left free to destabilize India through tacit and open support to terrorists would be potentially more dangerous for nuclear proliferation strengthening fears to have the Taliban steal nukes one day suddenly. And none but Hillary and her president Obama would be responsible for having weakened a war against terrorism.
Pakistan has a record of being the most dangerous nuclear proliferator in the world. It has had a strong friendship with another nuclear power, China, which has been its most coveted accomplice in getting nuclear knowhow and military hardware. It's an alliance that has a direct bearing on India's security as we have had wars with both countries, both have illegally occupied our land, and with both we have unsettled boundaries. It's also interesting that Obama's odyssey with China and Pakistan continues full steam and both are powered and controlled by undemocratic norms and forces, one being a one-party system with a Communist regime whose human rights record can't make the US feel proud and the other is simply a withering state dependent on Washington's doles.
So, cozying up to non-democratic states and putting pressure on the greatest democracy, the only one that can be said to be holding a beacon light of liberty and pluralism in the entire region, is hyphenated with the terror factories. That's the message from Washington, where Obama is holding a security summit in order to prevent an attack from loose nuclear materials.
It's humiliating for us to see our Prime Minister, representing more than a billion-strong nation, having made to listen to words of Hillary Clinton, which can at best be described as completely off the mark and childish. Last week in Kentucky she said: “Other countries that have pursued nuclear weapons — like India and Pakistan, for example — have done so in a way that has upset the balance of nuclear deterrence.” Adding to the insult, treating India as an errant schoolboy she said: “And that's why we're working with both countries very hard to try to make sure that their nuclear stockpiles are, you know, well tended to, and that they participate with us in trying to limit the number of nuclear weapons. And both of them will be in Washington next week.”
Weighing India and Pakistan on the same scale? Can there be a more atrocious diplomacy than that? Why do we have to accept this patronizing attitude?
This attitude also goes against the spirit and the declared goals of Obama's AfPak policy. He described on March 27, 2009, one of the major goals as, “I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just.”
Obama just can't achieve this unless India is actively involved and taken as a partner on an even keel rather than to be called at a summit and put on a par with jihad factories.
If that has been Obama and Hillary's attitude, what have our leaders been doing?
Isn't it the power that we wield and show and behave in accordance with our status decides how others nation would look at us? Look at US-Russian relations. Not exactly on major global issues Russia's iron man Putin supported Washington, in fact I he emerged as the biggest challenger to the unipolar situation, yet the US worked hard for one full year to have the Russians accept sign US-Russian arms treaty, dubbed the “New START”. It's significant to note that the relations between the two countries were not cordial largely due to a spat over US missile defences, an expansion of Nato to Russia's doorstep and Moscow's invasion of Georgia in August 2008. Yet, the US had to work hard to improve the situation and it was commented upon that for the Russians, the mere fact that the US spent so much time and effort negotiating an arms arrangement helped bolster Moscow's claim to being a global force and not just another regional power.
India's status in the comity of nations is compromised by the “ready to accept US dictate” leadership that fails the trust of people who look up to them as their leaders. Manmohan Singh, once he became Prime Minister, should have behaved as the leader of the nation and not as a party spokesman. Then alone could he have understood the need to stand up erect in the face of Washington's misguided overtures that have put our respectability and a very credible record as a responsible nuclear nation at a low we didn't deserve.
It's not the first time she has hurt Indians. Should she be doing it just to get a foothold in an Islamic republic that can be pushed, manoeuvred and compromised with dollar grants and hence is needed to facilitate more US role in the region? India certainly doesn't need the mercy or charity of Washington. We will take care of Indian interests in the region, with America's cooperation or without it. If today the leadership is weak and yielding to US pressures, it's only a matter of time before we will replace it with a more youthful and nationalistic one.
Hillary must remain loyal to her country's interests. It's not her mandate to take care of Indian sensitivities. Yet, is she really serving American values by embarrassing India at a security summit? Can Obama and Hillary reverse all that was once represented by Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln?
A flabbier Pakistan, fattened on US dollars and left free to destabilize India through tacit and open support to terrorists would be potentially more dangerous for nuclear proliferation strengthening fears to have the Taliban steal nukes one day suddenly. And none but Hillary and her president Obama would be responsible for having weakened a war against terrorism.
Pakistan has a record of being the most dangerous nuclear proliferator in the world. It has had a strong friendship with another nuclear power, China, which has been its most coveted accomplice in getting nuclear knowhow and military hardware. It's an alliance that has a direct bearing on India's security as we have had wars with both countries, both have illegally occupied our land, and with both we have unsettled boundaries. It's also interesting that Obama's odyssey with China and Pakistan continues full steam and both are powered and controlled by undemocratic norms and forces, one being a one-party system with a Communist regime whose human rights record can't make the US feel proud and the other is simply a withering state dependent on Washington's doles.
So, cozying up to non-democratic states and putting pressure on the greatest democracy, the only one that can be said to be holding a beacon light of liberty and pluralism in the entire region, is hyphenated with the terror factories. That's the message from Washington, where Obama is holding a security summit in order to prevent an attack from loose nuclear materials.
It's humiliating for us to see our Prime Minister, representing more than a billion-strong nation, having made to listen to words of Hillary Clinton, which can at best be described as completely off the mark and childish. Last week in Kentucky she said: “Other countries that have pursued nuclear weapons — like India and Pakistan, for example — have done so in a way that has upset the balance of nuclear deterrence.” Adding to the insult, treating India as an errant schoolboy she said: “And that's why we're working with both countries very hard to try to make sure that their nuclear stockpiles are, you know, well tended to, and that they participate with us in trying to limit the number of nuclear weapons. And both of them will be in Washington next week.”
Weighing India and Pakistan on the same scale? Can there be a more atrocious diplomacy than that? Why do we have to accept this patronizing attitude?
This attitude also goes against the spirit and the declared goals of Obama's AfPak policy. He described on March 27, 2009, one of the major goals as, “I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just.”
Obama just can't achieve this unless India is actively involved and taken as a partner on an even keel rather than to be called at a summit and put on a par with jihad factories.
If that has been Obama and Hillary's attitude, what have our leaders been doing?
Isn't it the power that we wield and show and behave in accordance with our status decides how others nation would look at us? Look at US-Russian relations. Not exactly on major global issues Russia's iron man Putin supported Washington, in fact I he emerged as the biggest challenger to the unipolar situation, yet the US worked hard for one full year to have the Russians accept sign US-Russian arms treaty, dubbed the “New START”. It's significant to note that the relations between the two countries were not cordial largely due to a spat over US missile defences, an expansion of Nato to Russia's doorstep and Moscow's invasion of Georgia in August 2008. Yet, the US had to work hard to improve the situation and it was commented upon that for the Russians, the mere fact that the US spent so much time and effort negotiating an arms arrangement helped bolster Moscow's claim to being a global force and not just another regional power.
India's status in the comity of nations is compromised by the “ready to accept US dictate” leadership that fails the trust of people who look up to them as their leaders. Manmohan Singh, once he became Prime Minister, should have behaved as the leader of the nation and not as a party spokesman. Then alone could he have understood the need to stand up erect in the face of Washington's misguided overtures that have put our respectability and a very credible record as a responsible nuclear nation at a low we didn't deserve.
4 comments:
अमेरिका के नेता INDIA के नेताओं की तरह मूर्ख नहीं वो ऐसा कुछ नहीं करेंगे जिससे अमेरिका के हित प्रभावितवित होते हों ।वो जो भी करेंगे अमेरिका के हित में करेंगे।
भारत ने लोकतांत्रिक मुल्यो के कारण हमेशा अमेरिका का साथ दिया है। लेकिन अमेरिका की मित्रता से भारत को शायद ही कभी कोई लाभ मिला है। अमेरिका चाहता है की दक्षिण एसिया (आर्यावर्त) के राज्यो मे, हिमालय के उत्तर-दक्षिण मे सदैव कटुता बनी रहे। हमे संतुलित दृष्टिकोण अपनाने की आवश्यकता है।
Very interesting and instructive to know how things are seen from India.
The democracy, huge tollerance and common sense of India tend to be perceived (by the western pragmatism)as some kind of weeknes.
Instead, country's like China, more bold and determined, became "partners" to this western pragmatism.
At a more little scale, same situation apeare in Europe, where coutry's from the eastern side have faced the same problem, of declaring ans sustaining there interests and, some like Poland and Czechia have even hardly negociated them.
So, I presume, it is all about different ways of making a point and sustain the national goals. This lead to different ways and those at the limit of democracy "seems" to be more efficent in foreign affairs.
Thank you !
Very interesting and instructive to know how things are seen from India.
The democracy, huge tollerance and common sense of India tend to be perceived (by the western pragmatism)as some kind of weeknes.
Instead, country's like China, more bold and determined, became "partners" to this western pragmatism.
At a more little scale, same situation apeare in Europe, where coutry's from the eastern side have faced the same problem, of declaring ans sustaining there interests and, some like Poland and Czechia have even hardly negociated them.
So, I presume, it is all about different ways of making a point and sustain the national goals. This lead to different ways and those at the limit of democracy "seems" to be more efficent in foreign affairs.
Thank you !
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