WANTED AN ASIAN INITIATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN

WANTED AN ASIAN INITIATIVE FOR AFGHANISTAN

By Bhabani Sen Gupta


India’s foreign policy and diplomacy went into recession during the first term of Dr Manmohan Singh’s ascendance to leadership of the
Government in 2004. His first four+ years stood out for a persevering,
And finally successful, quest for a close friendly relationship with the United States, an osmosis in relations with the nations of the world
That could not be achieved during the cold war. To balance the strategic alliance with the United States, the prime minister concluded
A low-level ‘strategic partnership’ with China, and embraced Russia as a substitute of India’s oldest ally, the USSR ( mysteriously and unceremoniously dead in 2001) .
In his characteristically quiet and unassuming style, the prime
Minister took control of foreign policy as soon as Natawar Singh resigned after a year’s uneasy tenure at South Block.He operated
through a competent foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, and drew heavily
on another quiet and efficient bureaucract, the national security adviser, N.K. Narayanan, former intelligence chief to the Union Government.. Pranab Mukherjee as defence minister helped
in concluding the ‘strategic alliance’ with the U.S. His political weight had diminished as a result of his electoral dependence on the CPI-M
in Murshidabad. When Mukherjee was given external affairs in the last
year of the first term of the UPA coalition, he was kept busy with chairmanship of a raft of GOM===group of ministers---and hardly made a distinctive contribution to foreign policy and diplomacy.
In his second term as prime minister, Dr Singh enjoys a very
elevated stature in the government as well as the country. He was Mrs
Sonia Gndhi’s only choice to head the second UPA coalition in which
the Congress party commands a near majority in the Lok Sabha on its own strength. And the prime minister asserted his primacy by keeping foreign affairs under his own control by appointing a former
Congress chief minister of Karnataka who knows little of world affairs
And has shown less interest in diplomacy. Mr Krishna.s highest qualification is his total loyalty to the party boss; he is a thorough gentlemen, as nimble in appearance as in private and public manners.
He is also impeccably attired.
The second UPA regime, however, has failed to make the capital of the great electoral victory that was thrust upon the Congress party in
the general election of May. It is hobbled by a rainless summer with
a slump in food production, and, inevitably, a lot of hunger and thirst.
Politically, only the Trinamul Congress chief. Mamata Bannerjee has
fully exploited the collapse of the CPI-M and the Left Front in West
Bengal. Sonia Gandhi,, perched at the pinnacle of power, seems to be
frozen in a narcissist state of political dyslexia, unable to read the meaning of the writings on the wall. She has not convened a meeting
of the AICC. The four or five general secretaries of the Congress party
who have been given berths in the new Central cabinet continue to retain their party offices. Not only does this amount to be burial of
the one-man-one-office norm she announced several years before, it
mutilates performance at both governmental and party levels.
After two heart surgeries, Dr Manmohan Singh is not in the best
of health. He also happens to be 77-78 years old. Maybe he would have
liked to retire from public life. But who would have led the UPA coalition at the Centre? The party woefully lacks in leadership material.
There are certain unwritten geopolitical rules in the politics of India.
The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has acquired an imperial flavour. The world’s largest second largest political party ( after the Communist Party of China), the Congress is also the enduring Mughal of post-
colonial India. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is the great Mughal of
the huge political space that is the Congress party.
Herein lies great opportunities for Dr Manmohan Singh. Not
so much in the domestic space as in the global arena. The economy
has maintained respectable growth, one of the best in the world that
is now trying to writhe out of global recession. The very impressive
performance of the Asian economies in 2007-09 has enabled Asia
to decouple itself from the US-led Western economy. The ‘astounding
feat’ has driven an unmistakable message to the world. The global
economic ( and therefore political ) order is now evenly balanced between the West led by the United States and Asia led by China and
India.
The Economist, of London, regarded worldwide as the mirror of
the Western leadership of the global economic order, carried on the
cover of its issue of August 15-21 a herald of this tremendous change.
“Asia’s Astounding Rebound” was narrated in two long reports and
captured in the first editorial. It noted:
“Emerging Asia’s average growth rate of almost 8% over the past
two decades -----three times the rate in the rich world----has brought huge benefits to the rest of the world. Its rebound now is all the mote
useful when growth in the West is likely to be slow. Asia cannot replace
the American consumer: emerging Asia’s total consumption amounts
to only two-fifths of America’s. But it is growth in spending that really
matters. In dollar terms, the increase in emerging Asia’s consumet
spending this year will more than offset the drop in spending in America and the euro area. This shift in spending from the West to the
East will help rebalance the world economy.”
It is not enough to rebalance the world economy. There must be
rebalancing of world politics. Since the end of World War II, Asia has
bore the brunt of all American wars---the Korean war, the war in Vietmam, the American war in Iraq, and the American war in Afghanistan. America’s presidents have had no hesitation to acknowledge that the US and its allies fought these wars in ‘legitimate
defence’ of its own national interests.
It is high time that Asian countries, now that they have established the continent’s coming of age after centuries of domination
by the Western imperialists, join together to defend their own legitimate
national interests. This does not mean a polarization between Asia and the West. It means recognition by the West that Asian countries have their individual and regional interests to be protected and secured in
cooperation with the West on the basis of equality.
Even as the ‘emerging’ countries of Asia have proved that they can outdo the West in the economic areas, they lack unity of minds and
muscles in the political space. History has witnessed long years of ‘collective imperialist conquest of Chinese territories including ports and big cities; British colonization of India got European and American
backing after initial years of armed rivalries among European colonizers. The wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq rallied most European powers behind the American superpower.
If the West still lost each of these three major wars of the post
second world was period, it was because they were fighting wrong wars,
they were fighting against the inevitability of historical change, because
even collective military might of colonialists could not keep resurgent
nationalist forces of Asia.
The last of the West’s post-colonial wars has been raging in Afghanistan for three decades. This war showed the ugly Western face of the USSR when it invaded Afghanistan to defend a ramshackle
“Marxist “ regime in 1979, a misadventure that was probably the
single most fatal factor that led to the collapse of the Soviet state itself.
Taliban was the ferocious offspring of American militarism and its
foster child, the Pakistan Army. The Taliban, spearheaded by Pushtoons, the largest ethic group in Afghanistan easily won the war
in Afghanistan as it was fighting for Afghan nationalism mobilized
by militant Islam, an entirely new mighty ‘non-State’ actor in
international politics. Backed by the Pakistan army, the Taliban regime
in Afghanistan might have endured for years if its militant leaders
were not swallowed by far more radical and aggressive Islamic fundamentalists that have grown into a veritable force in the secret
alleys and bylanes of Saudi Arabia’s claustrophobic, ultra-orthodox
Wahabi Islamic political system.
It is the Wahabi militant Islamic elements in Saudi Arabia who
spearheaded the 9/11 air attack on New York and Washington DC,
which turned out to be a massive blow at one of the four foundation
planks of America’s post-War global leadership.-----Western Europe,
led by Britain as the principal ally, Wahabi Islam as the basis of
U.S,-friendly social and political stability in the vast Islamic space
Extending from West Asia to North Africa, total and unconditional
support for Israel, and cultivation of as many authoritarian, dictatorial
nationalist regimes in Asia as could be enticed by offers of weapons and
Dollars as the two arms of Uncle Sam’s embrace.
The United States has been, for decades, the world’s strongest
Economy, as well as the world leader in technology and innovation.
Indeed, American hegemony in these crucial areas has been
spectacular, even awesome; the US will remain the leader despite
strong strades made by the European Union, Japan, China, India
and other Asian countries. Wars and high military spending
have not eaten into America’s technological, educational, innovative
and economic leadership. But something else also has happened.
There is a slump in America’s status and prestige in the world
community, and a steady decline in the world’s esteem for its
leading position. As a hugely narcissist nation, Americans can hardly
endure the current big downturn in the world’s image of their
country. They now seem to share the global feeling that the
U.S. is in decline, and that it days of global dominion will soon
Come to an end.
Fareed Zakaria has argued that America has failed in its domestic politics rather than in its economy and technology. He has
written in his excellent book The Post-American World ( penguin, 2008)
that what distinguishes the current period of world affairs is not so much as the decline of the United States as the ‘rise of others.” Where
Americans have failed, he adds, is in the field of politics. “As it enters
the twentyfirst century, the United States is not fundamentally a weak
economy or a decadent society. But it has developed a highly dysfunctional politics. An antiquated and overly rigid political system to
begin with------about 225 years old---has been captured by money, special interests, a sensationalist media, and ideological attack groups.
The result is a ceaseless virulent debate about trivia----politics as theatre---and very little substance, compromise, and action. A ‘can-do’
country is now saddled with a ‘do=nothing’ political process, designed
for partisan battle rather than problem solving. By every measure===
the growth of special interests, lobbies, pock-barrel spending---the
political process has become partisan and effective over the last three
decades.”
If the U.S. is now caught in political decay----old age, mental and
intellectual inertia and a slump in its own ability to handle complicated
global issues---it will be even more incapable of facing up to its own foreign policy mistakes and blunders. And as the US fumbles with the war in Afghanistan, the currently last of its Asian wars since World War II, it is imperative that Asian powers themselves step in to help
President Barack Obama to walk out of Afghanistan with his head
nwot too bent. Indeed, I have reason to believe that if China and India,
with the helpof several other Asian countries step forward to find an
Asian solution for Afghanistan, Obama will be much relieved, and indeed to bow out to such a desirable Asian initiative.
An Asian initiative for Afghanistan is in fact both desirable
and possible. It is also eminently achievable. Both Pakistan and the
freshly re-elected president of Afghanistan will be glad to cooperate.
since the Asian Initiative must come jointly from a cluster of Asian
countries----certainly including India, China, Iran, Pakistan,Indonesia
and Afghanistan----the Islamic radicals of Pakistan and Afghanistan
will certainly welcome it.
I earnestly beckon the UPA government, specially prime minister
Manmohan Singh and foreign Minister Krishna, as well as the new foreign secretary Nirupama Rao ( fresh from the embassy in Beijing)
to mull over the idea of an Asian Initiative in Afghanistan and start
sounding China, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia////////