This week, Matthew Rosenberg of the Wall Street Journal wrote an article about President Karzai’s trip to India titled Mr. Karzai Comes to New Delhi. In this article, Mr. Rosenberg described the competition between India & Pakistan for influence in Afghanistan. Mr. Rosenberg began by stating that “…for India – and of course Pakistan – the talk from the West of handing over the reins to the Afghans is more like an opening whistle then a final buzzer.” This was the point of our own look into our long term crystal ball titled The Battle For Afghanistan, Kashmir & Tibet – A Post-American Withdrawal View of the Region.
Mr. Rosenberg is fairly clear about what the Afghans want:
- “Mr. Karzai and many of his political allies fear Pakistan would much prefer to see Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban, which was closely allied to Islamabad when it reigned in the late 1990s…Few in the president’s inner circle express any warmth or admiration for their neighbor….Thousands of Afghan civil servants have been trained in India, and Afghanistan’s intelligence service – the National Directorate of Security – is said by Western officials to enjoy close links with India’s Research and Analysis Wing spy agency.”
Mr. Rosenberg ends his article with the classic and plaintive belief held by the Indian establishment that “…it would make no sense for the U.S. to rush out of Afghanistan, a move that…would effectively hand the country back to the Taliban.” He quotes a senior Indian diplomat in Kabul “The Americans,” he said, “know that what we’re doing here is for the benefit of the Afghan people. That’s not something they want squander.”
As we said, this plaintive cry is symptomatic of the Indian Foreign Policy Establishment. They have convinced themselves that India should be the good obedient docile boy in the world’s high school while Pakistan is the bad boy. They think that sooner or later the world will reward them for being the good boy and punish Pakistan for its bad deeds. This patient, hopeful and almost devotional wait for America & the World to “delegitimize” Pakistan has been the sad crux of India’s foreign policy.
India does not seem disheartened that this wait has been even longer than the proverbial wait for Godot. In a sense, this is a wait that removes any responsibility from India’s leaders for taking any action. They do not need to retaliate against Pakistani terrorists. They do not need to take strong steps to seize parts of Kashmir that are occupied by Pakistan and used to funnel terrorists into India. They do not even have to ban Pakistani Cricketers from making money from Indian crowds and take home the wealth of IPL, India’s rich Cricket league. No, they do not have to do anything. Their approach is to continue being the obedient docile boy in the world’s high school and get praised by Headmasters America & Europe for India’s tolerance and patience.
So the world treats India just as a High School Principal treats a docile boy who always runs crying to the Principal. The world publicly praises India for its good behavior and privately feels contempt for India’s weakness. The World is smart enough to realize that India does not have the will, the heart or the strength to solve its own problems. The World knows that India wants the World to take the risks to punish Pakistan while India does nothing.
So the world does exactly what a crafty Principal does. It verbally scolds the bad boy but does nothing as long as the bad boy does not create problems on a broader scale. In fact, the World actually respects Pakistan for its fighting spirit and recognizes that Pakistan could be helpful to the World at times.
This has been our opinion for some time. We expressed it in our article Do Wolves Attack Sheep? in March 2009.
Apparently, the Obama Administration concurs. At least that was the conclusion of an article by the smart and influential Stratfor. We encourage all readers to not walk but run to the free Stratfor article titled Three Points of View: The United States, Pakistan and India. Unlike us, Stratfor does not list the countries in alphabetical order. Instead they seem to have listed the countries in the order of importance and so naturally, India comes after Pakistan.
The conclusion of the Stratfor article is coldly rational:
- But now, U.S. and Pakistani interests not only appear aligned again, the two countries appear to be laying groundwork for the incorporation of elements of the Taliban into the Afghan state.
- The Indians are concerned that with American underwriting, the Pakistanis not only may be about to re-emerge as a major check on Indian ambitions, but in a form eerily familiar to the sort of state-militant partnership that so effectively limited Indian power in the past. They are right.
- The Indians also are concerned that Pakistani promises to the Americans about what sort of behavior militants in Afghanistan will be allowed to engage in will not sufficiently limit the militants’ activities — and in any event will do little to nothing to address the Kashmiri militant issue. Here, too, the Indians are probably right.
- The Americans want to leave — and if the price of departure is leaving behind an emboldened Pakistan supporting a militant structure that can target India, the Americans seem fine with making India pay that price.
India finds out again that being the obedient docile boy does not lead to success. It only results in being taken for granted and treated as a fool.
Send your feedback to [email protected]
