To play its new role, Delhi can’t be timid

If the attack on an Israeli diplomat in the heart of New Delhi brought the ferment in West Asia to India’s doorstep, it presents a dilemma for the Indian leadership to define its attitude towards a web of issues that involve regional players and outside actors. The Arab Spring has changed the Arab world irrevocably. While Tunisia and Egypt are wrestling with the problems of a new order that is emerging, Libya’s future is clouded by the consequences of a Western intervention and Syria is in the throes of a struggle that surrounds President Bashar Assad’s increasingly tenuous attempts to stay on.
Over this complex melange hangs the spectre of Israel, a nuclear power and America’s most loyal ally that drives Washington’s policy towards the region as much as it is a victim of its own hubris in continuing to frustrate Palestinian attempts in winning freedom by occupying conquered land and colonising it and ruling over millions of people either as conquerors or by classing them as second class citizens in Israel proper (the expanded pre-1967 area).
India’s historically close relations with the region have been dominated in the post-1947 phase by the export of labour and technical expertise as well as an affinity with Arabs represented by the Arab League and a passionate endorsement, particularly after 1967, of the Palestinians’ right to their own state. Building relations with Israel was at first attempted gingerly, given Arab sensitivities, particularly in the pre-Camp David Accord era, until Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coalition took a bolder line which was later endorsed by the UPA government, most recently by external affairs minister S.M. Krishna’s high-profile visit to Israel.
Among the reasons that have led to closer Indo-Israeli relations are the intensifying defence relationship, particularly in high-technology military weapons and equipment, and the sway Israel has over Washington’s policies towards the region. Israel’s influence over America has never been greater, irrespective of who occupies the White House, and to the feared clout of Israel’s Jewish American lobbies on Capitol Hill is the strong endorsement of the evangelicals. Any criticism of Israel by an American politician signifies the end of his career.
In the days before the Arab Spring, India has been balancing its relations with Israel and the Arab world with help from the Arab states. Both Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel and some other states, particularly Qatar, have flirted with Tel Aviv. Besides, tensions were less acute while the United States was making a serious attempt at seeking peace between Israel and Palestinians. Washington’s policy changed with President George W. Bush and later half-hearted efforts went nowhere because the Israeli leaders’ ambitions grew exponentially and they belied that their dream of a Greater Israel was well within reach.
The Arab Spring changed the picture because the traditional despotic rulers fell, Iran became the big bad boy for the US and the West because its nuclear ambitions, internal contradictions and suppression of dissent combined to place it in the dock in the Western world. Iran’s own options seemed to be narrowing because Syria, its only Arab friend, was itself in an elemental struggle while the post-American withdrawal mess in Shia-majority Iraq presaged a wider Shia-Sunni divide. Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council became the leader of the anti-Shia forces, as became evident in Riyadh’s military support to Bahrain’s minority Sunni-rulers against the Shia majority.
Against this backdrop, negotiating India’s policies to a safe harbour is a task requiring the highest diplomatic skills. Thus far, Tel Aviv has been a concerned spectator as events swirled around it. It deeply mourned the unseating of Hosni Mubarak but could do little to help him. It came out of its shell when Israeli diplomats became the target of terrorists in more than one country. Inevitably, it homed in on Iran and both Israel and the US have ostentatiously left the option of attacking Iran’s nuclear establishments on the table. In the US and Western copybook, only Israel should have a nuclear weapon capability in West Asia, a stand endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Thus far, India has been right in endorsing the Arab League resolution in the UN Security Council and in the General Assembly while refusing to name Iran in the anti-Israeli attack on Indian soil short of foolproof evidence. Closer interactions with Tel Aviv do not mean accepting the Israeli view of colonising Palestinian land nor does New Delhi have to subscribe to the Western and Israeli view of painting Iran as the devil. The difficulty will, of course, arise if the West convinces the rest of the world that sanctioning Iran by denying it the export of its most precious commodity is absolutely necessary. Obviously, there is a tradeoff involved in maintaining good
relations with Washington.
New Delhi will also have to get out of the habit of taking the line of least resistance because difficult issues of balancing options require bold decisions. In the immediate future, it will require balancing Israel with keeping the line open to Iran. Whatever its reservations, New Delhi has already welcomed the changes caused by the Arab Spring but followed the African Union, not the Arab League, line on Western intervention in Libya. Again, despite its initial hesitation, it endorsed the plan asking President Assad to step aside.
But this is the beginning, not the end, of the story. By all accounts, Syria is destined to see more bloodshed and Turkey and Iran will be among the regional actors vying for contested space vacated by a devastated Syria. New Delhi’s priority will be to bring bloodshed to an end in Syria and elsewhere in the region. While it cannot be a major player, it can give judicious advice to key players and should risk annoying principal actors by taking sensible positions. In a sense, India is on test in its ambition to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Timidity will not win India support.