GW Discourse's World Watch Bloghttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/en-US2008-08-21T05:14:15ZSquarespace Site Server v5.0.0 (http://www.squarespace.com/)Restoration or Disintegrationhttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/8/18/restoration-or-disintegration.htmlYong Kwon2008-08-18T16:23:29ZIn response to a “treacherous and cowardly crime”, the most formidable military force in the world came down upon Afghanistan with a fury [1]. The year, however, was not 2001 and the overconfident military force was not yet the United States. The year was 1878 and the most powerful military force in the world donned the Union Jack. The Union Jack would also fly over Baghdad thirty eight years later when the British “liberated” its denizens from the “tyranny” of the Ottoman Empire [2]. The uncanny resemblance between the past and present of Afghanistan and Iraq incites the modern observer to blur the differences between the two countries. Despite the shared historical experiences of foreign intervention, political violence, and civil war, the fundamental conditions of the two nations could not be more dissimilar. The difference, which can be easily assessed through observing the history and the demographics of the countries, assures a glimmer of hope for the nation of Iraq and utter bleakness for the people of Afghanistan. The conclusions of a historically informed analysis of the conflict reveal the imperative need for the creation of civil institutions that can consolidate both authority and legitimacy. Furthermore, the presence of foreign forces poses a great liability to the stability and function of the much needed civil institutions. The examination of history and society does not guarantee the production of a fail proof policy, nevertheless it must remain the core means of establishing a sustainable plan for conflict resolution.

One would perhaps assume that since Afghanistan has thwarted two attempts by foreign powers to subjugate its people, the country has a relatively strong sense of collective identity that transcends the ethnic divisions within the nation. However, the assumption is not supported by the reality of widespread inter-ethnic violence and a complete absence of legitimacy for any system or figure in Kabul. On the other hand, Iraq, which started its history as a mandate with a foreign monarchy, was able to consolidate political legitimacy and maintain structural integrity even after the murder of the royal family. Thus one is left with an anomaly of an artificial nation, whose physical and structural framework was created by the British, establishing a more sustainable political entity than a nation that maintained self-determination through collective military struggle.

The political conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been historically inversed. While Iraqis rebelled against the British mandate and then the pro-British monarchy, Afghanistan enjoyed relative political stability. Although Iraq suffered heavy casualties during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, it enjoyed political security under the iron fist of Saddam Hussein while Afghanistan fell apart in the chaos of the Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed. In fact, the post-911 invasions were the first time the misfortunes of civil war and political violence of both nations coincided with one another. What is important to discern is the reason why political stability in Iraq ascended prior to the Gulf Wars and why Afghanistan does not seem capable of recovering to the level of stability it enjoyed before the ousting of its monarchy in 1973.

The key difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is that Iraq has been upheld by an institution that was both spontaneous and fundamental to its existence while Afghanistan’s source of legitimacy was liable to removal. The collapse of the Iraqi monarchy was predictable when it ignored popular sentiments and aided the British and Israeli forces against Gamal Nasser’s Egypt during the Suez Crisis [3]. While the king further jeopardized his legitimacy, the nation, divided between nationalist and Pan-Arab factions, was held together by the army. The army as a civil institution transcended tribal differences and constructed an atmosphere of interaction and empathy between the urban and rural populations by means of conscription. Military officers produced in the process were from rural, urban, Shiite, and Sunni backgrounds with a shared identity and consciousness of being Iraqi. It was among these young officers that the Free Officer’s Movement was formed to thwart the colonial legacy and conceive a proper nation-state. What the military had provided in Iraq was the collapse of the spatial division in the country that could not be achieved by the British and French method of protracting borders and establishing virtually foreign institutions.

The role of the military as nation builders is not unprecedented in Europe; Napoleon Bonaparte achieved the same result through conscription which consolidated ideologically torn France, split along urban and rural lines, and forged a unified national identity.

On the other hand, Afghanistan’s stability relied solely on the existence of the monarchy which had no guarantee of sustainability. The last king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah, was ousted in 1973 in favor of a republican system. At the time, Afghanistan did not practice conscription or any other means of consolidating the various ethnic groups, thus there were no institutions to embody the legitimacy of the new central government in Kabul. The lack of legitimacy made the central government vulnerable to domestic forces that did not see itself as having any less legitimate to control the entire nation.

Translating historical facts into policy, one must recognize the fault in the attempts by the United States to stabilize multi-ethnic states through a “surge” of military build up and or the partition along the ethno-religious divisions in the country.

In 1920, Prime Minister Lloyd George refused to withdraw British forces from Iraq despite rapidly rising casualties in the insurgency that followed the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. He warranted his decision to the parliament by stating that anything less than an increased engagement of the British in the insurgency would abandon the new nation to “anarchy and confusion” [4]. Despite years of military involvement, the British efforts to uphold Iraq’s pro-British monarchy ended in failure. Yet unlike Lloyd George’s predictions, Iraq did not fall into pieces when King Faisal II, figurehead of British colonialism, was gunned down by the soldiers of the Free Officers’ Movement. What ultimately conserved Iraq was the consolidation of authority in an institution that represented the multitudes of Iraq, not British expertise on colonial administration.

The continued predominance of American military involvement within Iraq further deters the central government from being able to establish legitimacy and authority. Before dispelling the efficacy of the surge, one must understand that the current build up of military forces in Iraq is not bringing the number of troops to an unprecedented level but merely bringing the number back to its state in 2004. Despite its grand namesake, the surge will not be able to levy enough troops to create a difference in the pivotal issue of security. Thus, by creating pockets of protection, the United States is widening the gaps between the affluent and the disenfranchised, the rural and the urban, and the protected and the vulnerable.

The division created by deficient protection will, more than anything, hamper Iraq’s ability to create not only a stable society but also a democratic system in the near future. Case studies of unstable democracies reveal information inequality to be the key cause of social deterioration. This relegates the underprivileged, who are often concentrated in unsafe and poor pockets, into a cliental relationship with their representatives and or protectors [5]. The compounded consequence of inequality created by differing levels of protection undermines the basis of democracy which depends upon a well informed populous seeking long term benefits not mere short term gains. To create a fair, rational, and sustainable society, there must be interaction between all parts of the nation.

The United States of America inadvertently resolved the issue of political interaction even before its independence. Descriptions of Colonial Philadelphia depict a city where the rich elites and the underprivileged lived side by side, engaging in cooperative commerce. This was not a conscious effort but rather the result of the need for quick accessibility to labor before technological advances such as trains or automobiles. It did not resolve existing tensions between social classes nor created a lasting basis of unity. Nonetheless, this cooperative urban setting collapsed the classes into a single space and was the social basis for the United States of America [6].

Adding fuel to the crisis of division, many analysts have proposed a plan for the partition of Iraq. The prospect of partitioning Iraq along its ethno-religious divisions had presented itself since the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq. Public intellectuals and the media found the reasons for partition too obvious to contemplate beyond the popular rhetoric on the inability of Shiites and Sunnis to compromise coexistence within shared territories. However, if one is to hold these facts to be self evident then considerations must also be taken for the partition of Afghanistan. Despite the logical conclusions, reflections on the partition of Afghanistan have been mostly dismissed. This inconsistency in the analysis of post-invasion status of Iraq and Afghanistan reveal the lack of consideration taken for the social and historical elements of both nations.

A surface comparison of history between the two nations would suggest that partition is a more ready solution for Iraq and not for Afghanistan because the former was an imperial construction while the latter had been sustained on its own accord. This claim is further substantiated by the fact that Afghanistan does not have a consolidated ethno-religious minority, like the Sunni or Kurds in Iraq, but rather multitudes of dispersed minorities like Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, Aimak, Pamiri, and Nuristani. Nonetheless, with Tajik officers dominating 70% of the leadership in Afghanistan’s army and the Taliban insurgency fueled mostly by Pashtun fighters, the conflict in Afghanistan is as sectarian as the one ascribed to Iraq [7]. Furthermore, Afghanistan has the added bonus of having no recollection of a civil institution that had effectively collapse the differences between the people at any moment in its history.

The policy of partition also carries the danger of further intensifying the conflict between the dominant and minority ethnic groups. The creation of nation-states consistently produced popular sentiments in previously multiethnic communities that the dominant group has the rights to openly rule over or even abuse minorities. The partition of India saw the explosion of violence between the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities based on deep seethed tensions going back to the origins of British administration of India [8]. When Indians began to conceive Hinduism as an integral past of their nation identity, many people began to alienate the Sikhs and Muslims who nonetheless prior to the partition were considered Indians. Other examples include Yugoslavia and the Eastern European states that were created after the First World War. Invariably these places became areas of intense violence and sometimes genocides. With the ethno-religious sensitivity heightened by the collapse of traditional institutions of order, one must question the rationality of repeating the policy of partition in Iraq.

The crucial assignment for both Iraq and Afghanistan is to create an institution that could consolidate both authority and legitimacy. The failure of the American administration and military to aid in this process reveals the lack of social and historical assessment that went into the post invasion planning. Policies in the Middle East and elsewhere must be historically informed and must achieve order and stability that can be enjoyed by the entirety of the nation. If national consciousness is to be conserved at the point of the barrel, it should be Iraqis and Afghanis who hold the guns. It is absurd to expect the American army to consolidate national consciousness on behalf of a nation seeking sovereignty. The surge of American forces may win a few more years of meaningless struggle; however, if the objective of the West’s mission in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent is to produce stability and democracy, then the people of the respective nations must attain the prerequisites of sovereignty and self determination by their own right.


Works cited

[1]General Roberts, declaration to the people of Kabul, 1879

[2] Lieutenant General F.S. Maude, proclamation to the people of Baghdad, 1917

[3] Shlaim, Avi. War and Peace in the Middle East . London: Penguin Books, 1994. 32.

[4] Hasnard, Commons, vol. 127, cols. 662-4, 25 March 1920.

[5] Renno, Lucio R. “Inequalities of Political Information and Participation,” from Gootenberg, Paul and Reygadas, Luis (eds.) Constructed Inequalities: New Perspectives from Latin American History, Politics, and Culture , Duke University Press, forthcoming.

[6] Thompson, Peter. Run, Punch, and Revolution: Tavern going and Public Life in Eighteenth Century Philadelphia . Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1999. 9.

[7]Giustozzi, Antonio. "Afghanistan’s National Army: The Ambiguous Prospects of Afghanization." The Jamestown Foundation Global terrorism analysis . 1 May 2008. <http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?issue_id=4476>.

[8] British forces during the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 utilized Sikh forces to recapture Delhi against Bengali Hindus and Muslims of Oudh. Wolpert, Stanley. Shameful Flight . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 23.


]]>The Devil Went Down to Georgiahttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/8/14/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia.htmlYong Kwon2008-08-14T22:11:23ZThe war in Georgia was more than a conflict over the breakaway states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it was an affirmation of the prevailing speculation that Pax Americana was declining. The resolute message from Moscow was that Russia will have the final say on the affairs of the former Soviet republics while NATO acknowledged that it won’t stand up against Russia on behalf of any nation outside its alliance. What is happening in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus is the dangerous polarization of states into political, economic, and military zones of interest. The consequences of the West’s inactivity during the five days of Russian military intervention will be felt in the near future. In response, the United States must not withdraw from international activity, despite debauched interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, but prepare to flex its remaining prowess to minimize the widening fault line that now stretches from Abkhazia to Xinjiang.

President Medvedev has criticized Europe’s negative response to Russia’s military campaign in Georgia as hypocritical, pointing to Europe’s silence in the wake of the Georgian offensive into South Ossetia that originally sparked the conflict. At the same time, Russia’s sudden interest in preserving the autonomy of ethnic minorities calls into question its fierce opposition to Kosovo’s independence and its ongoing repression against the Chechen separatists. What Medvedev called “hypocrisy” goes both ways. Both Russia and the European Union are unabashedly vying to consolidate their spheres of influence.

Disregarding the empty rhetoric from both sides, nonintervention in Georgia was a concession from NATO in return for Russia’s cooperation with Kosovo’s independence earlier this year; quid pro quo. However, the “peaceful” overture of mutual understanding is a short term reality in this fragile world without a hegemon authorizing arbitration. Moreover, amidst shortages of both fuel and food, vast reserves of natural resources and grain in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Ukraine pose as lucrative spoils of conflict. Although it is doubtful that NATO and Russia will clash this year or next, eventually the new iron curtain will create friction along ethnically volatile areas of the Balkans, Caucasus, and Central Asia, threatening global security and peace. It was a mere nineteen year old named Gavrilo Princip who lit the final fuse of the First World War; over dependency on constancy, reliability, or rationality of people is perilous.

Eduard Shevardnadze, the former president of Georgia, had already foreseen how vulnerable his lonely country was to Russian aggression. He implemented plans to admit Georgia to both the European Union and NATO while successfully securing the deal to have a major oil pipeline ( Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline ) pass through Georgia. Despite his efforts to align Georgia with the West and establish key points of western interest, the European Union and the United States were unwilling to provoke Russia’s fury. Furthermore, with Russian supply of arms playing a crucial role in suppressing the Taliban insurgency, the United States does not want to risk losing critical support in Afghanistan. Moreover, even if a resolution was brought before the United Nations, Russia would have vetoed any action to condemn or deter Russian military activities (once again calling into question the efficacy of permanent membership in the security council).

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia had made an inexcusable error in assuming that either the Russians would not respond out of apprehension of Western intervention or the West would aid Georgia if Russia did engage militarily. His offensive into South Ossetia was a failure to see the larger scope of events outside of the Caucasus. With a successful military campaign, unhindered by foreign intervention, Russia has reasserted itself militarily on its former strategic zone of interest. As a consequence of Russian military presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus, arbitration of ethno-political conflicts, especially in West Asia, will become more difficult, for competing interests from both parties will disrupt critical political agreements from coming into fruition (As an example, the Madrid Conference of 1991, which effectively began negotiations between Palestine and Israel, achieved certain successes because a powerful United States was able to arbitrate fully with the cooperation of a severely weakened Soviet Union). Additionally, with the European Union limited from further expansion, Europe will sink deeper into exclusionary trade policies and disenfranchise nations stuck between the first and the second worlds. The unfortunate political and economic conditions of the bipolar world during the Cold War is replicating itself perfectly.

NATO and the United States would have undoubtedly liked to have seen the Georgians hold the Russian advance. The aspiration (or desperation) to see the Georgians win without direct western aid is evident in the transportation of 800 Georgian troops and 11 tons of equipment by the United States from Iraq to Georgia on August 11th despite the crucial role that the Georgian contingent fulfilled on the Iran-Iraq border. Unfortunately, such miracles cannot be expected from the ranks of the corrupt Georgian military or against the formidable firepower of the Russian military.

Current fears are that the Russians are planning on continuing with the invasion after a brief hiatus and occupy Georgia as the Bolsheviks had done in 1924. However, a complete occupation of Georgia will be difficult for the Russians. While NATO will accept the secession of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, it will not see Russian occupation of Georgia as a just measure for the concessions in Kosovo. Also, despite devastating losses, nationalist fervor is high in Tbilisi as Georgians prepare to resist against a potential Russian offensive to capture the capital.

What is intimidating about the crisis in Georgia is the manner in which the current events have all the elements of a disaster scenario. What we know from history is that a similar volatile ethnic friction between a struggling nation-state and an empire sparked the First World War which terminated four royal families and set the stage the Second World War. If the scale of future violence is to be minimized, the United States needs to be act quickly. Aiding Georgia through supplies and establishing missile defense in Poland will not be nearly enough to halt the growing schism. The United States must act multilaterally, play the Chinese against the Russians, and improve relations with regional powers like Iran to reduce the channels through which Russia can discredit the international governing bodies. The west has the opportunity to reverse the trend which we followed in the 20th century and create a more cooperative and peaceful world, or the 21st century can turn into a living nightmare just as, if not more, violent than the century past.

]]>Olmert's Resignation...Who's next??http://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/7/31/olmerts-resignationwhos-next.htmlSarah Khederian2008-07-31T17:55:10ZEhud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, announced yesterday that he would resign in September when his party will hold new elections. His resignation came from allegations of unreported donations made by a Long-Islander, Morris Talansky. Who will be the next prime minister of Israel? This TIME article examines the question well.


"Israel After Olmert" - Andrew Lee Butters

The surprising thing about Ehud Olmert's announcement on Wednesday was not his declared intention to resign in September as Prime Minister of Israel after just two years in office; it's that he managed to last this long. Olmert's handling of the botched Lebanon war in the summer of 2006 plunged his approval ratings into the single digits, and he never really recovered the confidence of the Israeli electorate. Still, he hung on, even when he became the target of a criminal investigation into corruption allegations, promising to resign in the event of an indictment. Some will see the fact that he has chosen to do so now, making clear that he will not be a candidate when his Kadima Party holds a primary to choose a new leader in September, as a sign that charges may be in the offing over the case of U.S. businessman Morris Talansky, who has admitted to giving Olmert large undeclared donations.


Politically speaking, Olmert may have been a dead man walking for more than a year now, but leaving an enfeebled and unpopular Prime Minister in place may have suited most of his potential successors, each of whom who has used the intervening period to burnish his or her own claims. And despite his dire domestic political prospects, Olmert focused his energies on Israel's relations with its neighborhood. He has called time on his tenure at a moment when he is engaged in talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas over the terms of a future peace agreement, as well as indirect negotiations with Abbas' rivals in the Hamas movement that controls Gaza and also with Syria. He has also been lobbying international support (particularly the U.S.) for tough action to deter Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons. So how will all these issues, which could have major regional and international consequences, play out without him at Israel's helm?

In short, very little is likely to change on any of those fronts. The significance of Olmert's talks with Abbas, at the behest of the Bush Administration, were routinely overstated. The Palestinian leader may not have substantially greater standing among his own people than Olmert does in Israel, yet the talks were confined only to Abbas' Fatah organization — which is not actually at war with Israel — and were expressly designed to avoid Hamas, which remains engaged in confronting Israel. And their purpose was not to arrive at a deal for implementation, but rather to achieve a hypothetical settlement that would be shelved for a better day. Many in the region saw the Olmert-Abbas talks as more reflective of a U.S.-Israeli effort to isolate more militant elements that might be allied with Syria and Iran than of any serious intent to expeditiously resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The irony, of course, is that those elements the U.S. and Israel had hoped to isolate have done a lot better over the past couple of years than have politicians like Abbas who enjoy U.S. favor.

Pragmatic objectives such as halting Palestinian rocket fire out of Gaza and recovering a kidnapped Israeli soldier being held there have prompted the Israelis to abandon their own taboo against dealing with Hamas and negotiate a cease-fire via Egypt. Those pragmatic imperatives will remain even after Olmert has left the scene, as will the ones that prompted Israel to begin negotiating with Syria via Turkey this past spring, in the hope that Damascus can be detached from Iran — something officials close to the Syrian leadership have told TIME will not happen. And the effort to press for action against Iran was never dependent on Olmert's own political standing.

Still, Olmert's departure may bring on a new episode of political instability in Israel. His party, Kadima, has little by way of a defining political identity, having been created by a grouping of breakaway pragmatists from the right-wing Likud Party and held together by the forceful personality of Ariel Sharon — who remains in a coma more than two years after suffering a stroke. Olmert's successor as party leader could be the more dovish Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni or the hawkish Transportation Minister and former army chief Shaul Mofaz. Nor is it clear that whomever Kadima chooses will automatically assume the reins of government; the coalition that kept Olmert in power could break apart. Right now many polls show that a new election could just as easily return the even more hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to power. (Both Mofaz and Netanyahu have advocated military action against Iran's nuclear program.) Whatever his personal failings as a leader, Olmert's tenure was a reflection of a long-term stalemate in Israeli politics, in which no party is capable of governing without the support of a phalanx of others who don't share its perspectives and intentions.

That post-Sharon political drift, combined with the serial reversals suffered by the Bush Administration across the Middle East — and its lame-duck status as the region waits for a new U.S. president — may at least explain why Israel's political class had been willing to allow Olmert to stumble on for so long. Now, Israel's leaders will be forced to forge a new equilibrium in a more testing time.

]]>Bush Faces the Musichttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/7/21/bush-faces-the-music.htmlDaniel Rozenson2008-07-21T16:31:01ZStephen Colbert once said of President Bush, "He stands for the same thing on Wednesday as he did on Monday . . . no matter what happened Tuesday!" This used to be true all the time, but now as Bush winds down on his last few months, it is less the case. He has made some changes in foreign policy in just the last few weeks that signal almost an admission of defeat. He is realizing that it is OK to be wrong as president, as long as you realize your mistakes and correct them. As The Boston Globe noted yesterday, these changes are being noticed and felt across the political spectrum. Bush is being seen as rejecting the overly confining neoconservative-hardline policies that especially marked his first term and advocated by those such as John Bolton (who is now one of his chief critics).

The US is now on the road to repairing its relationship with North Korea, but only after Bush got over himself and ordered high-level bilateral talks with Pyongang, something he had refused to do since labeling the Koreans part of the "axis of evil." Years of relying either on half-assed multilateral talks or on scolding Kim Jong-Il produced nothing, but this new approach of trying direct discussions seems to be working.

Another obvious example of this trend is his recent decision to send Undersecretary of State William Burns to join European leaders in meeting with Saeed Jalili, the chief nuclear negotiator of Iran. Although his presence predictably did not change the Iranians' minds, it could mean future tactical uses of similar deployments of senior diplomats. I say "tactical use" because I doubt that direct negotiation without precondition will work to our favor in the end as a strategy, but they carry enormous symbolic value. The only way for an airstrike on Iranian nuclear facilities to have credibility worldwide is if all other options had truly been exhausted. We will be able to say that we tried sanctions, incentives offers, direct negotiations without precondition, and none of these produced our desired outcome. When Bush says that "all options are on the table," only now is he starting to tell the truth.

]]>Is India Diminishing?http://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/7/10/is-india-diminishing.htmlYong Kwon2008-07-10T07:13:04ZSouth AsiaThe deadly attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7th, 2008 may not only propel India deeper into the trenches of Afghanistan but also test its prowess as a regional power. The course of action that India takes in the following months may dictate whether or not it is still able to assert its influence in a unipolar world. In order to take those steps in Afghanistan, New Delhi needs to produce a long term policy, superseding any petty antagonisms, and execute its doctrine with the vigor and certainty worthy of the nation that had once led the non-alignment movement. However, India today lacks the military readiness or diplomatic shrewdness that it once had under the likes of Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Under the façade of industrial growth and Bollywood, India has fundamental problems that needs to be resolved if it is to be politically significant in the post cold war era.

By no means is India insignificant. Along side its recent acquisition of a nuclear deal with the United States, India has also successfully reached an agreement with the IAEA, limiting international monitoring of India’s nuclear program. Under the approval of being able to "take corrective measures to ensure uninterrupted operation of its civilian nuclear reactors in the event of disruption of foreign fuel supplies" and not having placed any nuclear reactors under international watch, India can potentially bolster its nuclear arsenal. More explicitly exhibiting its influence, India has sent peacekeepers to Sri Lanka and more than 3,000 aid workers to Afghanistan. By maintaining close ties with Bangladesh and wooing the military junta of Myanmar, India is taking active steps to consolidate its influence over the region. In light of India’s active interest in becoming a powerful influence, the recent attack on its embassy in Afghanistan tests India’s ability to protect its interests in a conflict that has brought the world powers unto India’s historic turf.

India is no stranger to Afghanistan. It had maintained a cordial relationship and strong economic ties with Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979. It continued to maintain ties with the Soviet backed regime of Najibullah while the rest of South Asia severed their relations. As the Soviet Union withdrew and Najibullah’s regime waned, the increasing terrorist attacks on India, sanctioned by the Taliban, made India a key supporter of the anti-Taliban resistance. The hijacking of Indian Airlines flight 814 in 1999 and the bombing of the Bamiyan Buddha in 2001 marked key moments of tension between the Taliban and India. The civil war between the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, and the Northern Alliance allowed two rival nuclear powers to fight a quasi proxy war on Afghan soil. The ISI ( Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence service ) has allegedly aided in the terrorist attacks against India, including the most recent embassy bombing on July 7th. Reopening its embassy on the day Hamid Karzai became president, sending the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, and maintaining consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar represented India’s commitment to reconstructing a crucial ally against Pakistan.

New Delhi sees suppressing the Taliban insurgency as undermining Pakistan’s influence and sovereignty by discrediting Islamabad in the eyes of the tribes in Waziristan. However, continuing its directionless policy of antagonism against Pakistan ultimately hinders India’s ability to achieve its goals of a stable Afghanistan. The geographic proximity of Pakistan and India to Afghanistan makes the two countries the most crucial actors in the stability of the troubled nation. This time there are no superpowers to play off of each other for India’s benefit. All the interests involved in the Hindu Kush revolve around stabilizing the region; Russia must prove its ability to protect its quasi client states in Central Asia from the instabilities of Afghanistan; China can only continue its economic expansion into Central Asia once Russia’s security assets are no longer necessary; Europe and the United States desperately needs to end the violence to be able to leave the bloody quagmire. Despite having the support of the international community for a more proactive presence in Afghanistan, India (in the same manner of dealing with the crisis in Jammu and Kashmir) failed to adopt a long term policy towards rebuilding Afghanistan and continues to merely react to day to day events.

The Taliban insurgency is not something that can be resolved through a mightier military opposition. Having been more or less militarily uninvolved, India is thus far unmarred by the guilt of “collateral damage”; however, the attack on the embassy may propel the Indian military to be directly involved. Afghanistan is a mine field of atrocity producing situations with ethno-religious sensitivity waiting to undo the efforts of the world powers. The presence of Indian forces in Afghanistan may be a liability more than an asset. What is required of India would be taking a greater role in the physical reconstruction and reestablishing the trade that existed prior to 1979. As a consequence of being physically separated, India will require Pakistan’s assistance for any meaningful contribution to the conflict resolution.

What is holding back India from achieving not only greater stability in Afghanistan, but also its promised role as a regional power is its antagonistic relationship with Pakistan. Historically, it had been the conflict with Pakistan that had always forced India off its middle path during the Cold War. Eventually India’s proximity to the Soviet Union brought the American Seventh Fleet to the Indian Ocean, compromising its sovereignty. The excessive hostility between the two countries had almost terminated India’s non-alignment doctrine. India must resolve its fundamental tension with Pakistan if it wishes to advance politically or successfully stabilize Afghanistan. Unfortunately, observing India’s recent track record, such an ambitious political move is near impossible.

In 1971, during the crisis of Bangladeshi independence, Indira Gandhi successfully isolated the United States in the UN Security Council with brilliant diplomacy and blocked any resolutions favoring Pakistan. When the conflict escalated, India acted swiftly and pulverized the Pakistani military force in fourteen days. None of the former shrewdness or poise is present in India’s actions today. Although sending armored divisions and flying sorties into Afghanistan is not advisable, not pursuing any policy out of fear of escalation is a pathetic exhibit by a country that claims to be a regional power. It seems as though the Taliban insurgency is the only group that is anything but exhibitionist in the region.

Indian inactivity looks more wretched when one considers its confused policy towards Myanmar and its abysmal human rights record. While India prides itself of being the largest democracy in the world, its policies towards Myanmar have done nothing to advance the cause of individual freedom. India has approached the military junta of Myanmar for greater military cooperation while continuing to support the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, gaining the full support of neither groups. More appalling is the report by the Asian Center for Human Rights that details the abuse of prisoners in Indian prisons and the widespread use of torture and rape in the country. According to the well accredited report, 7,468 people have been killed in custody between 2002 and 2007 and an equal number of people have fallen victim under military or paramilitary custody. Deeply embarrassed, New Delhi has refused to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to further assess custodial torture. With international standing plummeting and stagnant foreign policy, India may well soon lose all political credibility and standing as a political power.

The world will have its critical eye on India as it reacts to the embassy bombing. India must show that it has taken an active initiative to not only be more proactive in South Asia but also to resolve its domestic problems and stand firm with the principles of democracy. India cannot continue to pursue a policy befitting a bygone era; if it wishes to be still politically viable in the near future, it must resolve the very issues that are holding it back and define a policy upon which the global powers involved in Afghanistan can follow. If India loses this opportunity, history will not be forgiving.

]]>India to approve Nuclear Dealhttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/7/8/india-to-approve-nuclear-deal.htmlAkhilesh Pillalamarri2008-07-08T22:57:56ZSouth AsiaIn recent news, the ruling Congress Party in India has finally announced that it intends to approve the long stalled civilian nuclear deal with the United States. This comes as welcome news. The deal was previously blocked by the Communist Party of India which had threatened to leave the ruling coalition if the deal were approved. They argued that the deal threatened India's sovereignty. This is not true, as it only opened up India's civilian plants to inspections, not its military nuclear arsenal. The deal would strengthen India's civilian nuclear resources, as well as its standing in the world. It would also strengthen the US-India alliance, at a time when both countries need each other in face of China and Pakistan. The Communist Party of India has already withdrawn from the coalition and the Congress Party will probably loose elections to the more business-friendly and less-corrupt BJP in the near future. Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see a party put future benefit of its country above holding on to power.

]]>NIE Still Wronghttp://www.gwdiscourse.com/worldwatchblog/2008/7/7/nie-still-wrong.htmlDaniel Rozenson2008-07-07T14:47:20ZMideastI know that I am beating a very dead horse, but sometimes people need to be reminded of the horse's demise, as it were. The United States intelligence agencies and the IAEA have been duped -- Iran is actively seeking to produce advanced nuclear weapons technology as we speak. They are creating more modern and efficient centrifuges for enriching uranium in facilities that -- surprise! -- are not subject to IAEA inspections. Simultaneously, the Iranians are refusing an incentives package from Europe that would ostensibly end the nuclear standoff for now.

Not two weeks ago IAEA chief Mohammed El-Baradei estimated that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in six months. Strangely, he also threatened to resign if the United States or Israel was to attack Iran militarily. I say this is strange, because why does he think anyone would care if he resigned? His agency is a hopeless exercise, as has proven time and time again. He is probably still not convinced that Syria was in the process of developing a nuclear program of its own before Israel stopped it last September. I try my best to have faith in international institutions, but El-Baradei demonstrates the limits of their capabilities.

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