India being sucked into the Iraqi quagmire

The only allegory that comes even briefly to mind of India being sucked inexorably into the Iraqi quagmire is the sight that legend says transfixed most shipwrecked sailors - a wild-eyed siren beckoning them to their doom.

While that visual maybe an exaggerated one, there is every indication that India is being drawn into a mess that is not of its making. Despite the fervent denials in New Delhi and Washington, the U.S. would like nothing better than to hand over the peace-keeping to allied troops rather than blue berets drawn from countries it cannot count on or control. And India, despite using the fig leaf of a UN mandate and the lack of a domestic political consensus to hold off from full throated participation, desperately wants to be part of the Bush administration's choir, however discordant.

Ruling party insiders have indicated that they deeply envy neighbouring Pakistan's ability to take unpopular decisions – such as the turnaround on the Taliban – that catapulted Islamabad into the vanguard of the U.S. led war against terror, transforming them from international pariah to trusted ally.

India's Bharatiya Janata Party similarly, is over-eager to please the Americans but has been held back from the "strategic opportunity" for a number of reasons. One, the U.S. assidously courted the wrong man – Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani during his Washington visit and back in Delhi, where outgoing U.S. ambassador Robert Blackwill engaged in dinner diplomacy that some say irked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee into a petulant "no" to the U.S. on sending Indian troops to police restive Mosul and the Kurdish held north. The U.S. had missed the obvious – the BJP facing an election year, cannot afford to be seen to put its foot wrong, and has, deep internal debates on policy notwithstanding, always close ranks in public.

The visit by India's Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha to a clutch of countries in the Middle East whose thinking impacts directly on all things Iraqi – Jordan, Syria and Turkey – is in keeping with Sinha's earlier statement that consultations with the trio would be pursued.

Indian diplomats in the region have rationalised the visit by saying it is overdue to countries long neglected. "The economic opportunities in this region in post-war Iraq are huge," a seasoned diplomat said. "Three high level delegations accompanied the minister," that examined the feasibility of working on joint projects in third countries. The Sinha tour is an indication that India is actively examining entering Iraq through the economic portal, rather than take the military route, just as it has in Afghanistan, where its skills in policing, road building, construction, healthcare, aviation and civil services have been vital to the reconstruction effort.

The goodwill that India has in Afghanistan, as in Iraq among the common people is in India's favour, but that goodwill has come about after years of co-operation between India and these countries, fuelled partly by a historical admiration for the icons of India's independence struggle who threw off the colonial yoke. It can quickly erode at the slightest hint that Indian troops have been deployed to crush a rebellion against a new colonial master. In 1919, Indian troops came in under the British umbrella as part of the UN mandate. They served their British masters with distinction in setting up the administrative network that survived through Saddam's regime. But the troops became cannon fodder, facing Iraqi ire during the rebellion in 1920.

Diplomats stress too that Sinha's visit to Amman and Damascus in particular, was aimed at reassuring the Arab world that it had not abandoned the Palestinian cause, that the upcoming visit by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to India was not at the cost of long standing ties to Palestine, that links to Israel are predicated on India's security concerns rising from the "fidayeen" attacks on the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, with Israel providing the latest weaponry to counter the so-called "jihadis". Left unsaid is the fact that the route to the decision makers in Washington lies through Tel Aviv. India's need to build a strategic relationship with the U.S. has been demonstrated time and again with the forging of ties with the previous Clinton administration and now with President George W. Bush.

Blackwill, Bush's man in Delhi, has also made it amply clear that Delhi, by sending troops to fight under the U.S. aegis, would take its place in the sun as a trusted ally. Blackwill, who has led the debate on the need for India to develop a strategic, overarching international stature, is taking up a role as Bush's adviser on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in the coming weeks, outranking Paul Bremer, and will continue to play a key role in the Bush administration. The pressure is unlikely to stop.

New Delhi is aware that by stalling for time – they are now waiting for an invite from the Iraqi Governing Council who are set to approach the UN for a seat at the Security Council – they are losing ground to arch rival Pakistan, which has indicated that given a domestic consensus, and an invite from the Iraqi people, they would be willing to consider the possibility, thereby further cementing the relationship with the U.S.

Therefore, the dilemma before the Indian government is that while being all too aware that it's decision to send troops to Iraq will greatly ease American burdens in Iraq, it must also wrestle with the implications of a backlash, both at home and abroad. It must examine whether in pleasing the U.S. it will also set the backs up of every Arab government they want to create new linkages with in the field of energy and third party trade. Already, by building bridges with Israel, there are grave concerns that India has chosen to sup with the Zionist devil and abandon the Arabs. That New Delhi believes the Arabs have done little to further India's stance on Kashmir cuts little ice in the region.

There's no denying there are independent Arab analysts too, who say that the entry of Indian troops could be one way of getting the U.S. to quit Iraq altogether. However, that premise may be altogether naive, given the manner in which the Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith have maintained their hold on Iraq policy, and seem unlikely to give that up. Feith, for instance has made clear that the U.S., to whom a UN role is anathema, has no intentions of allowing the blue berets back into Iraq. The men whom the U.S. back to govern Iraq are already part of the Governing Council.

The Arab League, which firmly shut the door on Iraq's U.S. appointed Governing Council at Tuesday's meeting in Cairo, removed the ambiguity over the Arab stand on sending foreign troops into Iraq. Secretary General Amr Moussa said sending troops into Iraq was "out of the question, either now or in the future".

The question therefore is whose voice will India heed? Whom will it see as the wild eyed siren, the Arabs or the U.S.?