‘‘It is in India’s interest to be involved in Iraq’’

The idea that political leaders can lie low while a foreign policy debate ebbs and flows past them, and that they can emerge from under the table when the verdict is clear is plain silly. There are obviously democracies and democracies. Mature ones are led by political leaders who shape the public discourse, and not merely duck under the table when the rotten eggs are being thrown.

A tragic aspect of the debate over sending our troops to Iraq was the participation of well-meaning and ethically-minded educated people, who only have a dim perception of how armed forces are used by a state in peacetime. For them, men in uniform are loyal unthinking machines, to be used as a blunt instrument under the orders of a largely uneducated, but smart officer corps, to exert maximum force. It went beyond them to believe that the Indian army in Iraq could actually be there more to help the Iraqis than to suppress them, in the same way that the Army or Navy go to Orissa during the floods or to Bhuj after the earthquake. The military objective then was not so ridiculous as to suppress the Oriyas, but to help them. It is unfortunate that the army leadership, who know that overwhelming force reduces casualties, were partly led astray by a misdirected debate. They opted for what looked like a heavy combatant force, with inadequate humanitarian help units like the medical corps, engineers, Border Roads Battalions etc.

The Iraqis are not so stupid as to attack an Indian military hospital running two large OPDs in three four big cities. Nor are the Iraqis so unintelligent as to shoot at an Indian engineer regiment rebuilding a bombed-out bridge of theirs or get in the way of an Indian Border Roads Battalion which hires unemployed local Iraqis to rebuild roads. The question is, how does the Iraqi know what the Indian Army is coming to do? The Iraqis have to be told, and this requires a massive pre-induction preparation, that goes beyond the expertise of the Army. And this is where one comes up again and again with the absence of any life from what is plainly the job of the National Security Council.

Sending an entire division to Iraq would have required a massive diplomatic and ambassadorial back-up plan. Since this is an entirely unclassified matter, it would help in future situations of a similar kind, if the file on the diplomatic preparation for the induction of the army to Iraq could be made available as a training file either at the Foreign Service Training Institute or at the National Defence College, or both.

The man who raised a public debate on India’s strategic culture died recently in Washington. Since George Tanham wrote his erudite but critical piece, our culture has undoubtedly improved. But the history of this culture when it comes to transborder deployment is hesitant, unsure and timid. We spurned Tunku Abdul Rehman’s offer of a strategic partnership in 1962 when it was offered to us on being attacked by China — and we then spent six years in the nineties trying to get into the ARF. We ignored the mounting conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils for 12 years, before impetuously sending the IPKF into Sri Lanka. We did nothing while the Indians were abused, attacked and hounded out of Uganda, Zanzibar and Fiji. For eight years we watched our tankers being attacked in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war. We missed the chance to join the multinational minesweeping force that made Kuwait Harbour safe after Desert Storm. Our Air Force and Navy sat idle when Air India lifted half-a-million Indians out of the Middle East before Desert Storm.

We have a total of 1.3 million men in uniform, but quite often the Indian state behaves as though it possesses no armed forces. This deficiency is what is going to become more and more prominent in the post 9/11 world. A national security policy based on the ridiculous political rhetoric of ‘‘defending every inch of our sacred territory’’ is banal, anachronistic and suited only for a Hindi movie dialogue.

Our strategic culture is concerned with our strategic frontiers, which go far beyond our territorial limits. Our Afghanistan policy has been handled brilliantly. Denied geographical access, the Indian effort to remain a player in Kabul has been managed with intelligence and sophistication, which obviously means that somewhere in our set-up there are individuals with vision and energy.

It is in India’s interest to be involved in the pacification and stabilisation of Iraq. The public mood seems to be against it, because the public haven’t been educated. When a division of troops are deployed for anything other than a parade, there are going to be casualties. There are some bad guys in Iraq, Kalashnikov-wielding ones who will shoot at foreign troops whether their command is American or the UN. But if the political authority cannot sell the idea of sending troops until the UN authorises it, then that is democracy and the decision has to be respected. But let not the leaders forget that the people are not always proved right. When Chamberlain appeased Hitler over the invasion of Czechoslovakia, public approbation was overwhelming, which only misled Hitler about British public opinion.

The conditions for our participation in an Iraq stabilising force need to be articulated. More than that, we need to do our own homework with the Iraqi leaders who control public opinion in our future area of deployment. The military and diplomats who may eventually lead our efforts in Iraq should be in Iraq, as civilians, getting a feel of the country, the personalities involved, the problems of the people and the geography of the country — and surely the troops earmarked should be learning Arabic.

(The writer is a retired Rear Admiral)