It’s self-interest, stupid

One year later, he was the man who had chased Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts out of Kabul. Today, he is probably the most popular president since the days of Ronald Reagan. Actually, he has done one better than the Gipper; I can’t remember when President Reagan had even the Security Council bending to his will.

It is certainly a far cry from the days two years ago when Bush’s critics doubted not just his power but his very legitimacy. If, however, there is no longer any doubt about the leadership of the United States, questions remain on just how the man in the White House shall exercise his authority. And at the top of the list is: has war with Iraq been averted, or is this no more than a temporary lull?

If you ask me, it is the latter. I base this argument on the undoubted fact that Saddam Hussein is a thug. I do not for a moment believe that the Iraqi dictator is willing to give up the lying and cheating ways that have enabled him to keep a well-deserved nemesis at bay since the end of the Gulf War.

Will he really surrender his weapons of mass destruction just because there is a forceful new voice in Washington? Or shall he try to evade any meaningful inspection as he managed with such resounding success from 1991 to 1998? Given his track record — and his need to convince his own people that they haven’t suffered sanctions for so long just to surrender everything at the eleventh hour — I put it to you that Saddam Hussein shall again try to prevaricate.

That will be an error. In the past, the Iraqi leader got away with murder because he could always count on two things. The first was dissension within the ranks of the five permanent members of the Security Council, with Russia, China, and France always being more keen to do business with Iraq than to punish it.

The second was the United States’s reluctance to engage ground troops, a fear that has haunted every American administration for four decades since the infamous ‘body-bag counts’ of the Vietnam era. (So much so that even a nonentity like Aidid could force the United States to pack up its bags and flee from Somalia.)

Everything has changed after the World Trade Center came tumbling down. The Bush administration was willing to send anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 soldiers into Iraq if Saddam Hussein refused to bend the knee. The United States made it amply clear that it would act alone if need be (a major factor in making the most reluctant members of the Security Council play along).

So, what effect will there be — should there be — on Indian foreign policy?

First, the focus on Iraq has diminished Pakistan’s role in American eyes as far as the ‘War on Terror’ is concerned. General Musharraf was once the blue-eyed boy of the Washington establishment, now he is little more than a tiresome errand-boy to be tolerated until his utility is gone. (The latest issue of Foreign Affairs reviews three books on Pakistan. The subtitles reveal how that country is seen today — The United States and Pakistan, 1947-2000: Disenchanted Allies; Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, and Pakistan: Eye of the Storm.)

General Musharraf is too intelligent not to understand that he has limited time to extract goodies from the United States. How will he use this window of opportunity?

He could employ it to use Washington’s good offices to begin a dialogue with Delhi. But let us never forget that Pervez Musharraf trained as a commando, nor that his instincts incline him to the surprise ambush. That was the lesson of Kargil and of the Agra summit. But those events also demonstrated that he was a master of tactics but is a failure at taking the strategic view. Could he be stupid enough to misjudge India again and try his hand at nuclear blackmail?

The new American assertiveness also puts a question mark on the continued viability of the Non-Aligned Movement. Votaries of non-alignment claim that it was a policy of ‘neither permanent friends, nor permanent enemies’. Actually, it was little more than ‘permanent illusions’ — a poor foundation for an intelligent foreign policy.

To be ‘non-aligned’ requires two or more powers between whom one may negotiate.

That is no longer a realistic option. Even Syria, once the proud spearhead of Arab anti-Americanism, saw the light and voted for the American motion against Iraq in the Security Council. (In any case, as far as I am concerned, all illusions about the Non-Aligned Movement’s utility to India should have ended on December 7, 1971 — when the United Nations voted 104 to 11 against India’s reactions to Pakistani provocation. None of our beloved brethren stood by us during the Bangladesh War.) President Bush has been pursuing a cold-blooded policy of national self-interest, whether it was knocking aside the Kyoto Treaty or threatening Iraq. That is the most important lesson he has for India — look to the country’s interests rather than become the moral cheerleader for the world.