The Cheney presidency

Indian commentators appear to have been waiting eagerly for a Bush presidency. They seem to believe a Bush White House will embrace India as a regional power in an effort to counter China, lift sanctions instantly, open up transfer of high-tech goodies, and build a strategic alliance that will be the envy of the world. After all these years of hectoring by the Clinton Administration, New Delhi will now be free to test a few more nuclear weapons, fire off scores of Prithvis and Agnis, and hotly pursue terrorists to their camps, if not bomb the camps into oblivion.

Give me a break.

The scenario is based on a naive understanding of how the American system works, the checks and balances it offers in shackling the president8217;s foreign policy making ability, and the country8217;s own self-appointed role as a guardian of world peace and stability and the responsibility that comes with it. Most of all, it overlooks the record of conservatives as hard-headedrealpolitikers, many of them players in the final Cold War period in the Republican interlude between Carter and Clinton. Men like Lawrence Eagleburger, Robert Mcfarlane and Dana Rohrabacher made a fetish out ofIndia8217;s reserve about America8217;s agenda of global domination. They and their ilk will be back in the corridors of power.

For reasons not entirely clear, Indian analysts seem particularly smitten by the prospect of Condoleeza Rice, an African-American academic from Stanford University, becoming the national security advisor. Perhaps it has something to do with a couple of policy speeches she made in which she identified India as an emerging power and Washington8217;s need to secure itsties with New Delhi. So what8217;s new?

Besides, Rice, worthy though she may be of the position, might not exactly be the principal foreign policy architect in the Bush White House. President Clinton elevated the post of national security advisor a notch above the secretary of state, preferring the lawyerly style of Sandy Berger over the ornery temperament of Madeleine Albright. In a Bush dispensation, the ball may return to the State Department where General Colin Powell is expected to take charge, not to speak of the Pentagon, that bastion of conservative warmongering. In short, Rice will be a lightweight.

Most famously, the joke goes that when Bush was asked what he thought of Condoleeza Rice, he said 8220;it cooks in two minutes8221;. Doubtless another spiteful gag, but it is no secret that the president-elect is notexactly a master of foreign affairs. One does not deduce this from his inability to name the leaders of India and Pakistan. In fairness, I should reveal on good authority that each time a high Indian dignitary met Bush when he was Texas governor, India had a new prime minister 8212; each time, the dignitary conveyed to Bush greetings from 8220;Our Prime Minister Rao/ Gowda/Gujral/ Vajpayee.8221; It was too much for him.

But the man who was once described as having been 8220;born with a silver foot in his mouth8221; says he is a 8220;delegator8221; who farms out work to his team without burdening himself with names, dates, and suchlike trivia. One crucial recipient of such weighty devolution will be Vice-president Richard Cheney, who has attracted little scrutiny in New Delhi. Traditionally, American vice-presidents are so ineffectual and decorative that Bush Sr, when he was the veep, once lamented that going to funerals was his standing assignment.

One is going to hear plenty from Vice-president Cheney, though. Al Gore is widely regarded as one of the most influential vice-presidents in US history. Cheney will quite likely have an even more profound role, especially in formulating foreign policy. The impassive conservative from Wyoming is shaping up to be a such a presidential force in the forthcoming Bush cabinet that when he suffered a mild heart attack during the campaign, the word went around that 8220;George W. Bush was a heartbeat away from the presidency8221;.

Cheney and his emerging foreign policy team 8212; possibly with Colin Powell as secretary of state, Paul Wolfowitz as secretary of defence, and Bush Sr lurking in the background 8212; is not new to India. Cheney was defence secretary in the Bush Sr cabinet, while Paul Wolfowitz was hisundersecretary and Colin Powell his chief of staff during the Gulf War. New Delhi8217;s soft spot for Saddam Hussain at the eve of the war got the American backs up. It was only some nimble backroom footwork late in the war, allowing US planes to clandestinely refuel in Bombay, that salvaged somediplomatic points for India.

Whether or not Cheney has a long memory, it is difficult to believe that a flinty Republican whose worldview clashes with every outlook of liberal Indiacan be good news for New Delhi. Strewn amid Cheney8217;s breathtakingly conservative record in his political career are votes for more military expenditure, votes against education spending, votes that brought onenvironmental degradation, and votes that opposed sanctions against apartheid South Africa and kept Nelson Mandela in prison. Read that again.

Sure the world has changed. It is a sign of the times that Cheney8217;s last visit to India in March 1996 was as an executive of the oil conglomerate Halliburton. But it will be imprudent to assume happier days are here. For all its growling in the initial years, the Clinton Administration only barked. This one could bite. At the end of the day, New Delhi should not make any presumptions of strategic relationship coming from Washington.India8217;s best ally is India.

Cheney is shaping up to be a such a force in the Bush cabinet that when he had a heart attack recently, word went around that Bush was a heartbeat away from the presidency8217;