The Chinese Roar

With the US publicly calling India a 8216;8216;potential great power8217;8217; in its recent national security review and elsewhere naming New Delhi as a possible alternative to the Chinese syndrome, the Great Roiling may have just begun. So just as Beijing cosies up to the Islamabad, PM Vajpayee8217;s own journey to China remains very much on the cards. Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama8217;s representatives are back from Beijing, signalling the beginning of a brand, new relationship between China, India and Tibet.

Jaswant8217;s Pre-emption

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh, barely three months out of his old job in South Block, may be blamed for letting the cat out of the bag. In Washington for a Fund-Bank meeting, Singh met a fair amount of the American leadership, then spoke to the press on8212;what else8212;but Iraq. Every country, announced Singh, had the right to 8216;8216;pre-emptive strike8217;8217;, supporting a doctrine that has had the rest of the world up in arms. It was left to Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, to have spelt it out the week before, 8216;8216;What if India invokes the same doctrine to attack Pakistan8230;?8217;8217;

Almighty Americans

Are Russia and France going to veto a new United Nations Security Council resolution, put together by the Americans and the British, on Iraq? Both Moscow and Paris are believed to be considerably unhappy about the brazen manner in which Washington-London are scripting a 8216;8216;regime change8217;8217; on the banks of the Euphrates. Still, the overwhelming view8212;so far8212;is that neither nation is likely to carry through its 8216;8216;veto threat8217;8217; and that they are bargaining hard not for the price of their support and their share in the post-Saddam pie. Ever since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, no nation has dared to veto any UN resolution sponsored by the almighty Americans.

Good Oman for India

A little-noticed event with big implications swirled by last week. India and Oman signed a 1 billion-worth fertiliser plant, each country contributing 50 of the investment. Later this week, Defence Minister George Fernandes flies to Muscat. India8217;s improving links with Oman need not come as a surprise. In a region not particularly known for its democratic ways, Muscat is ruled by among the most moderate of regimes. Clearly, Oman seems like a like-minded country.

Lingering Masood Magic

The spirit of Ahmad Shah Masood still hangs over Kabul. The posters commemorating the 8216;8216;martyr8217;8217;8212;cheek by jowl with cheap plastic clocks advertising American tobacco8212;start from the airport, and most of the city seems to have given itself over to his memory. His death on September 9 last year, in a hospital set up by the Indian government just within Tajikistan, was one of the supreme ironies of the war. For the hospital was secretly set up by New Delhi a few years ago to treat Northern Alliance fighters in their war against the Taliban. It was in this hospital that Masood breathed his last, where Marshal Fahim was anointed the inheritor of Masood8217;s legacy, and where they decided to keep Masood8217;s death a secret until the alliance rallied, with the help of the Americans, to overthrow the Taliban.

That8217;s history now. The hospital was recently wound up8212;with the Northern Alliance in power in Kabul, there was no need for it any more. Now, it seems, India is refocussing attention on the south, to strengthen the weak link in its Afghan armour8212;the Pashtuns. Reports say an Indian army general has been posted in Jalalabad, adjoining the frontier provinces of Pakistan. And that a 8216;8216;Pakhtoonistan8217;8217; map is floating around the web8212;with swathes of Pashtun territory from Afghanistan and Pakistan attached to it.