Opinion American eagle,Afghan cage

Grossman has the opportunity then to set up a reliable and productive channel of communication between Washington and Delhi on the Af-Pak issues that are at the very top of the national security agenda in both capitals.

India understands the many domestic factors driving the US

Af-Pak policy and the difficult challenges confronting Washington across the Durand Line.

As the US prepares to draw down its military presence in Afghanistan,starting from July,as part of a plan to hand over the security responsibilities to local forces by 2014,Delhi and Washington need a precise understanding of each other’s objectives in the Af-Pak region.

Only then would it be possible for them to limit the potential conflicts of interest and expand the possible areas of cooperation in stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Delhi must dispel the widespread impression that India is desperate to carve out a special position for itself in Afghanistan. The chatter in Delhi’s strategic community about constructing an expansive Indian role beyond the

Durand Line has played right into the hands of Pakistan’s propaganda that projects India as part of the problem in Afghanistan.

The current public refrain in Washington goes somewhat like this: “If only Delhi can stop competing with Rawalpindi in Afghanistan,the Pakistan army would be far more helpful to the United States. If only India can make major concessions on Kashmir,discard the ‘Cold Start’ doctrine,and perhaps stop growing its economy too fast,Rawalpindi will feel secure enough to end its support to the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan.”

Grossman,one can only hope,has a better brief. For its part,Delhi must tell the US envoy that it is fully conscious of the limits imposed by geography on any Indian role in Afghanistan. Grossman must know that India’s pursuit of its national interests in Afghanistan will be tempered by supreme realism. And that Delhi is open to collaboration with anyone,including Washington,in preventing the re-emergence of Afghanistan as the hotbed of religious extremism,a haven for international terrorism,and a source of regional instability.

Delhi would also have many questions to ask of Grossman.

Until it exits from Afghanistan,the US will remain the principal external determinant of the strategic environment in the north-western subcontinent.

Amidst the many current ambiguities that have enveloped the US Af-Pak policy,Delhi would want to get a measure of Washington’s latest thinking from Grossman. One set of Indian questions will be about the changing US approach to the Taliban.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently redefined the terms of engagement with the Taliban. Until now,Washington said renouncing the links to Al Qaeda,laying down arms and respecting the Afghan constitution were preconditions for talks. Now they appear to have been recast as possible outcomes from a dialogue with the Taliban.

In Washington,many have come to believe that embracing the Taliban is the only answer to Afghanistan’s problems. There are also unconfirmed reports of a direct contact between Washington and the Taliban.

But there is little information,at least in the public domain,on the nature of these contacts. Delhi would surely want to know Washington’s assessment of the Taliban’s interest in the dialogue and its willingness to compromise with other forces in Afghanistan.

India would also want to know if there is any thinking at all in Washington about the consequences of accommodating the Taliban. The insertion of the Taliban into Afghan power structures is bound to alter the ethnic and sectarian balances within and around the country.

A second set of important questions for Grossman are about the current instability in the US-

Pakistan relations. The last few months have seen the repeated boiling over of bilateral tensions.

The conventional wisdom is that Washington and Rawalpindi are hostages to each other. Their recent difficulties,it is argued,represent at best a passing phase and that the two will find a way to work together in Afghanistan.

There is an emerging counter-view which suggests that the current divergence between Washington and Rawalpindi is structural. It might be rooted in the Pakistan army’s belief that the US is a much diminished power a decade after 9/11 and cannot set the terms for Afghanistan’s future.

The Pakistan army chief,General Ashfaq Kayani,might believe that the rise of China has altered the context of the Great Game and provides the resources to establish Rawalpindi’s long-sought primacy in Afghanistan.

Rawalpindi and Beijing,this argument goes,are convinced that the American Eagle trapped in the Afghan cage might have no option but to go along. Nothing else explains,according to this view,the current bold strategic defiance of the US by Kayani.

If Grossman wants to explain the current dynamism in US-Pakistan relations,Delhi will be all ears. Delhi in turn must signal its readiness to cooperate with the Obama administration in stabilising the north-western subcontinent.

It’s really up to Grossman to say if the US sees India as part of the solution in Afghanistan and if Washington is prepared to work with Delhi in changing the strategic calculus of the Pakistan army.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research,Delhi