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Zen and the Art of Potomac-Watching

Bill Clinton (soon-to-be-ex-president?) gambled with what appears to be a gratuitous Wag the Dog imitation. There was no particular reason to attack Iraq at this time, except as a diversionary manoeuvre, just as he was about to be impeached. Last chance at machismo, perhaps?

UNSCOM in Iraq has apparently been a pawn in the hands of the Americans, imposing unreasonable demands aimed at provoking Iraqi intransigence. To the casual observer, it is fairly clear what is going on: the Americans are mightily upset that they have not got rid of President Saddam Hussein through either Operation Desert Storm or through covert means.

Therefore the Americans have used pliant Australian Richard Butler, head of UNSCOM, as their patsy. As an aside, I have to wonder, what is going on with the Aussies? Used to be only the Brits were the Americans' little lambs, but lately the folks from Down Under (jealously independent according to legend) seem to be irritatingly willing to toe the Yank line -- remember their little end-game at the CTBT negotiations where they were "holier than the Pope" and bulldozed it through, procedural violations be damned?

Anyway, back to Iraq -- the latest little ploy on UNSCOM's part was, I understand, a demand to open the files of the ruling Ba'ath party. It is hard to see how this was related to UNSCOM's stated charter of finding all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The impartial observer has no choice but to sympathise with Iraq's claim that UNSCOM's purpose was harassment and foot-dragging.

I have been watching on television the platitudes mouthed by Madeleine Albright and others -- positively Goebbelsian -- justifying the murderous attack on Iraq as necessary for "world peace" (or was that "whirled peas"?). Indeed. I wonder if Al Gore, if/when he takes over, will retain the same team or bring in fresh blood.

That brings me to the crux of the current circus -- impeachment. Now that the House of Representatives has voted for impeachment, and if the Senate does too, Bill may have to vacate the White House. I have the distinct feeling that Bill is turning increasingly Nixonian. Is it me or is there a definite sense of deja vu? "I am not a crook". "I did not inhale". "I did not have sex with this woman". Same difference.

I have visions of Bill being dragged, kicking and screaming, out of the White House by stoic, beefy guards. And he would be clinging to the furniture and potted plants and whatnot to avoid being removed physically from the place. And blubbering all the while, "I am sorry, I am sorry, I apologise, I won't do it again, I promise". Poor Bill. I do feel a little sorry for him. But then, he did bring all this on himself.

Did you notice something a little strange about the previous couple of paragraphs? It may be the fact that I have referred to the US president familiarly as just "Bill". Disrespectful, don't you think? Then why does everybody feel free to refer to the Iraqi President as simply "Saddam"? He is the leader of a sovereign nation, whether or not he is a noxious individual. Why does every lowly newsreader on the BBC and CNN feel free to call him "Saddam"?

I will tell you why: it is part of the subtle lack of respect for others' sovereignty and national interests. This is most visible when it comes to the Third World. Nobody has been referring to Prime Minister Tony Blair as just "Tony" or even General Augusto Pinochet as just "Augusto". But of course, "Saddam" is not a white guy, so he deserves no respect.

It is in these little things that the insufferable imperial omphalos of the Americans comes through -- like the imperial Brits of old, they feel they have a manifest destiny to ride roughshod over the world. That is why, despite my affection for the US, I keep repeating ad nauseam my belief that India needs to be extremely careful in dealing with the Americans.

Considering this, how should India react to the attack on Iraq? I think it should be a muted reaction, with expressions of shock, regret, and calls for world peace. India needs to cultivate a posture of aggressive neutrality. Therefore, even though Iraq has always been friendly towards India, I think it would be appropriate to not rush to Iraq's aid at this time. It is not in India's interests, either, to offer refuelling facilities to American planes.

Armed and determined neutrality, like the Swiss -- I think that is the right posture. Here is a problem between the Americans and the Arabs, and it is none of India's business, especially since India, thankfully, no longer thinks she is the hectoring leader of the Third World (remember the latest NAM conference, anybody?).

We have recent evidence of Yank duplicity in the series of pointless discussions between Strobe Talbott and Jaswant Singh. It is evident that Talbott has not budged an inch; I contend that he will not. His marching orders are to get India to sign the CTBT and to roll back missile and nuclear efforts. India's response should be a "Yes, but...", meaning "No".

Furthermore, India needs to put into place a mechanism for really paying attention to long-term American interests to evolve policy based on what Americans can relate to and understand. For instance, American policymakers tend to view treaties as pieces of paper with relatively little value; and will unilaterally abrogate them in their national interests.

Consider the US' obligations to supply fuel to the Tarapore nuclear power station. There was an agreement between India and the US, which was equivalent to an international treaty, about the supply of fuel rods. However, the Americans felt free to unilaterally rescind this treaty after Pokhran I.

Similarly, the US is bound by WTO rules to take any trade disputes to the world body for arbitration. However, they have gone ahead and implemented domestic legislation that directly violates WTO rules -- examples include the Helms-Burton Act that penalises foreign and US corporations for doing business with Cuba; and indeed the unilateral sanctions imposed on India after Pokhran II.

The US clearly believes multilateral treaties are just nuisances. Thus their reluctance to sign the immensely sensible ban on landmines, the treaties on chemical and biological weapons, the Law of the Seas, or even to ratify their own brainchild, the CTBT.

I hasten to clarify here that I say these things not out of animosity towards the US: I really like the place, especially San Francisco, my home of many years. But I am not blind to Yank shortcomings and faults -- I have become able over time to cut through their propaganda. I am merely looking at this from India's point of view -- all these things are relative, after all.

In some ways it is preferable for India to deal with the Americans -- because they are blunt, they have clearly stated their intent, which is world domination. It would be so much more painful dealing with, say, Brits with their colonial monkeys-on-their-backs, or the Chinese with their Byzantine and inscrutable chips-on-the-shoulder. Because the Americans are so clear, it is possible to manipulate them. More on that later.

But for India to succeed in dealing with the Americans, there need to be professional America-watchers, not part-time mandarins in the foreign service. With all due respect, India's foreign policy apparatus has failed abjectly to evolve a consistent America policy: knee-jerk reaction is not policy. I submit it is imperative to set up a cadre of people with long-term continuity, knowledge, and insight.

In fact, I think there should be four such groups set up, to deal with the four major areas of current and future interest to India. In order of importance:

The Americas (the US and Brazil)
East Asia (Japan and China)
Indian Ocean Rim (ASEAN, Australia, South Africa)
Europe (France, Germany, the UK)

These should be staffed with professionals who will be area experts, trained and continually upgraded with the needed skills and sources of information, and with long-term continuous tenure. They should also call upon a loose coalition of non-governmental Indian (and sympathetic foreign) experts who can be simply on an email alias, but who have insights and experience.

For instance, for the Americas group, it should be led by someone like the late Janki Ganju, who single-handedly represented Indian interests in Washington for years. It might interact with, just to name a few names, policy experts like Montek Singh Ahluwalia, C Rangarajan, K Subrahmanyam, C Raja Mohan and Brahma Chellaney; UN experts like Prakash Shah and Shashi Tharoor; US bankers and industry leaders like Sreedhara Menon and Rajat Gupta; US-based journalists like Ramesh Chandran, Farid Zakaria, and Narayan Keshavan.

Similarly, the Europe group might ask for advice from Indophiles like Mark Tully (formerly of the BBC) and Francois Gautier (of Le Figaro). You get the drift -- use knowledgeable and sympathetic people to help a core team of professional Potomac-watchers and Tokyo-watchers and so forth. One of the advantages of the wired world today is that a great deal of information is also available for free on the Web: for example, the CIA's Fact Books or US government reports on warfare are just a click away.

And what would these groups' charters be? The idea is to predict what the subject nation will do in a given set of circumstances, build computer models, and then audit the predictions against reality. These should concentrate on three areas: Foreign Policy, Trade and Business.

For instance, in the case of the US, I predict with varying levels of confidence that in America in 1999 the following will happen on the trade/business front. The above group will be able to do with this much better insight:

* the "banana war" with Europe will not be resolved; the US will go to the WTO with more anti-dumping charges
* more US firms will take out patents on traditional items like basmati and neem
* if the Chinese economy falls apart, the US will step in with a large bailout package
* more fire-sale purchases of distressed Asian assets by US firms
* the mega-mergers (eg AT&T-TCI, Exxon-Mobil) will be allowed to go forward
* the Helms-Burton Bill will not be repealed
* the Fed will continue to maintain low interest rates
* the stock markets will head for a large correction
* the US will continue to push hard to penetrate foreign markets in areas of competitive advantage for itself, eg financial services
* the Microsoft lawsuit will end, with remedial measures imposed

So much for how India can tackle the consistency gap and build up an information base. But how does one turn this information to advantage? By some out-of-the-box thinking based on what is known about US interests and objectives -- why not manipulate America's hot buttons? For example, let's consider nuclear non-proliferation.

The US is obsessed with non-proliferation, and therefore has been twisting India's arm to get her to sign the CTBT and the NPT. Now let's turn this around. India has signed neither treaty, and so is under no de jure obligation to not proliferate to third countries (India has shown admirable self-imposed restraint, of course). We also know that the US is obsessed with Iran and Iraq and North Korea.

Want to make some progress on talks with Americans? I will guarantee the following with absolute certainty: if India lets it be known that she is in negotiations with Iran, Iraq and North Korea to supply them with 'peaceful' home-grown nuclear technology (you know, just like their pals the Chinese supply their other pals the Pakistanis), the Americans will sit up and take notice, pronto.

The Americans may be willing to give India various bribes (just like they are giving North Korea, which happily accepts the bribes and then continues anyway) to keep India from doing that -- for example, lifting of technological sanctions and the recently imposed blacklist on Indian firms and universities, may be even a supply of nuclear reactors and rocket technology.

America may suddenly become India's new best friend. And that means India has done nothing different from what she is doing today -- she hasn't proliferated, and will not tomorrow -- but we have turned that virtue into a marketing opportunity to gain concessions.

Of course, the other possibility is that the Americans will tighten the screws, send warplanes to hit Trombay, or increase their largesse to Pakistan to send infiltrators into India. This is where the professional foreign policy types have to make judgement calls -- and use tools like decision trees and probability analysis. Americans will only do rational things that fit in with their long-term strategy.

At the end of the day, America's cold warriors understand three things -- belligerence, blackmail and brute force. The Chinese have recognised this, and have openly suggested to the Americans that they have a few ICBMs pointed at Los Angeles. Given the American "body bag syndrome", this hits all of the three points above. It's time India took a leaf from China's book and indulged in some crude blackmail herself.

The Americans are isolated (only their lapdogs the Brits are with them) on the Iraq misadventure; Clinton has fallen, and the Republicans are in disarray; India should take these weaknesses into account and drive hard bargains. As Chanakya put it, samam, danam, bhedam, dandam: we are past the first two now.

Rajeev Srinivasan