A united West Asia to fight ISIS: It's easier said than done

The Islamic State (ISIS), by beheading two American citizens, has drawn international attention and has made US President Barack Obama send American troops as military advisers to Iraq. In his speech last week, Mr Obama stressed the need for a coalition of countries to tackle ISIS. Britain has decided not to be directly involved but France and Australia have extended support. US secretary of state John Kerry is in West Asia, stitching together a coalition of regional players. Several Arab countries have reportedly reciprocated, expressing willingness to join in airstrikes on ISIS. The details are yet unclear, but forging a grand coalition amid the complex politics of West Asia is easier said than done.

John Kerry with Arab leaders after the Jeddah meet on ISIS

The role of Arab governments, especially Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE, in the growth of ISIS is well known. So why would they now want to destroy ISIS? The rise of ISIS, a Sunni terror group, which targeted Shias and other minorities, was acceptable  — even desirable — for Sunni kingdoms in West Asia. For them ISIS’ anti-Shia drive meant the ultimate weakening of Iran, the Shia heavyweight in West Asia. However, the equation changed the moment ISIS revealed its grand plans for an Islamic caliphate. Put differently, the snakes in the backyard have turned homeward. Also many countries fear that their local Sunni population might get influenced by ISIS. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others put their forces on alert in July since the caliphate was declared.
The US does not want Iran and Syria to be part of the coalition, thereby making it a largely Sunni group. Turkey’s reluctance to join the coalition also weakens the drive against ISIS. Ankara is wary of the Kurdish resistance in the country and 49 Turkish diplomats are in ISIS’ custody. But it shares a 1,200-km-long border with Iraq and Syria and can choke ISIS by tightening its border and stopping the flow of oil from ISIS-controlled areas. It needs to be seen how much the US and its allies will be willing to attack ISIS in Syria without aiding the Bashar al-Assad government. The regional coalition should also check terror groups in, say, Libya, Egypt, etc. Focusing solely on ISIS and leaving other groups is half the job done. ISIS, through its call for an Islamic caliphate, is hoping to rekindle the passion for Arab nationalism. More importantly, it wants West Asia to unite and oppose Western powers that have ‘subjugated’ the region for more than two centuries. Given this, there is a grain of truth when Mr Obama said that “…this is not our fight alone” and “nor can we take the place of Arab partners in securing the region”. The success of the coalition depends on a united West Asia that overlooks sectarian and national differences. Unless the Arab nations take up the fight, the attack on ISIS will be viewed as Western propaganda against Islam and the region — and ISIS will continue to terrorise the world.

ISIS in Iraq is bad news for NaMo government

With the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) capturing key towns in northern Iraq, including Mosul and Tikrit, and the democratically elected Nouri al-Maliki government seemingly clueless about what to do, the prospects of peace and normalcy returning to the war-torn West Asian country in the near future are slim. Even though United States’ President Barack Obama has sent in Marines to safeguard its consulate in Baghdad and has ordered the USS George HW Bush to move towards the Persian Gulf, it is doubtful whether he has the stomach to send troops again to Iraq. Washington is mulling air strikes and is in talks with neighbours, like Iran, to overcome this crisis.

India’s concerns lie mainly in two areas: First, the safety of Indians who are working in Iraq, and second, the probable rise in oil prices if the sectarian violence spreads to the rest of the country and if the US steps in. The uncertainty in the country could see oil prices going northward, adversely affecting India’s economy. The ministry of external affairs should use its clout with Baghdad and the neighbouring countries to secure the safe exit of Indians from Iraq. India’s good ties with Iraq date back to the 1950s and since then economic and cultural ties between the two have grown. The good relations between New Delhi and Baghdad helped India especially during the 1990 Gulf War: Indians in Kuwait could safely exit via Iraq.

If the unrest escalates, it will affect the oil prices, signs of which were seen on Monday when crude prices hit a nine-month high after growing speculation of a US strike on Iraq. After Saudi Arabia, Iraq is the largest supplier of oil  to India, with an annual trade of around $20 billion. Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan said India was closely monitoring the situation and that the domestic economy is well prepared to face shocks from the external sources. That said, with more than 75% of its oil imported, soaring energy prices will exert pressure on the rupee. A below-average monsoon will affect the summer crops and this will push prices upwards, causing further food inflation. These two factors will have a telling effect on the economy and that’s not good news for the Narendra Modi government, which has made controlling inflation a priority. The Centre, meanwhile, must take all the necessary steps to ensure the safe exit of Indians from Iraq and at the same time figure out ways to tackle a possible rise in oil prices.

Nuclear Games and a Cold War Relic

Sami Al Faraj is the head of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies and an adviser to the Kuwait government. In an informal meeting last winter he spoke about the possible threat countries, both small and big, in West Asia face with a nuclear Iran in their midst. Kuwait has normal ties with Iran (the same cannot be said of Iraq with whom Kuwait shares a border) and more often than not dons the hat of a negotiator between countries within the region. The concern Faraj had about Iran going nuclear — the fear of a nuclear disaster or of the technology falling into the wrong hands — was striking. It was fear that stemmed out from a state of helplessness in knowing that stopping Iran or making Tehran understand the concerns of other countries have was easier said than done.

The nuclear debate

The debate on nuclear power is understood depending on which side of the argument one stands. One side argues that nuclear power is an evil that should be detested at any cost. It should not be used, not even for peaceful purposes. A few countries have the technology and it should remain with them.

The US and the Non-Proliferation Treaty signatories fall into this category. Nuclear technology for peaceful use should be pursued only under the watchful eyes of international agencies like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The other side, Iran and other non-NPT countries belonging to this group, believes that nuclear technology is not a privilege that only certain countries can enjoy — it can be used for peaceful ends like meeting power sector requirements and can even as a deterrent when it comes to the grandstanding of military might. It eventually boils down to a debate between the haves and the have nots.

This argument is further complicated when regional equations and past record is added. India, though not a signatory of the NPT, is largely trusted as a nuclear power because of its impeccable record. Neighbouring Pakistan, which also went nuclear after India, does not enjoy that confidence thanks to a certain A Q Khan who went around the world with a briefcase containing nuclear know-how.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions are complicated on several counts. Iran is an NPT signatory and going by its rules Iran is wrong in nurturing nuclear ambitions. The constant anti-West sabre-rattling Tehran indulges in at the drop of a hat further adds to the fear. Its Holocaust denial and anti-democtic moves makes it unpredictable for the West, thus further complicating the picture. As a final dab to this threatening portrait of a nuclear Iran, add the complex mixture of the country’s Shia-Sunni divide and regional issues.

Iran’s advantage

Under normal circumstances most nations of the world would have opposed Iran going nuclear, even if it were for the said purpose of fuelling its reactors to provide power to the country. That is what we see in the opposition to North Korea going nuclear. However, that’s not the case with Iran. Some of the most evident advantages Iran has over North Korea are its geographic position, which places it at the eye of Asia, its crude oil deposits and economic bargaining power however flawed it might be.

For more than a year now there has been active international debate on Iran’s nuclear capability and the imminent threat posed by whether Iran has been able to enrich uranium good enough for weaponisation. For almost the same amount of time Israel has been threatening to strike Iran. Israel still continues with its chorus of attacking Iran ‘if need be’, often leaking to the media hints about the government seriously considering sending its air force to target the nuclear installation Tehran has kept out of the purview of inspecting IAEA officials (like it destroyed the Osirak reactors in Iraq in June 1981). What has taken the wind out of the anti-Iran sails is the cautious approach adopted by the Obama administration. While Washington understandably has reasons for its caution after being embroiled in two long-winding, costly wars in the region, it is hoping and going the extra mile to ensure that Iran comes to the table for discussions.

NAM games

It is at this juncture that Iran hosted the 16th Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran. The Non-Aligned Movement, formed in 1961 at the height of the Cold War, is a consortium of around 120 countries that did not want to align with the West or the USSR. However, today, long after the Cold War has ended, its relevance is questioned, especially since many member countries have drifted from the core principles of non-alignment. India is one such example after it went ahead with the Indo-US nuclear deal. Whatever be the perceived benefits of hanging around in the NAM, India’s purpose is long-lost, and is a ship that has lost its compass. The NAM is a Cold War relic maintained at best (in its present form) for the nostalgic value it imparts.

What would have otherwise been a damp NAM summit gained prominence as Tehran was the host. That the US and Israel stuck their necks out to ensure that many members abstained from attending the summit went on to show that the 16th NAM summit was a sort of referendum for Iran. That things did not go the way the US wanted was evident in the turnout for the summit. Iran made sure to play all the right cards and got more than 30 heads of state to attend. At the moment it is not sure how significant is it that the Natanz uranium enrichment plant was open to Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj, but nonetheless Iran has used the NAM summit as an effective PR campaign against Israel-US efforts to ‘isolate’ Iran.

Everything could not have gone according to plan. There had to be an unpleasant moment for Tehran at the summit and that came in the form of Egypt’s newly elected President Mohamed Morsi. While Ahmadinejad thought that he had managed a coupe de grace in getting the Egyptian president to attend the summit, Morsi had other plans. Morsi, holding Ahmadinejad at arm’s length, was so critical of the Assad government in Syria, which is blindly supported by Iran, that Syrian officials attending the summit walked out in protest. Again, when Tehran thought it was thumbing its nose at Washington by getting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to attend the summit, Ban was scathing in his criticism of Tehran for making the IAEA run in circles. He was severe on Iran for its ‘war of words’.

Ways forward

While the western world, including, of course, Israel, is quick to junk Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and club it with North Korea as two rogue states having nuclear ambitions, there are not many countries around the world who would want to see it that way. This was clearly evident at the NAM summit. On a lighter note, the action and attention that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad & Co are demanding has given Pyongyang’s greenhorn ruler Kim Jong Un time to consolidate his position with the ranks in the country without calling for much international attention.

The world must bring Iran back to the table for talks and should stop it from weaponising its nuclear material. Sanctions, as many in Washington now agree, are not the way to achieve this goal. Concessions, from both sides, need to be made as an initiatory move. Trade ties should be established and cultural exchanges done, because once trade ties get strong it’s hard for mindless politics to derail the achieved progress. Cultural exchanges will help clear lot of the misconceptions both sides have and will pave the way for better understanding. While this is so, focus should be on North Korea — a closed country with appalling human rights and living conditions that are any day a more potent danger — and other countries with nuclear ambitions waiting for someone with a briefcase full of explosive details.
(This appeared as an opinion piece in The New Indian Express on September 10)

Cold War Hangover

The 16th Non-Aligned Movement summit underway in the Iranian capital Tehran offers a mixed bag for India. India’s large delegation, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sends out a signal that we still hold a lot of brief for a multilateral institution that has long outlived its purpose of creation. This is evident from the fact that for the Tehran meet the prime minister is accompanied by the external affairs minister, the national security adviser, and foreign secretary among other delegates. Giving such importance to a Cold War relic is a reflection of the flawed foreign policy approach of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance.

While the meeting between Manmohan Singh and his Bangladeshi counterpart Shiekh Hasina is a positive, it would have had a better effect if the leaders met in either New Delhi or Dhaka. Singh meeting Pakistan President Zardari or any other Pakistan leader — and such meetings on the ‘sidelines’ of important summits have become nauseating frequent — will have little of the desired effect. Manmohan Singh and his government must realise that we have done enough of talking with our neighbour and now the message should be that unless there is tangible action from Islamabad normalcy in ties cannot be restored.
For Iran the NAM summit is an important event and it will be Tehran’s answer to Washington, and other Western powers, which has been exerting pressure to make it an international pariah. The presence of Latin American leaders, rulers from Oman and Kuwait, leaders from the subcontinent, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and the attendance of UN general secretary, Ban Ki-moon, is definitely a show of strength by Iran.
While it goes without saying that India has to have good ties with Iran on its own terms and not take instructions from the United States, it is important that we not strain our relations with Israel at the cost of extending a hand to Iran. This diplomatic tightrope walk is the challenge the Singh government will have to face.
(This appeared as an edit in The New Indian Express on August 31)

Obama's Fate and an Israel-Iran War

On February 13 a ‘sticky’ bomb placed in a car went off in New Delhi, grievously injuring an Israeli diplomat’s wife. While many were tempted to point fingers at India’s neighbour on the west, the choice of target and prevailing circumstances put Iran on the spot, though there was little evidence to back what till now appears to be a convenient guess. The same day an attempt to kill an Israeli diplomat in Georgia failed and on February 14 three Iranians were arrested in Bangkok for attempting to target Israelis. The Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, was quick to conclude that Iran was behind the brazen attack. Not going into the similarities of these attacks to the mysterious deaths of top Iranian nuclear scientists in the recent past (alleged by Iran to be the work of Israel) or Israel’s claim that these were the work of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (which begs the question why it would send its men for an attack with documents identifying them), India’s response to the attack and the composure it has maintained is praiseworthy.

Selfish Interests
Since the attacks there has been more pressure on India to cut ties, mainly its oil trade, with Iran. New Delhi has maintained that it will not support any unilateral sanctions imposed by any bloc but will abide by a resolution adopted at the United Nations. It goes without saying that India has a selfish interest in maintaining ties with Iran.
India’s ties with Iran date back decades. Delhi-Tehran ties are on an economic, cultural and strategic level. Indian refineries are tuned to Iran crude standards and close to 12 per cent of our oil come from Iran. If India were to stop getting oil from Iran there would be two fallouts. Our refineries would have to be re-tuned to the standards of oil from another supplier country and India would have to turn to other countries, most likely Saudi Arabia. India definitely has better ties with Iran than with Saudi Arabia. Iran’s oil loss, in this case, would mean a gain for the desert kingdom but New Delhi will be on tenterhooks doing business with Riyadh.

India-Israel Ties
India’s ties with Israel have been growing stronger in the past decade or so, especially in the fields of defence and intelligence sharing. Intelligence sharing has been active especially after the 26/11 attacks in which the Lakshar-e-Toiba had specifically targeted Jews and the Chabad house in Mumbai.
Investigation is being conducted into the February 13 attack and if it becomes clear that Iran has used Indian soil to settle scores with Israel, New Delhi should condemn Tehran in the strongest of terms and take necessary action which it deems fit — not what Washington or Tel Aviv dictate.

Capitol Hill Race
The nuclear tension brewing in the Persian Gulf, as many of the problems in the region, has multiple layers to it. While on one hand it is a nuclear proliferation problem, on another it is the tension between Israel and Iran representing a Zionist-Muslim conflict hovering around the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the present Palestine crisis. The United States, by virtue of being Israel’s eternal best man and by dutifully performing its role as global super cop, is ‘concerned’ about the developments in the region and working towards ensuring that Iran does not gain nuclear weapons. The US, like many other countries, has not bought Iran’s argument that it is working towards nuclear power and not nuclear weapons and in the process enriching uranium to fulfil its power needs.

However, the call for action on Iran will be decided in Washington depending on the climate in the country. President Barack Obama came to office in 2008 with the promise of opening diplomatic doors with Iran. His letter to Iran’s religious head Ali Khamenei and the Persian New Year message that year were clear signs of openness towards realising better relations. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not impressed because while extending a hand to Iran the US was also covertly operating in Tehran. Obama’s belief in reaching out to Iran through diplomacy has not gone down well with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel body in Washington.
Israel wants to halt Iran — at any cost — and this is not an option for the US. It has just got itself out of two decade-long bloody wars that have lightened the state coffers considerably and earned more bad blood in West Asia than the goodwill it hoped to earn while going on its ‘democracy’ highway. Obama’s approach towards tackling Iran is cause for rebuke by the Republicans and in an election year Obama finds himself in a fix. Acting against Iran would further drain the country’s coffers, until recently on life-support, and men and women will be again sent out for war, but if he were to not act, it would be projected as weakness and give the Republicans a much-needed stick to beat the President with.
An attack on Iran will skyrocket oil prices and this will put pressure on the world’s economy. Iran, unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, is populous and, unlike Israel, is a bigger country.

Regional Supremacy
The present crisis at first reading gives the impression that Iran’s nuclear ambitions are developed mainly keeping in mind Israel. While a nuclear Iran is definitely a concern for Israel, what is forgotten is that as much as Israel fears such a scenario, countries in West Asia also dread it. A re-reading of the scenario will give more credibility to the fear of other Muslim countries in the region than to the paranoia exhibited by Israel. In other words, an Iran with nuclear power or nuclear weapons (there is no credible evidence to suggest Tehran is weaponising its nuclear programme) is worse news for Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait than for Israel.

This distinction is missed by the western eye that fails to appreciate the myriad intricacies within the Muslim world. Iran, which credits itself as the first to overthrow a western regime in the region, is vying for prominence in the region. Also Tehran detests Riyadh, which it claims takes orders from Washington. Further, when taken into consideration that religious clerics and heads wield much power in both countries, it will not be wrong to argue that a Shia Iran is trying to project itself as the big player in the region by eclipsing a Sunni Saudi Arabia.

Glimmer of Hope
Another question to be considered before condemning Iran is how much truth there is in Tehran’s tall claims. It is a fact that Iran has nuclear ambitions and that a middle level team of the International Atomic Energy Agency had an unsuccessful visit to the country. But Iran, in the past, has made tall claims that were proved hollow. Hyperbole is part of Tehran’s discourse.
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence in the US, in a February report is of the opinion that Iran is more likely to look at the option of nuclear weapons based on ‘cost-benefit analyses’. This means that while it is not clear if Tehran will stop short of developing a nuclear weapon, it is premature for doomsday alarmists to cry mayday.

Conclusion
Whether Israel will attack Iran or not is a scenario that is best avoided. Even the US has been kept guessing by Israel. Every step taken towards tackling this situation is a tightrope walk. The questions are: Will the US succumb to pressure and toe Israel’s line in attacking Iran? Will Israel attack Iran without informing the US and pull Washington into a war it will have to reluctantly be part of? How will Iran react? How will world nations see an unprovoked attack by Israel (and the US) on Iran? Will Iran’s nuclear programme go deeper underground? Will India cut ties with Iran; will it use its leverage with Tehran to open diplomatic channels, and; how will the world avoid a catastrophe?
(This article appeared in The New Indian Express on March 5)