Sunday, November 09, 2008
Friedman Frets Over Iran
Tom Friedman, our Indophile friend famous for enunciating on flat-world physics, pleads with the international community to support President Obama in pressuring Iran. Well, India's only friend in counterbalancing Pakistan's subversion of Afghanistan has been Iran, so unless the US is willing to reliably commit to that role instead of propping up Pakistan, then I don't see how we can be expected to deliver. Barack Obama is instead talking about sending Bill Clinton as an envoy to Kashmir, on the pretext that such intercession would improve Pakistan's cooperation on Afghanistan. Until and unless Washington holds Pakistan accountable for its own failures, rather than blaming India for them, I don't see how Obama is going to cultivate sympathy in New Delhi.
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2 comments:
San,
The break of Iran will lead to breakup of Pakistan, which is more than any favor Iran can do to us.
Iran is to Israel what Pakistan is to India. So, India and Israel both have a stake in creating Greater Balochistan. Once Israel frees West Balochistan from Iran, India will do the needful in completing the task on the east side.
I hope instead of bombing Iran and exiting, they decide to breakup Iran from inside.
Shankar, I agree that Balochistan is a good common focal point, not only to break up Pak and Iran, but also to keep China away from the Arabian Sea.
However, I doubt that the chaste Obama will have the guts to make such bold moves, preferring instead to talk with Tehran. At most, he'll attempt a naval blockade of Iran, since the Europeans likely won't join him on sanctions.
Nor would the Atlanticists around him like to see a war with Iran, and so they'll steer him away from that. Meanwhile they'd still try to
use the Iran issue to drive a wedge between the US and India, by claiming that India was a key obstacle in containing Iran. That's what they do on the Russia issue all the time.
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