| Manmohan let himself be led by the Bush administration but it didn’t pan out the way it was meant to |
The PM decided the nuclear deal was important enough to make a public gesture against Iran. Stephen Rademaker, a former US negotiator for the deal, declared in New Delhi on February 16 this year that India's vote was "coerced" and that it exemplified India's changed attitude to nuclear non-proliferation. Apart from the vote, the US was publicly and privately lobbying India hard to abandon the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. A senior US diplomat visited several ministries in December 2005 to tell Indian officials not to proceed with the pipeline. In this case, India largely ignored the diktat and continued tripartite meetings with Iran and Pakistan. The pipeline is still stuck, though, but on the price Pakistan is demanding for security and transit, not because of Indian reluctance, say insiders.
Now, the question arises: if energy security is of such prime strategic concern, why can't India work out the price with Pakistan because the pipeline could help build an entire architecture of trust and confidence between the two neighbours. "The Pakistanis are not irrational people but you have to invest political energy into it," a former diplomat commented. Iran definitely wants India in the deal to raise international confidence and counter its difficult relations with Pakistan. Even the Russians are interested in financing it.
China and Russia have been engaging Iran with abandon, calculating rightly that the neo-cons in Washington would eventually be marginalised—the Pentagon generals have neither the might nor the will to launch another war. Hard-nosed and clear-eyed, Beijing and Moscow are planting footprints in spaces where India also could have, according to Bhadrakumar. Even the Arabs are warming up to Iran, recognising that peace in West Asia requires Iran's cooperation, not alienation. The Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of six pro-US Arab oil majors, in a loud signal to Washington, invited Iran to its summit for the first time earlier this month. Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah entered holding hands—it was obvious, the Arabs were saying they don't want war with the Persians.
So when so many are making overtures to Teheran, can India also put some ballast back into its relations with Iran?
