McCain, Obama will deepen ties with India

Obama’s Pak phobia good for India, says Uttara Choudhury in New York

John McCain and Barack Obama are both likely to invest in the deepening India-US relationship but there are trepidations that the Democratic Party’s ties to labour unions and lobby groups could trigger squabbles over trade issues and human rights abuses in Kashmir.

India officials acknowledge that under the Bush administration, the US elevated India to the level of a geo-strategic partner, reversing a longstanding policy of bracketing it with Pakistan and treating it as a pariah outside the global nuclear order.

“A McCain-led Republican administration will be better for India,” stressed an Indian diplomat in Washington who did not wish to be named. “There are no surprises with McCain. He supported the Indian nuclear deal all through. Obama went after India at one stage by proposing a killer amendment. He later changed his non-proliferative stance and supported India. It is hard to tell if India will really get his attention.”  

Mira Kamdar, a fellow at the World Policy Institute and author of Planet India countered that a Obama presidency was committed to US engagement in Asia and deepening ties with India. “Obama’s running mate Joe Biden was one of the biggest champions of the nuclear deal. An Obama presidency will benefit India more than a McCain presidency. There are people in India’s foreign policy elite that tend to support McCain because they think the Republicans would support India’s military ambitions but I think that is misguided,” Kamdar told DNA.

“An Obama presidency will actually do more for India in terms of realising its ambitions because it will support economic ties, and help it develop green technologies which will be the leading-edge businesses of the 21st Century.”

For Indo-US ties, nadir is long past
While foreign policy experts weigh in on what an Obama or a McCain win means for India, they all agree that no post-Cold War US president can drag the relationship to the lows of 1971. In the run-up to the India-Pakistan war of 1971, Republican president Richard Nixon called Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the “old witch” while his national security adviser Henry Kissinger infamously remarked the “Indians are bastards anyway.”

The frostiness of the Cold War years have melted under successive Democratic and Republic administrations led by Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, and Bush Jr.

Parag Khanna, author of the bestselling book The Second World, which talks about how China, Europe and America use their unique imperial gravitas to pull the second-world countries into their orbits, said Washington was committed to a strategic relationship with India irrespective of who occupied the White House.

“I think both Obama and McCain will continue the same trajectory of deepening commercial and military ties. But of course that doesn’t mean either should expect an “alliance” since India will do its own thing,” said Khanna.

“The nuclear deal is one component of a channel by which strategic relations are going to grow and lead to other forms of military cooperation that are geared towards controlling the Indian Ocean and containing Chinese activities there,” said Khanna, who is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

Obama’s Pakistan strategy in sync with New Delhi
Analysts say Obama advocates a tougher line on Pakistan than McCain. In this area at least, Obama’s impulses are completely in sync with New Delhi. He views military-dominated Pakistan with deep distrust.

Among the first to oppose the war on Iraq, Obama has promised to bring US soldiers home and has indicated that the focus of his war on terror will be Pakistan’s tribal areas and the neighbouring areas of Afghanistan.

Iraq, Obama says, is a dangerous distraction. McCain believes that Iraq is still the central front, noting that bin Laden himself had declared it the battle-ground with America. Obama stirred controversy in August last year when he said he would attack terrorists in Pakistan with or without its government’s consent if he had actionable intelligence. Obama also co-sponsored a plan which seeks to make the US-Pakistan ties less dependent on the army by tripling annual nonmilitary aid.

“For Pakistan, Obama is going to be tough on Asif Ali Zardari and not treat him like another Musharraf as McCain might, though both are going to put big pressure on the Pakistan military to make more sincere efforts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in Pakistan,” said Khanna. “Democrats have taken the lead on development focused funding for the North-West Frontier Province and FATA,” he added.

Kamdar said India would gain from Obama’s policy shift. “The Bush administration has treated Pakistan as part of the Afghan battlefield. Obama will treat it as a country that needs help. Neither the US or any other country in the region including India can afford to see Pakistan collapse.”