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| India-Pakistan |
| IndiaÂ’s Terror Stance Vexes Obama Amid Voter Ire at Pakistan |
| 2009-02-24 |
| Indias 670 million voters may be about to set back President Barack Obamas campaign against Islamic militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Indias ruling Congress Party, which heeded U.S. calls to avoid threatening its neighbor after Novembers Mumbai terrorist attack, is heading for elections that might push it from office. The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which accuses Congress of a “soft approach” toward terrorism, says India should consider blockading Pakistans main port and severing ties unless the government extradites 20 suspected militants. A less cooperative India would hamper Obamas effort to keep Pakistans army focused on fighting the Taliban and other guerrillas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. “The BJP is more hard-line now than when it was in power,” says Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. “Theres no question they would increase the pressure on Pakistan, and that would complicate matters for the Obama administration.” The likeliest outcome, he says, may be a weak coalition government led by one of the two large parties and including some of Indias burgeoning small parties. This month, Pakistan ceded effective control of the Swat Valley, 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Islamabad, in a truce with local Taliban. The Talibans gains threaten to further destabilize Afghan President Hamid Karzai — and diminish pressure on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whos believed to be hiding in the region. The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, visited all three countries last week to, in his words, “listen and learn.” Holbrooke said last week on PBSs NewsHour program that the administration was “troubled and confused” by the truce in Swat. Meanwhile, U.S. officials have criticized Karzais government, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month is “plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption.” Obama on Feb. 18 ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan as a first step in a new strategy likely to be unveiled late next month. By then, Indias election will be in full swing: Voting in the worlds most populous democracy is to take place in several phases and must be completed by May. Congress enters the campaign without history on its side: No ruling party has won re-election after serving a full term since Indira Gandhi led Congress to victory in 1971. Since the start of 2007, the party had lost ground in nine of 11 state elections, before winning three out of six late last year. It isnt even clear wholl lead the party. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, 76, was hospitalized last month for cardiac bypass surgery and had to reduce his workload. If he isnt able to carry the party banner, the succession is murky. Party leader Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, has declined to assume a direct role in government. Congress hasnt said whether it will name her 34-year-old son, Rahul, to lead the party their family has dominated since India won its independence six decades ago. “Rahul Gandhi is not ready,” political scientist and commentator Harish Khare wrote in the Hindu, a national newspaper, on Jan. 30. Congress, he said, should avoid “pitchforking the young man into the race.” The campaign comes at a time when the global recession has crippled Indian exports, cutting growth in Asias third-largest economy to its slowest pace since 2003. India has lost 1 million jobs, the government said Jan. 29, and companies such as Bangalore-based Gokaldas Exports Ltd., the countrys largest clothing exporter, predict more firings. Meanwhile, an accounting scandal at Satyam Computer Services Ltd. has undermined Indias appeal to foreign investors. Indias benchmark Sensex stock index tumbled 50 percent in the past year, led by declines in Tata Motors Ltd. and property developer DLF Ltd. The rupee fell 24 percent against the dollar in the same period. “The economy is the key to a very tough fight for Congress,” says Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst at Delhi University. A nationwide poll last week by Indias CNN-IBN television network found 32 percent of respondents named the economy as the main election issue, compared with 21 percent who cited security and terrorism. No margin of error was given. India, with a population of 1.1 billion, will elect its lower house of parliament for a five-year term. Thirty-seven parties sit in the current chamber; since the early 1990s, governments have been coalitions headed by Congress or its main rival, the BJP, with smaller parties playing an increasing role. The BJP, which draws support from groups seeking to make India a more overtly Hindu state, criticized Congresss patience with Pakistan following the Mumbai attacks, which killed 164 people. It suggested a naval blockade of Karachi, Pakistans largest city, and on Feb. 8 urged Congress to consider breaking off “all trade, transport, tourism and cultural ties.” No improvement in India-Pakistan ties is likely during a three-month election season because of political pressures, says Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a research institute in Washington. “It will probably be more difficult if the BJP wins to get back to an Indo-Pakistan dialogue, but I dont think its impossible,” Curtis says. Still, the BJP, headed by L.K. Advani, 81, might not bring a radical departure from Congresss foreign policy. While the BJP-led government of then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee mobilized Indian troops against Pakistan after a 2001 guerrilla attack on Indias parliament, it later opened a process of detente with Pakistans then-ruler, General Pervez Musharraf. “Under a BJP government, theres no question the rhetoric and language will be much tougher and aggressive, but it will just be rhetoric,” says Olivier Louis, head of the India and South Asia program at IFRI, the French Institute for International Affairs in Paris. The election probably will sustain the growth of smaller parties rooted in the ethnic and linguistic groups that dominate many of Indias 28 states, says Walter Andersen, a retired State Department India specialist who heads the South Asia Studies Program at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Rangarajan says “the unknown quantity” is the socialist- leaning Bahujan Samaj Party, which aims to mobilize minority and lower-caste groups. It swept aside Congress and other parties in Uttar Pradesh, Indias most populous state, in 2007. With all parties seeking votes by showing their readiness to get tough on terrorism, the biggest challenge to the Obama administrations calls for moderation would be another attack similar to Mumbai, says Vikram Sood, a former chief of Indias main intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing. In such a case, “India would have to make at least a symbolic strike” on Pakistani targets, Sood said in an interview. In such a case, Clinton “should go to Islamabad and tell them to quietly take whats coming.” |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #13 In related news Empty Suit still empty. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2009-02-24 20:51 |
| #12 Louisiana is a pretty easy place for a resident to buy guns. And it's warm and flat too. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2009-02-24 19:05 |
| #11 He made his bones in the Balkans Under sniper fire? |
| Posted by: Mullah Richard 2009-02-24 17:21 |
| #10 You never, ever, EVER describe your own government's position as "troubled and confused" in a diplomatic context - ESPECIALLY if that accurately describes the situation in the head offices. Holbrooke just demonstrated his incompetence. He needs to be fired right now. It's not as if he was a regional specialist. He made his bones in the Balkans, for the love of Christ! I can't believe I was mooting him for Sec'y of State four months ago. Boy, was *I* fooled. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-02-24 17:00 |
| #9 Whiskey Mike, I'll be up to see you in about a year. I currently reside in the "Peoples (ack spit) Republic" to your south. Vermont is definitely acceptable to my better half. Summered up there when I was a little kid (damn that's a loooooong time ago). The cold I can deal with but I wish you could flatten some of those hills I prefer wide open spaces ;^) |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-02-24 15:53 |
| #8 "...and if the boys wanna fight, you better let 'em." -- Thin Lizzie |
| Posted by: mojo 2009-02-24 15:15 |
| #7 AlanC: Vermont and Alaska are the two best states for gun owners. I live in Vermont. Nuts in Vermont are concentrated in three cities, the rest of the state is relatively sane (unless you count the fact that we live in a damned cold state with more dirt roads than paved roads, more cows than people, more ..., well you get the idea.) Don't even get me started on the senators and the rep. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2009-02-24 14:00 |
| #6 Anyone ever see the Robert Redford flick "The Candidate"? Last line of the movie: after winning the election Redford, contemplative in the back of his limo, wistfully asks "What do we do NOW?" Like Redford's character, President Affirmative-action, Carter II: the Obamination has NO idea. |
| Posted by: Scooter McGruder 2009-02-24 13:46 |
| #5 Sorry, lost my cookie, Glinesh Bonaparte9278 was me. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2009-02-24 13:45 |
| #4 Holbrooke sums up this administration in total with his the administration was "troubled and confused" Where can I move that makes buying a gun easy? I'm thinking that one might become necessary in the next few years. |
| Posted by: Glinesh Bonaparte9278 2009-02-24 13:44 |
| #3 government, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month is “plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption Describes the Demos in WH and Congress. If anybody can recognize "limited capacity and widespread corruption.” It would be the Demos. |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2009-02-24 13:09 |
| #2 What doesn't "Vex" Barry? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-02-24 12:39 |
| #1 Someday, Obama may look back on all of this and realize that the "Good Days" were when he was running for the presidency, not the days he spent running the presidency. Ther can be no doubt now that he had swallowed whole the complete leftist take on things. The indigestion is only just begun. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-02-24 12:15 |