What Modi must learn from West's mistakes in the Middle East
Recently, the prestigious US newspaper, The New York Times (NYT), commenting on the bloody war waged by the ISIS or Islamic State in the Iraq-Syria region, conceded that the mother of IS was the Iraq "regime change" and the father of IS was Saudi Arabia. It is something more known to experts of the region and many intelligence agencies, including in India.
But the NYT description is not fully accurate. The first regime change was in Afghanistan earlier, when the Soviet-backed secular regime headed by Najibullah, was sought to be toppled by a "good terrorist" force called the Taliban, trained and armed primarily by the US and some of its NATO allies.
The Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam and Tajik militant Ahmed Shah Massoud were given the most modern arms and massive funds. After the Soviet troops left, the Afghan leader Najibullah was not allowed to stay for too long, and was dragged out of a UN building and hanged. So much for imperialist respect for the UN and humanitarian treaties.
So the NYT conjecture is not innocent. Shades of Islam are important. The Saudis, Qatar, Bahrain etc are Sunni. Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah are Shia, as are many in Yemen (the Houthis), and the ruling minority of Alawites in largely Sunni Syria.
Journalists like Robert Fisk are fully aware of the Saudi role, and the fact that the anti-Syria "good terrorists" like the Free Syria Army armed and funded by the US, no longer exist and have been absorbed by al-Nusra, an affiliate of al-Qaeda.
The ruling Saudi dynasty is strongly Wahhabist like the ISIS. It recently beheaded an eminent Shia cleric. Yet the NATO has taken no action against the Saudis.
The imperialist game was given a rude shock by the resolute Russian intervention in Syria backed by Iran and Hezbollah. The earlier Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's tirade against the US-Iran deal was precisely the fear of a Iraq-Iran-Syria-Hezbollah line up.
Israel has not forgotten it's only ever defeat by Hezbollah, which was armed by Syria. But the Russian support to Syria is a game changer. Since it's pinpoint bombing of IS forces, the Syrian forces with its Kurdish allies, have made significant gains. The coalition forces have also, by example, had to follow suit.
The rogue Erdogan government in Turkey has given free access to the IS, as well as buying stolen oil from the IS. The Russians have aerial photographs of oil being loaded on tankers in the presence of Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son Bilal. They had earlier circulated a list of 40 countries supporting IS at the recent G-20 meet.
Is India safe from all this? Certainly not!
The US is aware that the Taliban "good terrorists" are now linked with the Pakistani army. Modi's foreign policy and national security teams are weak, especially the latter which has become very controversial after Pathankot.
It should be remembered that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had a governor in Kabul. In any case it is in India's interests to have a secular Afghanistan. But where is the Afghan policy? Where is the West Asia policy? Which international actors are our friends, or could be our friends?
Foreign policy cannot be reduced to meeting foreign leaders, arms deals or exorbitant bullet train deals, but careful analysis of how to strengthen India's international standing and stature.
The prime minister is clearly not particularly interested in all this. He has to overcome the politics of a pracharak, and act as the prime minister of a country that was a founder of non-alignment, and under Prime Minsiter Jawahar Lal Nehru also a builder of self reliance.