Thus far, Washington and New Delhi have chosen to emphasize the areas of agreement – the IAEA votes, their shared opposition to an Iranian nuclear weapon – and downplay the disagreement on how to achieve that objective. But with the issue heating up in Washington and other world capitals, and with the new U.S. sanctions poised to go into effect, there’s the danger of a real impasse. Members of the U.S. Congress will be dismayed if India appears to stand outside a concerted international effort to press Iran at a critical inflection point. Members of the Indian parliament, for their part, will not particularly appreciate being publicly goaded to get tough on Iran.
The collateral damage could be the U.S.-India relationship. A falling out over Iran could infect other elements of the budding strategic partnership, and make everything else – from trade to defense cooperation to diplomatic coordination – more difficult.
The United States and India should urgently seek ways to bridge their differences over Iran. A genuine partnership on this issue might see India using its unique role to carry messages to the Iranian leadership and provide insights about Iranian behavior to the American side, while the United States works with New Delhi to pressure Iran on a variety of fronts. For the sake of preventing a nuclear-armed Iran and for the solidity of the U.S.-Indian relationship, the two nations’ respective leaders should engage on Iran, and soon.
Richard Fontaine is a Senior Advisor at the Center fora New American Security and the co-author of ‘Natural Allies: A Blueprint for the Future of U.S.-India Relations.’
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latsar
Each country has to put its national interest first. India should put its national interest first with regarding to Iran. A growing India is highly dependent on gulf oil. Before US invaded Iraq,Iraq was a reliable supplier of oil to India. Due to American misadventure in Iraq, that country has become highly unstable (but I am sure Americans have secured all the oil fields for their own interests). The only other reliable place for oil to India is Iran. Of course, India imports oil from Saudi as well, however Saudi Arabia is not a reliable supplier, as it has many times in the past indulged in anti-India activities; an example of this is Saudi Arabia funding wahabi fundamentalists mhadrasas which has become a specialist in training terrorists. Even though O.B. Laden is a Saudi and most of 9/11 terrorists are Saudi nationals, America blatantly wants to close it’s eyes and sell billions of military equipment (land, sea and air) the Saudi’s and making the region very unstable. The US has also persuade its own interests vis a vis Pakistan providing military aid, F16s and billions in monetary aid, which it is going to use directly in anti-India activities; further it is known fact ISI aided Taliban, have killed hundreds of US soldiers; not to tell about safe haven provided to O.B. Laden for many years, at the same time fooling the US. In these matters US has taken decions which is contrary to India’s interest, (Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world with more than hundred WMD and has a poor record on nuclear proliferation. Pakistan has the most religious fundamentalists who are anti-India and the US in the world). the Americans are expecting India to follow their line Vis a Vis Iran. If there is a war between India and Pakistan Saudis would immediately stop oil supplies to India so it is in Indias national interest to have a good relation with Iran. Further, Irans strategic location as an exit point Vis a Vis Afghanistan and oil rich central Asia makes India’s relation with Iran indispensable. India having strongly stated it’s position on Iran’s nuclear program, should try to leverage it’s influence on Iran to come clean on their nuclear issue and should abide all the conditions set by the IAEA but at the same time tell Americans emphatically that it cannot join it’s band-wagon on it’s misadventures
sona
if the US wants poodles for allies, then it need look no further than europe – even japan is asserting itself – asia is not going to be a willing colony of the US and asia does not and should not give a whit about a dysfunctional US congress
US needs to redefine diplomacy beyond the parameters of arms twisting, threats, loads of cash, remote controlled drones and spying on foreign diplomats at the UN
btw, iran is nowhere near to nuclear weaponisation nor does it have the missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads – it also has a right to engage in civil nuclear research and the iaea has not a shred of evidence that its nuclear program is anything but
perhaps if facts get in the way, we can have less insanity than we have experienced throughout this century
pm
The US has got to realize that when dealing with countries like india, turkey, brazil and so on, this kind of bluster just isnt going to work. As some of the comments here indicate most indians find it despicable that the US funds Pakistan and is an ally of Saudi Arabia. Both of these countries have created 10x the damage caused by Iran, in terms of terrorism and creation of worldwide islamist extremism. India has been deeply harmed by these countries and the gulf states who fund hardline salafist and wahabis in india.
The indians arent going to play, PERIOD. As the indian govt guy says – India will follow UN sanctions, as for anything else, the western powers are on their own.
capitalist77
Man…yanks are so hypocritical..almost as blind as the Islamic fundamentalists. So let me understand, the US can do things blatantly immoral and against Indian interests, but India can’t protect its interests with Iran? Iran is a bad country, but no worse than your pals in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, who practice and protect deliberately modern day slavery. More hypocrisy – here are worse things the yanks have done to us, and then call us “friends” its better not to have? You haven’t given us much apart from:
1. Clinton admin willfully turned a blind eye to Chinese transfers of Nuclear and Missile Technology to Pakistan in order to provide continued MFN status to them. Now India has a fundamentalist military controlled nuclear regime on our borders?
2. The US can give billions of dollars of military aid, including f-16s capable of delivering nuclear weapons, to a country that specifically has aided and abetted terrorists through: finance, refusing to prosecute them (Hafiz Saeed), giving shelter to terrorists and hijackers escaped from Indian jails (Omar Shaikh, killer of Daniel Pearl and Masood Azhar). You can give billions to an organisation that sponsors terrorism in India and expect us to play ball on Iran?
Get real…when you’re ready to be absolutist on terrorism instead of convenient about your short term goals, let us know and we can talk about a partnership. In the meantime, enjoy your friendship with the lovely Saudis while we do with the bad bad Iranians.
Capitalist
PacRim Jim
As usual, Americans are warned about disrupting relations with India.
Yet India shows no concern about its relations with American, when it buys oil from Iran.
Enough of these phony one-way international relations.
Gimme friends like India the U.S. does not need.
Barry Soe
The Thais say if you see a snake or an Indian in the road which do you kill first?
Obviously, we know the answer, but the meaning goes deeper for the Thais
America with its policy of give and give deserves the kick it gets in the rear.
Girish
@Barry Soe
Pretty immature comments about Indians.
Anyways I still believe thai people are nice and we see them as a friends.
Varun
@ Barry Soe, you do know that US supplied military supplies to Pakistan when the 1972 Indo-Pak war happened?
Imposing sanctions in 1998, despite the fact India was already a Nuclear weapons state from 1974 onwards, India is not a signatory of NPT or CTBT, the ban was stupid.
US military supplies to India was negligible and of incredible price ranges.
We imported our weaponry from USSR and then Russi and now have military partnership with them in new weapons development(like supersonic & hypersonic Brahmos missiles and PAK/FA 5th gen fighter).
Only thing that you can argue for is the recent nuclear waiver, it was nice for India sure, but people weren’t dying if we didn’t get it, in fact most people in the Govt and opposition didn’t want it, it was the PM’s individual decision call.
Oil is more important and immediate commodity.
Plus India has incredible Thorium reserve and next-gen nuclear technology will be Thorium based so we never needed the deal that desperately, it was Bush who was adamant and Indian PM seized upon it.
And look whats happening, France and Russia has already singed lucrative long term deals for Multiple Nuclear Plants across India, US companies are whining about legal terms and conditions, you guys can’t even work properly on this opportunity.
Your assumption that US has given & given to India is the height of propagandized brainwashed individual lacking any sense of history & reality.
Get real buddy.
India is a democracy and if its seen as India is being directed by US or any other country, the Govt will fall and the embassy will see massive & hostile protests.
Not everyone in India is in love with the US, in a country of billion people there are enough hundreds of millions who don’t like it. Don’t test their guts.
Varun
*1971 Indo-Pak War, not 1972.
peace for all
where did you heared the thai’s saying that?In your dream world…lol..
vineet
@Barry Soe
Dude do you seriously think we Indians are so naive that we’ll do anything US wants us to.We may not be as powerful as you guys are but we do have our self respect.We will support US in only those decisions which benefit us & sanctioning Iran won’t do any good to our nation.You guys get cheap oil from your stooge’s like Saudi,which is the hub of terror.You aid Pakistan and supply them with F16’s, stil you dont’s hear Indians complaining,so wat ru complaining about.
I don’t know wat u think of India cuz if thats wat India was all about then Obama wouldn’t have come begging for Jobs to India.
Dude Get this straight, if India wasn’t buying those planes , you or some one from ur familly would have gone broke by now.
Indian
First I’d like to mention that this American hegemony over the world is very short lived, may be for a decade or two. So don’t take any stupid decisions (from now on) that will make you regret forever. I afraid at the end of the day you may find yourself isolated from this very world.
It is human nature to be selfish, agree, but there got to be some limit. Your selfishness is abysmal. This puts you in the category of animals to be précised.
On the name of weapon of mass destruction (WMD) you guys invaded Iraq, created whole lot of mess there. Did you find anything there? How come your intelligence agency failed in this operation? The real reason for invasion is that Iraq wanted to trade in Euros rather than Dollars which was, of course not in your interest. How come then you dominate the world? ‘Libya invasion’ doesn’t have any different reason (here they wanted to trade in gold).
You Americans create this mess everywhere (away from your mainland) and make others suffer! Don’t you guys have enough manners to clean your shit? You left Iraq. Now you are planning to leave Afghanistan (and planning to repeat Iraq with Iran). Who is going to clean your shit? If you cannot finish your business then why do you start at first place? The fact is that you guys always want to rule the world. You really don’t care about ‘world peace’. These regions are now more dangerous than before, possessing credible threat to its neighbors and ultimately to the whole world.
You stupid morons, the main source of this WMD is Pakistan. You guys were quite aware of Pak’s clandestine nuclear program. Why didn’t you stop them then? Why don’t you stop them now? It is well known that Pak is the source of proliferation of Nuke tech to North-Korea, Iran and “would be” Saudi Arabia. No action against the main culprit! Hmm…that’s funny! You guys are well aware that the 21st century belongs to Asians. Hence you want this Asian region unstable and dangerous as much as possible so that you can continue your hegemony.
What makes you guys think that you are bigger than UN? Giving large donation to UN does not mean that you owe UN. India is following all UN’s rules and regulations. India doesn’t, LET ME REPEAT, doesn’t give any shit to any other country’s sanctions.
Dear author, you mentioned about jeopardizing defense cooperation with the US. What cooperation are you talking about? Is this C-30J, P-8I, C-17, Apache-III, stinger and harpoon missiles, etc? Even if you guys cancel, some or all of these deals that won’t hurt India much. All those goodies are available in the market, may not be of the best standard but still good enough to cause harm to ANY adversary severely.
Dear Indians, all these defense equipments offered to India are neither best-in-class nor there is any transfer of technology, as India has not signed CISMOA, BECA, and LSA agreements (India knows very well that she is not puppet of the US like Japan, Australia, Europe except France, etc). Whatever they are selling us is not their front line technology. They have removed many high tech components from those goodies. Also these are prone to sanctions if our views don’t match with them on some sensitive issues. Also since we have signed EUMA (due to the nuke deal) we need take permission from the US for “ANY” and “EVERY” mission (EUMA is subjected to all defense equipments too). That is the main reason India did buy big ticket deal (F-16 and F-18) from these guys. We really know how pathetic you guys are!
You may cancel Nuke deal. That’s also Okay with us. Slowly but steadily we will get what we want as we did for other projects eg. LCA, Arjun, etc. But believe me jeopardizing relations with India is not in your interest. It will harm you more than India. I can certainly give many reasons but I’m really not in a mood now.
About trade cooperation, it is in your interest to keep things running. It’s your economy that is shivering not ours. Our bilateral trade with China is much more than yours. You are the ones who are begging to remove certain restrictions on FDI in India. Believe me it’s not in the US interest to go south against India.
Dear author, it is always good to have pride for one’s prowess but as soon as ego replaces that one needs to consider that his/her downfall is imminent.
Girish
@PacRim Jim
“India shows no concern about its relations with American, when it buys oil from Iran”
look who is talking..
How about selling Weapons like F-16 and other sophisticated weapons etc to Pakistan despite issue being consistently raised by India?
Who doesn’t know these weapons have no role against fight against Taliban but rather to be used against India?
Did you ever thought of India’s concerns?
Why is complain when India is pursuing its own interest when US does the same, ALWAYS.
India is altogether a different type. And it is proven to US every-time. Only way to deal with India is to cooperate as equals and not like a client state.
Of us, our interest are the priority as US follow its own.
India and US are natural partners but rule of the game is to be set cooperatively and not by US alone.
NPegasus
The US, without much hesitation, aids and arms among the most dangerous countries – notably Pakistan and Saudi Arabia – because it serves American national interests at the expense of the interests of regional countries, including India, and the world at large.
Ironically, there are no alarms of the Indo-US train wrecks, when the US gifts billions of dollars in military aid to Pakistan to buy F-16s and frigates in the name of fighting the Taliban; a portion of that aid Pakistan gladly spends on reinforcing the terrorist infrastructure. Nor do we see similar anger, when the US shields the corrupt Saudis who are the fountainhead of extremist Islam setting up madrassas.
So it comes down to energy; more specifically availability of crude oil. Like the US imports its oil from the Saudis & others, India imports bulk of its crude oil from the Iranians. The Indo-US nuclear deal will take years, if not decades, for the mutual benefits to kick in. In the end, unless the US has crude oil to sell at a price that Iran is selling to India it should, for the lack of better word, shut up.
Lnrds
The world needs a world police. Who else would police the world?
India will buy Iranian oil with gold. Simple solution for them.
As for US-India relationship, its to contain both Pakistan and China as they are alies. It s nice strategic containment wall encircling Pakistan which US can’t trust no more and China for expanding their influence westward.
I’d rather US contain China than to fight China causing another world war. It could cause another world war but highly unlikely comparing to the conditions of how WW1 and WW2 started (assassination and revival of Germany as a superpower)