Between Iraq and a hard place, Govt to say no

Unnerved by the possibility of casualties in Iraq in an election year, the BJP-led NDA Government is believed to have decided not to send combat troops to maintain peace in northern Iraq. The meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) here tomorrow morning to decide on the issue is now believed to be a mere formality.

Whatever spin the CCS puts on its decision, the fact is that New Delhi’s inability to arrive at a domestic consensus to send troops finally broke the back of those who had been arguing in favour of such a foreign policy gamble.

The Government’s nervousness about the possibility of Indian troops being shot at or shooting Iraqis in return, on the eve of assembly elections in five states in November, seemed to have carried the day. The Government clearly felt it may have to pay a heavy political cost.

The irony cannot be exaggerated. After nearly a three-month debate on the costs and benefits of the US proposal to India, the Government took the informal decision not to go just when a 25-member Iraqi governing council was taking over from the US provisional authority. The Iraqi interim council — which includes key Kurdish leaders Jalal Talebani and Massoud Barzani whose influence is predominant in the northern Iraq sector that India was asked to command — was believed to be readying a formal invitation to India to send troops to the northern sector.

Observers pointed out that Parliament had passed a resolution demanding withdrawal of the US army from Baghdad barely 48 hours before the city fell to US forces.

In the end, though, domestic politics won against a foreign policy gamble that some in the Government considered outrageous and others believed would enable India to play a big role in the heart of Arabia.

Whatever be the negative factors associated with the US occupation of Iraq, the fact is that the Iraqi interim council — consisting of 13 Shia clerics, two Kurd leaders, a Turkoman woman and a member of the Iraqi Communist party — is already the face of the first people’s representative that will have a say in how to run Iraq.

In fact, the US keenness to get New Delhi involved is believed to have been one of the major reasons why the Iraqi interim council was formed. Washington had already assured the Government that a decision from the council was on its way and that it had also been speaking to Turkey — which has a large Kurdish population — to take care of New Delhi’s fears.

Still, tomorrow’s CCS is likely to say that its decision not to go is believed to have been arrived at after extensive discussions. New Delhi interacted with Iraq’s neighbours like Jordan, UAE, Turkey, Iran, while Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal had exhaustive conversations with the US.

Till earlier this week, New Delhi had been hugely tempted to go to northern Iraq. The MEA’s decision to ask a senior official, R M Abhyankar, to travel nearly 3000 miles across central and northern Iraq was proof of this. Abhyankar’s inputs — which also included possibility of clashes in Arab-dominant Mosul and Kirkuk with the remaining Kurdish population — were also used by the naysayers to justify their decision. Those who wanted our troops to be sent believed that to ‘‘assist America in its hour of need’’ would enormously transform US-India relationship.

In fact, a three-tier structure was believed to have been worked out: An Indian Army officer could be posted in Tampa, Florida, where the US Central Command is headquartered; in Baghdad, the Indian Army commander would be part of the Collegiate Command, which consists of the five sectors that Iraq has been divided into; also in Baghdad, an Indian diplomat could liase with the Collegiate Command.

Those in favour were in fact all set to invoke the Afghan formula in Iraq. That is, just like the Afghan foreign minister had after the fall of the Taliban asked the international community to help with law and order at home — a request that was taken up by the British, passed on to the UN Security Council, which finally mandated the International Security and Assistance Force which continues to keep the peace in Afghanistan today — the ‘‘Iraqi people’’ themselves were now asking India to help out.