Them and US

It would be an error to see in US envoy Richard Holbrooke’s uncharacteristic near-apology, a vindication of India’s rising power. It is, though, indicative of the rise of a new & weakening America.

File photo of US diplomat Richard Holbrooke | Commons

There was nothing un-Holbrooke-like about his utterly insensitive statement that the Kabul attack had not particularly targeted Indians. The use of really awful language, ‘I do not accept’ [that this was like the attack on the Indian embassy] and ‘let’s not jump to conclusions’, was also true to form. In fact, coarse directness of this kind is so much his hallmark that, talking about him when his appointment was announced, a former American envoy who himself was not exactly some Mr Congeniality told me, “You guys will learn to deal with Holbrooke… he will make me look so diplomatic to you.” It follows, therefore, that there was also nothing so unusual about what should normally have been shocking insensitivity. What kind of a guy other than Holbrooke, of course speaks like this when four Indian victims of that terror attack are still battling for life in the hospital? His tone was dismissive, almost an admonition of those (read the Indian government) who jumped to the conclusion that this was an attack specifically on Indian interests.

More significant, however, is his double-quick retraction. Within a day of making that silly statement he had clarified it in a manner that almost sounded like an apology and this, indeed, was so un-Holbrooke-like. The Richard Holbrookes of the world will not usually be heard saying, “Oops, I screwed up on this one.”

So what conclusions do we draw from this sudden turnaround? Do we go home feeling vindicated, and happy that he has seen reason so quickly? Or was it just a hasty remark which, thank God, has been withdrawn? Or do we start to worry, lose sleep, and weigh our options?

Facts would point to the latter option. We would be erring gravely if we see in Holbrooke’s uncharacteristic near-apology, a vindication of India’s rising power and stature. It is, on the other hand, indicative of the rise of a new, weak and further weakening America. This weakening is underlined by both his initial statement, and his quick retreat. Here is how.

The note of irritation in his initial statement was caused not so much by any arrogant claim of better information from the ground as by irritation with India on the part of somebody representing a power that is increasingly short of ideas and options and losing both influence and the will to exercise it. Obama’s ‘I will send more troops but will withdraw by a deadline approach’ has weakened the American position in the region gravely and not just the Taliban but even the Pakistanis are smelling victory. Pakistan now rightly believes, though these things can change quickly, that the only game left for America (and its envoys like Holbrooke) is to work towards some kind of an arrangement where a withdrawal could be arranged by declaring some kind of a quick victory. That can only be through a deal with a faction of the Taliban, chosen and controlled by Pakistan. Of course, the Pakistanis will then promise to ensure that these new rulers of Kabul will be no nuisance to America and its allies.

Smelling success, the Pakistanis have become so bold as to again openly talk of their need for Afghanistan, for the strategic depth they always dream of vis-à-vis India. Their protestations over the activities of Indian missions in Afghanistan have increased and the Americans are now showing less and less conviction in countering that charge. In Holbrooke’s kind of worldview, it would do nobody any harm if the Indians agreed to be a little more reasonable keeping in mind the big picture. He is now speaking for a declining superpower that is no longer determined to go fight for its interests far from its shores, and is keen to buy peace, bury the hatchet. The problem is that the Pakistanis, who are central to the success of this defeatist strategy, would prefer the hatchet to be buried in India’s back. Holbrooke’s quick retraction in the face of Indian disgust and revulsion further underlines the lack of conviction that has seized Obama’s waffling America.

Signs of this have been visible for some time. This columnist has also pointed to the perils of continuing with the strategy of outsourcing the countering of our terror threat to the US, particularly in view of the new evolving Af-Pak approach in Washington. This week’s developments, seen together with the increasing Pakistani confidence that they have the Americans (and maybe even the Indians) exactly where they want them, shows that Obama’s America no longer has either the confidence, or the spine, of a superpower. Further, this declining America needs help from both our immediate adversaries, China and Pakistan, in different ways, but equally desperately. One must continue to fund its deficit, and the other must bail it out of the Afghan quicksand.

Both China and Pakistan have already responded to this remarkable turnaround by hardening their respective postures towards India in their own different ways. The Chinese shifted the goalposts on border negotiations earlier, and now the Pakistanis are resiling even from the vague ideas discussed in the Musharraf era to settle Kashmir. We need to acknowledge and understand this new reality, in which we are much more on our own, and where the power we treated as our own stalwart ally (to turn a metaphor on its head) may be taking a very different view of life.

I have talked in the recent past of the Pakistanis playing a game of triple-nuancing with terrorists, treating Pakistani, Afghan Taliban and then the India-specific Lashkars differently in pursuit of a larger objective vis-à-vis Afghanistan and India. Could it now be that the impatient Americans may also be indulging in a nuancing of their own, telling us that we face a common threat because Al Qaeda and Lashkar are the same thing while at the same time setting minimalistic targets for themselves to neutralise Al Qaeda so they could leave us to deal with threats specific to us, and with a revitalised Pakistani military intelligence complex?

The time has therefore come for us to shift gears, to readjust the viewfinder and re-set the strategic GPS. We will find ourselves on our own in the roughest of neighbourhoods eventually. But with American will weakening so much that even Holbrooke is losing his style, this could come to pass sooner than we imagined.