Opinion - News Analysis

India and the next Gulf war

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI Aug. 6. The question is no longer whether Washington would act against Baghdad in the coming weeks and months. The current debate in the United States is about when and how to intervene in Iraq to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein.

As the momentum builds up towards the third war in the Persian Gulf in a decade and a half, India must quickly gear for the extraordinary consequences that could flow from it. Otherwise, India might find itself as terribly paralysed as it was during the Second Gulf War of 1990-91.

New Delhi needs to be better prepared this time for the fall-out — from the likely sharp rise in oil prices to ensuring the safety of its expatriate communities in the Gulf. Even more significantly, the geopolitics of the region will not remain the same after the next Gulf War.

In responding to the latest crisis in the Gulf, India will have to take into account issues relating to the legality of the U.S. intervention, level and nature of international and regional support, operational considerations of the American use of force, and the future orientation of the Iraqi state.

The Bush administration may not expend too much political energy making a legal case for the intervention or embark on a costly, time-consuming effort to get a United Nations stamp on its planned action against Iraq.

Widespread protests from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Arab Street are unlikely to stop the latest exercise of American power in the Gulf. Washington's focus will be on neutralising the major powers and Iraq's neighbours before, during and after the crisis.

Not surprisingly, the Anglo-Americans are playing it together. France must be expected to fall in line, sooner than later. By the time a grumpy European Union figures out what is going on, the problem on the ground would have changed.

Russia and China will insist on a role for the U.N. Security Council in the action against Iraq. The U.S. would try and lure Russia into the coalition through an attractive share in the oil riches of the post-Saddam Iraq. When Moscow signs on, Beijing will be standing alone, if not silent.

Among the Arab and Muslim states, there will be a lot protests before the intervention. But their formal collective position will be very different from the private articulation of individual interests. Once military action begins, most Arab states will hope it will be brief and decisive.

The U.S. has been considering three different types of options to engineer a "regime change'' in Iraq — a military coup, popular uprising, and direct military intervention. The first two have been tried unsuccessfully, and concerns about risks have held the U.S. back on the third.

The U.S. strategy could involve a combination of military mobilisation, limited strikes and special operations with a view to inducing that much hoped for coup or popular uprising.

In last Gulf War, India did extend military support to the United States in the form of refuelling facilities, but withdrew them amid political pressures at home barely hours before the war ended.

Since 1991 India's military ties with the United States have blossomed. But so have India's interests in Iraq. The prospects for equity oil in Iraq and other economic possibilities have driven New Delhi towards a more intensive engagement of Baghdad in recent years.

An American war in the Gulf will sorely test India's strategic options and diplomatic skills. Preoccupied with Pakistan, and conscious of the complexity of the Gulf politics, India will be tempted to sit out the crisis, on the fence.

But that is no option for a country that claims to be a major force for peace and stability in the Indian Ocean region. New Delhi will have to face up to the hard realities, initiate an immediate political engagement of the region, sketch out alternative scenarios, and work out a policy that protects India's expansive interests in the Persian Gulf.

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