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India, Iran moving towards defence cooperation
By C. Raja Mohan
Despite the great difference between their ideological and political moorings, India and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been driven closer to each other by geopolitics.
Both New Delhi and Teheran were rattled by the policies of the Taliban, which rose to prominence in Afghanistan in the mid 1990s. Preventing the territorial consolidation of the Taliban became a shared objective between India and Iran.
Besides becoming a key factor in India's energy security calculus, Iran has emerged as India's potential gateway to Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe. New Delhi and Teheran are working together to develop transport corridors from India to these destinations through Iranian territory.
A missing link in bilateral relations has been defence cooperation. The two sides are now moving to fill that gap. This week the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Madhvendra Singh is in Iran as part of high-level defence exchanges. Ship visits and other military cooperation is expected to follow.
If India wants an insight into brutal geopolitics of the Persian Gulf, it could not get a better interlocutor in the region than the Iranian President.
Mr. Khatami has successfully positioned Iran to take full advantage of the confrontation between the United States and Iraq. Recognising the centrality of Iran in shaping the dynamics of the war and the political future of Iraq after Saddam Hussein, Washington is quietly reaching out to Teheran.
The Iran-based Iraqi Shia dissident groups have joined the international coalition put together by the U.S. as a political alternative to Saddam Hussein.
The Iraqi Shia form nearly 60 per cent of the population and have nursed strong grievances against the regime of Saddam Hussein. An early revolt by the Shia groups could shape the dynamics of the American war against Iraq. Being the majority, they are also likely to have a say in determining Iraq's political future.
Whatever might be the public rhetoric, Iran is unlikely to shed any tears at the ouster of Saddam Hussein. Teheran holds him responsible for the decade-long war in the 1980s between the two countries, which saw the death and disabling of thousands of Iranian youth.
Iran has become an important factor in India's efforts to reorder the geopolitics of its troubled Western neighbourhood. New Delhi in the past was wary of the close relations between Iran and Pakistan.
Now India sees its expanding cooperation with Iran as an instrument that could help nudge Pakistan in the direction of political moderation and regional economic integration.
While Pakistan denies India overland access to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Iran is opening an alternative route. The early creation of such a transport corridor should hopefully convince Pakistan to move away from its negative approach to regional economic cooperation.
Teheran has been eager to build an overland pipeline to ship its natural gas to India through Pakistani territory. India is signalling that it is ready to drop its objections to such a pipeline if Pakistan addresses New Delhi's security concerns and proposals for normal trading relations.
If commerce flows across the Indo-Pak. border and raises New Delhi's comfort level with Islamabad, a pipeline linking the three countries could indeed become a reality in the near future. It depends on how much of economic common sense the Iranians can din into the heads of the Pakistani establishment.
In publicly ticking off the Hurriyat leadership and demanding that it stop support to violence and join the political mainstream in Kashmir last week, the British High Commissioner, Rob Young, has drawn London closer to New Delhi on one of India's most sensitive security concerns.
When Mr. Young came here a few years ago to represent Great Britain, the two countries were scraping the bottom of the diplomatic barrel. He helped New Delhi and London in putting aside the bitterness generated during Queen Elizabeth's visit in 1997.
But even the most ardent supporters of Indo-British relations would not have predicted that London would ever be supportive of India on Kashmir. Indians have long held Britain responsible for the Kashmir imbroglio.
In the last two years, British position has rapidly evolved. London was the first to ban the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad as terrorist organisations.
After the attack on Parliament on December 13, it joined Washington in putting pressure on Gen. Pervez Musharraf to renounce terrorism and end cross-border infiltration.
In Srinagar last year, it urged the Hurriyat to participate in the elections to the State Assembly and endorsed the elections as free and fair. Mr. Young's remarks come on top of this welcome change in British attitudes on the Kashmir question.
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