American military personnel observe a nuclear weapons test in Nevada, late 1951

Fourteen years ago this May, India and Pakistan overtly conducted nuclear tests and declared themselves nuclear powers.

India conducted its first test in 1974 and termed it a “peaceful nuclear explosion” while by the late 1980s, Pakistan had acquired the technological capacity to produce a bomb as well. Although many opposed and still oppose the tests due to various reasons and on many grounds, at least the two countries let the world and each other know that they had the bomb.

Nuclear weapons played the role of deterrent and helped in the deescalation of tensions which could otherwise have resulted in war.

For the first time in a war against Pakistan, in 1999 at Kargil, the Indian army did not cross the Line of Control. Even after the attack on the Indian parliament in 2002 and the Mumbai massacre that was carried out by militants based in Pakistan, war was averted. The regular exchange of fire along the Indo-Pakistani border has not resulted in an escalation of hostilities.

As it is, India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and this cannot be reversed or changed despite antinuclear protests and a global push for denuclearization. Hence, it’s better to adapt to the situation.

The two countries have taken many measures to prevent accidental use of their atomic weapons. Chief among them is that India and Pakistan since 1988 are regularly exchanging information about their weapons. They also inform the other side before carrying out military exercises near the border areas or testing their missiles.

The real challenge is to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. Whereas states behave in a rational and responsible way, this cannot be expected from nonstate actors.

The weapons in both countries are kept in disassembled form and physically apart. They have each set up commanding hierarchies to take decisions about its assemblage and use. Any effort to steal or capture even a single part cannot go unnoticed by the security agencies nor the political leadership. To take possession of a nuclear weapon, a terrorist group would help from the inside, as Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, had.

The presence of Taliban and other Islamic extremists in Pakistan complicates the challenge of securing the nation’s nuclear weapons. To check this, the credentials of defense staff and scientists responsible for providing security and maintenance of nuclear technologies must be properly scanned.

The bomb has acted as deterrence but that does not mean it will always be that way. High escalation of bilateral tension may become a reason to trigger nuclear war. Hence, as responsible nuclear powers, India and Pakistan must continue to build confidence between them, if only to avert the accidental use of a nuclear weapon.

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan (AFP/Getty Images)

“In 1947, India and Pakistan were born to conflict.” This is the first line on the flap and gist of Stanley Wolpert’s most recent book, India-Pakistan: Continued Conflict or Cooperation (2010). His assessment is correct because these two countries have a jeremiad of problems.

They have failed to resolve even a single contentious issue between them since independence. It’s not that they haven’t tried to sort out their problems but their structured diplomacy has failed to achieve any breakthroughs.

To improve the relationship, there needs to be a significant change in attitude. There appears to be the will on the part of both civilian governments to see this change through.

Whereas diplomacy used to be conducted behind closed doors, there is an effort today to engage the peoples of both nations. This form of engagement is visible at the highest levels of policy making where the leaders of India and Pakistan have met on the sidelines of multilateral summits and cricket matches.

Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to India this weekend was of such an informal nature but he did have lunch with India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh. Last month, Singh met with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, South Korea.

During their luncheon, Singh offered technical assistance to retrieve the remains of the Pakistani soldiers who, on the morning of Zardari’s visit to India, perished in an avalanche on the Siachen Glacier, east of the Line of Control in Kashmir.

India and Pakistan have held many talks about the demilitarization of Siachen but nothing has yet come of this dialogue.

Singh also raised the issue of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed whom India considers to be the brain behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. He earlier declared a “water jihad” against India and has terrorized his own people for seeking rapprochement with their neighboring state.

India and the United States have both asked for Hafiz Saeed’s extradition. Many in Pakistan consider this an affront to their sovereignty. The issue is not whether or not he should be handed over to another country however; the concern is the militant system which he runs.

No progress was made on either of these issues on Sunday but at least the leaders talked. Such a continued dialogue is needed to contain minor incidents and keep the border calm.

A French Dassault Rafale fighter jet, June 11, 2011 (Prowler)

As David Cameron’s now infamous veto of a treaty for greater fiscal integration in the European Union, the leaders of France and Germany bonded closer, overcoming to a large extent their difficult personal chemistry.

Thousands of kilometers away in India, this realignment coincided with the victory of the French made Dassault Rafale in India’s Multi Role Medium Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) contest. The emerging schism which the tantrum was symptomatic of, had already begun to play out in India.

The MMRCA contest has been India’s biggest fighter contest of this century, worth about $20 billion or $60 billion if spread out over the next thirty years. It coincided with a similar quest for a new fighter jet in Japan.

The Eurofighter also participated in both contests. Italy and Spain, junior partners in the joint fighter project, took a backseat while Germany took the lead in India (unusually, given that the British are much more familiar with it) while the British were given charge of the Japanese campaign (again, unusual, since the Germans consider themselves to have penetrated the Japanese psyche more).

The otherwise successful plane faltered in both contests. The loss in Japan was understandable given that it was up against a supposedly superior plane that is a full generation ahead. The loss in India was galling however given that the Rafale is considered the lowest performing of all modern western warplanes.

Expectedly, the British press went into a tizzy, demanding a revoking of the $1 billion worth of aid India received while The Sunday Times ran an investigative article on how the competition was “fixed” by some “shady” Frenchmen.

That the process was tainted and corrupt is undeniable. All Indian defense acquisitions are. What is surprising is the German disinterest in winning this contact and the way in which Germany appears to be maneuvering at the highest levels to scuttle any British move to appeal the Indian decision.

One thing everyone in Delhi seems clear about is that the Eurofighter was the only horse in the race without state support. The Swedes, Russians and Americans all backed their ponies to the hilt, while the French by all accounts resorted to a massive campaign of electronic espionage and presumably bribery to win.

Indeed, the French were so exasperated with what they saw as Dassault’s negotiating incompetence that they went to great lengths to exclude it entirely from the Indian campaign.

Berlin, on the other hand, did exactly nothing. Several times in the contest the British reportedly expressed serious reservations about the way Germany was sleeping on the job but apparently to no avail.

If there was one piece of critical analysis missing from The Sunday Times‘s reporting, it was why Germany would be so reluctant to win $60 billion worth of business.

Once the Rafale’s victory was sealed, things started getting a lot murkier. While the British were crying themselves hoarse, the standard German line paraphrased was, “India is a big market with several opportunities, this is one deal that didn’t go our way—c’est la vie.” This in spite of several indicators being dug by the Indian press, institutions and even bureaucrats of the contest being manipulated.

The standard claim is that Germany is “hiring”—i.e., the jobs lost on the Eurofighter production line will be absorbed into other sectors of German industry.

Britain is not hiring though nor is France and the insinuations floating around are that this deal is a secret bailout package for the French in addition to the considerable sums of money Germany has to spend to finance European deficit spending.

The severe conflict of interest and possibilities for European collusion in this contest are reflected in the ownership. The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company owns 46 percent of the Eurofighter Consortium and 46.3 percent of Dassault Aviation which produces the Rafale. This .3 percent difference means a higher cut for EADS in the profit share should the Rafale win. Its French boss, Louis Gallois, went on the record after the Eurofighter loss claiming as much.

Curiously, coinciding with the timing of the Indian loss was news that Cassidian, EADS’s subsidiary that had led the Indian campaign, was to move its headquarters from Munich to Toulouse—ostensibly to be nearer to Airbus.

The German reaction to all this? Silence. High level political pressure when Nicolas was coochie cooing Angela? Perhaps. Serge Dassault, the president of Dassault Aviation, is a close ally and major funder of President Sarkozy in addition to being a member of the French conservative party. Moreover, he owns the influential newspaper Le Figaro.

Given all this shadow play, it seems Goethe got it right. Licht! Mehr Licht!

President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil meets Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in New Delhi, March 30

The recent BRIC summit in New Delhi was heralded as a game changer in international politics. Although cooperation between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is definitely here to stay as an alternative to Western multilateral institutions, the praise has to do more with hype than substance.

The BRICS summit has been compared to the 1941 conference between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Newfoundland which led to the signing of the Atlantic Charter and ultimately to the creation of a new world order with the forming of United Nations in 1945. The BRICS doesn’t propose to create any such multilateral institution however. It merely seeks to make existing organizations as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank more democratic.

A major obstacle to permanent cooperation within the BRICS is the lack of resemblance among the countries that compose it.

Brazil is a regional power in South America, Russia is a greater power in Eurasia, India is a greater power in the Asia Pacific, China is a greater power aspiring to be a superpower while South Africa is a regional power in Africa at best.

What these countries have in common is that they aren’t too pleased with the status quo of the international system which is dominated by Western powers, specifically by the United States.

Even in a country as India, which considers China to be its primary threat, there is strong domestic opposition against the values of the West and the Untied States.

Yet it remains doubtful that these countries can come together to inaugurate an alternative system at the international level. They all need United States to balance against threats in their own domains.

Brazil seeks American support in its struggle for regional hegemony with neighboring Argentina. Russia finds it hard to digest China’s influence in Central Asia and the Middle East and so does India in South and Southeast Asia. South Africa’s position in Africa is threatened by China’s presence on the continent. The latter’s scant regard for human rights is seen as a problem by both Brazil and South Africa.

There is a risk that the BRICS evolves into a platform for Chinese foreign policy just as Moscow employs an array of interregional cooperative bodies to further its own goals. If that turns out to be the case, the legitimacy of the organization is in jeopardy and it would be high time for the remaining members to consider an alternative.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka prays with thousands of Buddhist monks during a special religious ceremony in Colombo, January 24, 2010 (Reuters)

India’s support for an American sponsored resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council that condemned the government of Sri Lanka signifies a complete reversal of a decades old policy.

As irrelevant as Sri Lanka may seem strategically and in terms of resources, geopolitical stakes are playing out on what what would seem to be but a mild rebuke of Sri Lanka with little by way of actual consequence for the perpetrators of war crimes.

China’s calculus is straight. Hemmed in by overwhelming American naval superiority and the fleets of Japan and Korea, its efforts at acquiring power projection capabilities have set off the same kind of opposing dynamic that German and Russian admirals Alfred von Tirpitz and Sergey Gorshkov triggered, reinforcing the offshore balancer.

The Malacca Straits are a vital energy jugular of China’s economy and hence its rise. India’s emerging naval strategy seems, gauged both from procurement plans as well as the strengthening of Andaman’s joint air-naval command, directed at choking this jugular. China’s trump card, Pakistan, is now in the throes of disintegration moreover, its strategic utility seems lost, while Burma, due to a significant overdose of Chinese “soft power,” has run into India’s arms.

Thus Sri Lanka emerges as China’s new strategic pawn more out of necessity than choice. Analogically, it is India’s Cuba, a mere irritant without nuclear weapons. Insufficient in national power and having no nuclear ambitions, its usefulness as an ally—at least the “crazy” independent kind which the Chinese seem to prefer—is limited. It does not posses a disproportionate ability to wreak havoc or tie down regional powers.

What is more, the Sri Lankan economy is too dependent on Indian goodwill and supply routes to deal with a American style trade embargo. At best, it can be China’s “Albania” to draw in another analogy; strategically inutile and of dubious rhetorical value but requiring China to expend vast diplomatic resources.

India’s Sri Lanka policies have largely been driven by paranoia surrounding the rise of China, stoked in no small degree by the budget hungry but intellectually deficient armed forces.

This phenomenon has been exploited successfully in the past by Sri Lankan politicians to either extract concessions from or to relieve pressure applied on them by India.

Some Indian commentators have exaggerated this development to suggest that Sri Lanka has somehow “successfully balanced” against India. As a result, New Delhi’s options to help Lankan Tamils have been completely paralyzed by dubious grand strategy analyses—overcompensating for every Chinese move and appeasing the Sinhala majority.

This overcompensation has now produced a furious centripetal reaction from India’s Tamil Nadu state. Here, the state ruling party and opposition have joined hands to blackmail a severely weakened central government into executing a policy U-turn. This reversal is a stark departure from uncritical support of the Sri Lankan Government last week to supporting a harsh condemnation of it the following

In the final analysis, all three parties have overplayed their hands.

China overplayed the Sri Lanka card and did so too soon to the point that it now faces being cornered, supporting a country that can provide it no tangible benefits in the foreseeable future.

Sri Lanka in its attempt to thwart Indian support for Tamil rights overplayed the China card and demanded too much from India.

India overplayed the China threat and has now been forced into a humiliating retreat by small regional parties within India’s polity.

Some good may yet come of this forced construct of a China-Sri Lanka axis. As the former prime minster of Nepal Surya Bahadur Thapa used to say, “Nepal is surrounded by dogs, the one to the south barks but does not bite, the one to the north does not bark but bites viciously.”

Sri Lanka is going to learn the Nepal lesson the hard way opting for an ally that can only realistically support it at diplomatic fora. As the lessons of Pakistan and North Korea show, China never pays the bills at the end of the day.

China is now faced with the bloated cost of maintaining an ally that is incapable of realistically bringing synergies to the grouping. India on the other hand learns a good lesson; that China’s abilities must be viewed realistically and analyzed without hysteria.

Sri Lanka has two options. One is to make good on its China threat with all the attendant liabilities. The other is to capitulate to India.

The problem lies with India, which in spite of its delirious view of itself as a benign power was and is an insufferable regional bully. Like a man eating tiger that can never turn back once it has tasted human blood, the taste of victory in Sri Lanka will in all probability lead to triumphalism and the inevitable clumsily overplayed hand—the hallmark of Indian diplomacy, which will in turn set in motion a new round of regional balancing in the subcontinent.

An earlier version of this article erroneously referenced the United Nations refugee agency instead of the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, 2009 (Reuters/Molly Reilly)

A slow but sure shift can be observed in India’s Iran policy. What is curious about this is that in many ways, India’s Israel policy seems to be the blueprint.

The Indian Government still emphasizes the significance of Iranian oil and gas buys. This position is bolstered by Saudi Arabia’s refusal to boost output last week in anticipation of an expected drop in Iranian exports. Following a beggars can’t be choosers logic, New Delhi has refrained from joining an embargo of Iranian crude despite heavy Western pressure to do so.

Reports have surfaced of sanctions being threatened against India for its obstructionism in this regard. The nature and substance of these sanctions remains unknown. The United States State Department though, in an unusual step, rather than squelching the rumors, added fuel to the flames, stating merely that reports to this effect were “highly speculative.”

There are two implication of such a threat being held over India.

First, that the entire dynamic of Indo-American rapprochement being a Sinocentric one now stand challenged. If India believed that its primary role was to act as a demographic counterweight to China, its gradual loss of economic traction is weakening the bargaining power it had accumulated in the relationship.

Further down the road, such pressure simply confirms the allegation of the Indian left that the United States were always going to be a perfidious ally unworthy of being relied upon. The ruling Congress party will be in no mood to forgive the Americans should such pressure result in more electoral losses as is widely expected.

In the meantime, Narendra Modi, the opposition’s likely prime ministerial candidate, while being shunned by the West, is actively wooed by China.

Given these circumstances, the calculus of balancing against China shifts decisively over the long term to bandwagoning with China should America be perceived as an economic or political liability.

Coming to the two protagonists Israel and Iran—India has for a significant time now depended on the former for traditional security and on the latter for energy security. Yet in its dealings with Israel, India has often been at the forefront of condemning every Israeli action, frequently going over and above Arab expectations.

To be fair, Arab condemnations are far more rhetorical as these countries have been obsessed for some time with the Iranian threat. So assuming a rhetorical position that aligned with Arab states while maintaining a policy more like the Arabs’ Western friends in having strong economic and military ties with Israel makes perfect sense.

With Iran on the other hand, India has frequently ignored those same Arab concerns, supporting Iran both rhetorically and in terms of putting its money where its mouth is.

South Asia in the last few weeks has witnessed the assassination of a Saudi diplomat in Bangladesh that was linked to Iran and the attempted killing an Israeli diplomat in New Delhi. Arrests in the later case are now pointing very clearly to an Iranian hand.

India’s hand are tied to such an extent that the rhetorical support of Iran has become too much of a liability. If anything, this may be just the excuse India was looking for to throw the Iranians overboard—at least rhetorically.

What to expect in the near future?

India will use the attack on the Israeli diplomat to downgrade its ties with Iran—at a visible level and also ramp up its rhetoric.

This will be to muffle the visible impact of its increasing imports of Iranian oil and gas. In many ways, this will be a mirror image of India’s Israel policy—engagement masked (and in many ways aided) by public hostility.

However, should India be arm twisted into giving up its trade with Iran in the medium to long term, a decisive cooling in Indo-American relations is to be expected as everyone in India, right and left, will perceive the alliance as simply not worth the price. Should sanctions on India eventuate (and this possibility cannot be discounted) “cooling” will in all probability turn to frigidity.

There are no easy solutions to this conundrum since at its crux, it concerns two democracies, adopting diametrically opposed policies, driven by natural democratic impulses.

Just as India has overriding domestic political considerations that make the engagement of Iran a sine qua non of Indian foreign policy, there are equally democratic considerations that make the isolation of Iran a nonnegotiable of American policy. Invariably in Greek tragedies and Hollywood blockbusters, such a situation is resolved by a deus ex machina. In reality, such devices seldom exist.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shake hands outside of Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, March 2, 2006

The Indian foreign policy establishment is not very interested in the outcome of this year’s presidential election in the United States. This in contrast to 2004 when it preferred George W. Bush or 2008, when the entire world was caught up in the yearlong election drama.

The reason is simple. India’s ruling center left coalition appears to have reached a dead end and the foreign policy class is in the slumber. It should pay attention though. Barack Obama’s reelection could prove an annoyance to Indians if it is accompanied by a return of liberalism in American policy.

The Democratic president has so far conducted himself largely as a Republican in the mold of George H.W. Bush on the world stage. Indians find comfort in this conservative posture. They are wary of liberals who seek to use America’s position as the preeminent power to change the world.

They would never take this approach to China. Even the do gooders recognize that there are limits to what they can accomplish. But with India, there are always issues to raise, ranging from Kashmir to human rights to the environment. This has been a trend among Democratic Party presidents whereas the Republicans tend to stand by India.

As early as 1919, Woodrow Wilson failed to live up to his promise to support Indian independence. Harry Truman internationalized the Kashmir dispute at India’s expense. John F. Kennedy was reluctant to intervene when China invaded Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh in 1962. Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t support India during the 1965 war with Pakistan. Bill Clinton wouldn’t involve himself in the 1999 Kargil War.

It was Republican Theodore Roosevelt who endorsed India’s bid for independence. Dwight D. Eisenhowever, another Republican, normalized relations with his 1958 visit to India. Ronald Reagan initiated technology cooperation and it was George W. Bush who signed the hallmark nuclear agreement of 2005.

There have been two exceptions to the rule. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt was tempted to condition his support for Great Britain during the Second World War on Indian independence while Republican Richard Nixon menaced India during the Bangladesh Liberation War by dispatching an aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal and allying himself with Pakistan.

Still, given this recent history, it’s important for India to always be skeptical when champions of liberal value such as Barack Obama occupy the White House and when the liberal establishment in the Democratic Party holds sway in the Congress and State Department.

Indian foreign policy makers need to understand that a Republican president would likely be far more beneficial to them. A Republican would more actively seek to counter China’s rise in Asia through a balance of power. This is what George W. Bush did during his eight years in office.

India is also preparing for elections. In 2014, if the right wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power, New Delhi could adopt a more assertive stance on the world stage and expect the United States to do the same. Specifically, the conservatives would like to see a more activist containment of China and the dismantling of Pakistan’s terrorist infrastructure. A conservative administration in the United States would surely be more cooperative.

President Barack Obama arrives at the presidential palace in New Delhi, India while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh looks on, November 8, 2010

Since Western powers invaded Afghanistan to weed out Al Qaeda, the level of violence in South Asia has remained high. It’s not just Afghanistan is facing the consequences of more than a decade of war but the entire subcontinent.

Many of Al Qaeda’s top leaders are dead but the situation in Afghanistan has hardly improved. Rather the fundamentalist forces are extending their reach and continuing to battle NATO troops and undermine liberal elements in their society.

Afghanistan has been a battlefield for major powers for centuries. Invaders always failed to establish themselves there permanently however.

Most recently, the Soviet Union tried to convert Afghanistan into its corridor but failed due to the tangible support that was given by America and Pakistan to the anticommunist mujahideen. Now, the Americans have made the same mistake by engaging what may well be the most warmongering ethnic group in South Asia in an enduring, never ending conflict.

Despite past superpower involvement, the two most relevant external powers in Afghanistan today are India and Pakistan.

India had a significant presence in Afghanistan into the 1970s but the collapse of communist rule and the emergence of the Taliban enabled Pakistan to establish a greater influence there. The 2001 invasion was an opportunity for India to reassert itself. New Delhi allied with the Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzai to oust the Taliban and frustrate Pakistan’s quest for “strategic depth” in the country.

The real struggle will begin after the NATO exit in 2014. The Afghan question will be one that is posed to the whole of the subcontinent. India has made economic and political investments in the country that it will surely try to safeguard while Pakistan is likely to try its best to protects its strategic interests.

Pakistan considers the Indian presence in Afghanistan a direct threat to its security. The Pakistani army, despite its support for the war on terror, always recognized that it inadvertently helped bring the Northern Alliance to power which it so detested because of their ties with India, Iran and Russia—all Pakistani rivals.

The army has also been deeply perturbed by the sudden influx of Indians in Kabul. It believes that New Delhi is financing and training exiled Baloch leaders who live in Afghanistan. It would rather have the Taliban back in power than instability and possibly foreigners conspiring against it on its western frontier.

Instead of vying for influence in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan may be best served by cooperating to reap the economic benefits. It would be better for the region to engage in order to stem an escalation of Indo-Pakistani rivalry in Afghanistan.

There are few options to face the post-2014 challenges in Afghanistan. After the military pullout, the situation is probably not going to change. The Taliban will surely use violent means to attempt to come back to power. Warlords remain active and await the opportunity to establish themselves over the current power structure. Afghanistan could once again succumb to civil war.

A regional security force, drawing personnel from all South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation member states, could be stationed in Afghanistan to guard the fragile peace. These nations have previously worked together in peacekeeping missions in Africa under the banner of the United Nations. Their commander should be elected on a rotational basis.

A second step toward stabilizing Afghanistan would be drawing representatives from all ethnic groups that live in the country into a power sharing arrangement. It is the only way to neutralize the warring factions which are patiently awaiting the chance to occupy Kabul by force and rule the other groups.

Thirdly and most crucially, India and Pakistan would have to work together to restore a modicum of normalcy in Afghanistan. They would have to give up their infighting in the interest of Afghanistan and stability in the region. Both recognize that the talibanization of Afghanistan has not been good for South Asia. It has disturbed the peace in their own countries; inspired terrorist activity in India and radicalized segments of Pakistani society which has caused an uptick in militant activity within Pakistan’s borders.

There is no viable option for the nations of South Asia except to work together if they seek peace in Afghanistan. Unless the SAARC states recognize the gravity of the situation and their shared objective, they too will suffer the aftershocks once foreign troops pull out in 2014.

The Chhota Imambara in Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, India, December 24, 2008 (Crystal)

India’s ruling Congress party was trounced in recent state elections especially in the all important province of Uttar Pradesh. The trends reinforced by the results portent trouble for both India and the West.

First, chances of India joining the Iran embargo have ended—the dynamics explained earlier at the Atlantic Sentinel.

Almost on cue as news of the Congress defeat started filtering in, the Indian embassy in Washington went on an unusually aggressive defense of its Iranian oil imports. It claimed a “distorted picture of New Delhi’s foreign policy objectives and energy security needs” was being projected.”

India’s relationship with Iran is neither inconsistent with nonproliferation objectives, nor do we seek to contradict the relationships we have with our friends in West Asia or with the US and Europe.

But the sting was in the tail. “Given the imperative of meeting the energy needs of millions of Indians, an automatic replacement of all Iranian oil imports, is not a simple matter of selection, or a realistic option.”

There was some number juggling there to show India’s consumption of Iranian oil had decreased of late. The reality is that the decline was due to the inability to pay Iran electronically (as is the norm) because of international sanctions.

Now that a rupee trade agreement with Iran has come into force, expect the graph to skyrocket again. No amount of innovative statistical interpretations is going to be able to explain it away. In fact, given the consolidation of Muslim votes (long seen as a captive Congress vote bank) away from the Congress in Uttar Pradesh, any Indian moves against Iran are a nonstarter.

If this were not bad enough, the policy paralysis that has gripped Delhi since 2009 will continue since the Congress’ bargaining position with its own left wing allies has reduced dramatically.

The return of India to the notorious 6 percent “Hindu rate of growth” coincided with a London School of Economics study on “Why India Will Not Become a Superpower.” In short, if the Western alliance was hoping for a demographic, democratic and economic bulwark against China, India will not be it.

With prolonged policy paralysis and a looming water and food crisis on the horizon, expect the “rise of India” to turn into something of a nightmare.

Forget also the American-Indian nuclear accord hailed by President George W. Bush as “India’s passport to the world,” which is now not expected to move forward due to opposition to the liability clause.

Forget also the implementation of the Walmart direct purchase model, that was set to break the baneful influence of middlemen (a prime cause of inflation) and provide a much needed stimulus to agriculture as the Congress is expected to want to keep these middlemen in its good grace. They can, after all, engineer a “strategic” preelection price spike to wreck what little hope the Congress has left. Basically India is in soup and the West bet on the wrong horse.

To be fair, all these trends existed well before these elections. The problem is that the behavior that produced these trends are expected to be reinforced now rather than producing the predicted corrective reforms a Congress victory was to have heralded.

Two more important states go to the polls of which Gujarat may be the key. By all predictions Gujarat will stay with the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party under the leadership of Narendra Modi, a no nonsense development man who has maintained the state’s growth rate even under trying circumstances at a stellar 11.6 percent.

Should the conservatives elect Modi as their leader for the 2014 elections, he will be pitted against the severely underperforming Rahul Gandhi, the Congress’ crown prince.

The problem is that Modi is weighed down by allegations (nothing yet proven) of his complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, the West could snub and name call publicly. But as the possible claimant to the largest democratic mandate on Earth, the West will face a very different problem if he is elected. India will never be Austria and Narendra Modi will never be Kurt Waldheim. Any criticism of him has thus far been painted by his campaign as an insult to all Gujarat and the focus of this demagoguery will presumably shift as he moved to the national stage to focus on external enemies.

In many ways, if India is repainting itself into geostrategic and economic irrelevance, the wWst has blundered badly. Continuing to pressure India on Iran will only lead to further political paralysis in Delhi with significant long term strategic consequences.

At any rate, come 2014, the West will either have created a passively noncooperative left wing India or a passively hostile right wing one.