New Delhi
27 October 2010
Besides wanting to gauge the US attitude towards China, India will be
particularly keen to hear from Barack Obama about how he intends to proceed with the
war in Afghanistan.
New Delhi has dropped more than subtle hints that how Washington plans to play the
end game in Afghanistan will be a touchstone for building the India-US strategic and
global partnership.
Diplomatic sources say Af-Pak will likely top Obama's agenda in India as he prepares to
conduct a strategic review of the war in December.
Obama's visit will come at a time when the American officials have conceded that the
Taliban has shown a consistent ability to re-establish and rejuvenate.
On numerous occasions, visiting American officials have lauded India's "sub-national"
contributions to the social and economic development of the Afghan people but as
Ashley Tellis, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in
Washington, points out in his latest paper, the Obama administration's "inability to
weave New Delhi into existing policies aimed at resolving pressing current problems
implies that the precedence accorded to sustaining the relationship often is not very
high."
Tellis observes that a triangular dialogue and cooperation between the US, Afghanistan
and India is necessary for the preservation of regional stability and suggests Obama
have a candid conversation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about current US
policy goals in Afghanistan, with reference to reconciliation with the Taliban, Pakistan's
role in the Afghan endgame, and the proposed drawdown of the US forces in July 2011.
"In this connection, the president [Obama] ought to refrain from asking India - as many in
his administration urge him - how it can placate Rawalpindi in order to evoke better
counterterrorism cooperation from the Pakistan Army. As Obama well knows, there is
nothing that India can meaningfully do to assuage Pakistani paranoia beyond what it has
done already, namely offer to sustain the peace process and maintain its restraint in the
use of force despite the continuing terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan," says
Tellis.
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