New Delhi
21 November 2007
The George W Bush Administration's policies of unilateralism,
creative destruction and pre-emption have faltered and the United States today is not the
sole super power of the spring of 2003, Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari said.
"The US has been mauled by non-state actors in Iraq, its policies have given an impetus
to terrorism, [and] its unpopularity levels are alarmingly high in Arab and Muslim
countries and its intentions are suspected," he told an international conference on
"Emerging Security Concerns in West Asia" hosted by the Observer Research
Foundation here.
The financial burden of the war and the drain on the dollar has added to public concerns
and the dissent in the national security establishment of the United States has become
public, he said, alluding to the emergence of anti-Americanism as one of the chief fault
lines of global politics.
Referring to the suggestions about military action against Iran, the Vice President said
that the "absence of decisive evidence of Iranian culpability has been a restraining
factor."
Mr Ansari, who served as India's ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Iran and
Saudi Arabia, said that the State-centric security concerns in West Asia relate principally
to the moves on the chess board of the United States, Israel and Iran in relation both to
each other and to other actors in the region.
According to him, a solution of the crises plaguing West Asia therefore will largely be
impacted by an interplay of these three countries. "While the greater part of the region
and its population are Arab, the principal factors in the strategic calculus are non-Arabs.
Two are on the periphery -- Israel and Iran, and one beyond it -- the United States. The
interaction of these with the region, and with each other, is having a decisive impact," Mr
Ansari said.
The Vice President said that the interaction between the non-Arab periphery and the Arab
core has aggravated the situation. "In specific terms, this would refer to the role of Israel
and Iran, and occasionally of Turkey, and the impact of their relationship on the core
problems of contemporary West Asia," he recalled.
He said that several issues have contributed to making the region what it is today, in
particular "a quagmire in Iraq that has dented the prestige and power of the US, a failure
to abandon the doctrines of 'pre-emptive strikes' and of 'regime change' despite the
experience of recent years and sharply declining public support for it in the US, Israel's
failure to destroy the Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza; America's stand-off with
Iran, and the threat to regional and world peace emanating from it."
"A Middle East Peace Process that is lingering on promissory notes whose encashment
has been deferred repeatedly" has contributed in no small measure to the West Asia
situation, he added.
The Vice President went on to suggest that a beginning can be made for a way out of the
crises by examining "self-perceptions" of the non-Arab players. He pointed out that
Washington harbours a "desire to dominate" the region; Israel has not been able to
translate its military superiority into a total, definitive, victory and its invincibility was
dented in the war with Hezbollah; and Iran seeks to project a regional role in West Asia
and the Persian Gulf. "The question is of the will to undertake [corrective measures for
resolving the West Asian crises,]" he added.
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