Tehran is one of the few power centres that is working to stem the region’s slide into chaos and anarchy
Hardly a day now passes when one doesn’t hear about something terrible happening in West Asia. If it’s not the Islamic State brutes that are beheading, enslaving and murdering people, their compatriots in other parts of the region are routinely blowing up towns and cities while insurgents topple Governments and terror groups take over entire countries.
True, the region has always been a hotspot (if nothing else, there’s always the Israel-Arab conflict) but the situation has undoubtedly worsened in the post Arab Uprising years. Every Great Power worth its salt has sought to bring stability to West Asia — and failed.
One major reason for this is that, not everybody gets the West Asia and nearabouts. The region is extremely complex and few foreign powers can legitimately claim to understand its ever-changing dynamics. Perhaps, the focus should be on strengthening regional powers and allowing them greater space to manage what is really their own backyard.
Traditionally, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been the big boys in the region. The Gulf Cooperation Council is also an important force but it’s primarily an economic entity with limited political and no military prowess. Israel also could have been on the list, but given its own complicated relations with most countries in the region, it can hardly play the role of an interlocutor.
Unfortunately, as of now, Iraq has all but collapsed while Egypt’s regional stature stands greatly diminished as it struggles to get its house in order. Saudi Arabia is a force to contend with, though its one-point agenda of pushing Wahhabism that has fuelled Islamist terrorism across the world, makes it a part of the problem instead of a part of the solution.
Besides, over the years, Saudi Arabia has shown that it couldn’t be bothered with cultivating ties and nurturing relationships because it believes that, with all the money it has, it can easily buy the influence it needs. This has not always worked out well.
This leaves us with Iran — a large and stable country that has a civilisational connect in the region but has been ignored by the international community, primarily because of its controversial nuclear weapons programme.
But if you keep that aside, there is an argument to be made for strengthening Iran’s hand in the region’s power matrix. Unlike Saudi Arabia, Iran doesn’t always have the kind of money to throw around. And so it practises old school diplomacy — working with local leaders, supporting friendly regimes and building up regional institutions.
Take, for example, the fight against the Islamic State. The West’s anti-IS coalition has been a non-starter, and that’s in no small measure because of the double standards of some coalition partners like Jordan and Turkey. The only ones that have succeeded against the Islamic State are the Kurds, but they have little support from the rest of the world. Iran, however, has been actively working with the Kurds and helping them with men and material on the ground.
Iran has also been working closely with the Government in Baghdad so as to stabilise the Iraqi regime, which is the key to retrieving that country from the clutches of the Islamic State. After all, it was the power vacuum in Iraq and Syria that created the fertile grounds for the IS to breed and nurture. Unless, these core issues are addressed, no military intervention can succeed. This, we have learned the hard way in Afghanistan.
In fact, even in the case of Afghanistan, Iran has sought to play the role of a regional stabiliser. The Americans were able to quickly topple the Taliban in the early days of the war primarily because of Iranian support. More recently, Tehran has also sought to persuade Pakistan (which is known to seek ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan) to not meddle in Kabul’s affairs. This is a point that India has also sought to underline but, understandably, with little effect, in Pakistan.
In fact, in terms of larger foreign policy principles, both India and Iran are staunchly opposed to foreign interventions and agree that is only well-mediated, political solutions are the only real solutions to some of the most crises of our times. Perhaps, the only point on which India and Iran have divergent positions is with regard to Israel.
While Iran doesn’t even recognise the Jewish state, India’s relations with Israel have strengthened significantly in the past two decades. While there is not much that India can do to change that dynamic, one can take comfort in the fact that both Iran and Israel say that neither will be the first to make the aggressive move.
This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on February 13, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment