Credit Where Credit is Due

In a recent column, the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer delivered a rare note of praise to President Obama. Instead of lambasting him over the expense of the recent Presidential trip to India, Krauthammer explained that India’s key role in counterbalancing China’s expansionist agenda in South Asia was an excellent reason to foster better relations and to advocate for India’s inclusion as a sixth permanent member of the UN Security Council.

The sinecure of Security Council membership is no great shakes in and of itself. Take note of the fact that two Security Council members, Great Britain and France, have descended to sharing aircraft carriers and command structures as cost saving measures, and compare that with India’s projection of military and naval power in its region, and one determines that India already has the power and influence of the seat without holding it. No. Calling for India’s accession is a demonstration of respect for its growing influence.

India’s importance, though, goes much farther. As early as 1992, when Israel’s relationship with Turkey was still growing and positive, geopolitical observers were noting the growing convergence of interests between Israel, India, and Turkey, and the vise-like geographic grip they placed on nascent fundamentalism in the Islamic world. Ilan Berman, writing in the Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2002) reflected on the practical implications of this in the post 9/11 world. Berman argued that the roots of this alignment lay in the end of the Cold War, and the shifting of alliances therein. I believe that Berman was only right as far as the impetus, but mistaken about the glue. What would hold this alliance together, or tear it apart, would be the responses of its constituents to the geopolitics of identity and the demographic realities of a Near East filled with undereducated, underemployed, and grievance filled young men in countries from Pakistan to Jordan, and places in between.

Turkey proved to be the weak link. As its fear of the Soviets receded, some of the rationale for backing an army-dominated government evaporated. Into the vacuum came the resurgent Islamists, culminating in the current Islamist government. Disappointed with Europe’s intransigence on its accession to the EU, and unhappy with the Americans for not speaking up on its behalf, Turkey has withdrawn into petulance and recrimination. These emotions suit an alliance with the aggrieved Islamists of Iran and its proxies perfectly. With most opposition leaders in jail or under close watch, no changes can be expected in Turkey’s   political environment. As such, neither India nor Israel will see any part of the cooperation that was so evident in the late 90’s and early 00’s.

India has both a pragmatic and ideological rationale for partnership with Israel and the US. As the US’s more reliable ally in the sub-continent, it will benefit from American restraints on its increasingly more volatile adversary and neighbor, Pakistan. It is one of Israel’s largest customers for military hardware, but more importantly it has developed very close intelligence sharing protocols with both the Israelis and the Americans. As a country isolated by religion and looked upon as heathen by many of its neighbors, it shares an ideological position with Israel and the West in opposition to radical Islam of both the Wahabi and Shia varieties.

What should also be recognized are the economic relationships India shares with the West. Challenged by its massive population, India has developed a growing information based sector in its economy, a growing entrepreneurial “class”, and a nascent replacement of the societal caste structure with a meritocracy.

Finally, there is the shared experience of terrorism, on a large scale, in the streets of its largest cities. The Mumbai attacks reflected the experience of 9/11, of the London Subway bombings, and of the suicide bombings of Israel’s Al Aksa War. Whereas India’s experience with Sikh or Tamil extremist terror was perceived as a local phenomenon, its encounter with Islamist annihilationist terror is part and parcel of a global phenomenon.  It is for these, but especially this last reason that President Obama made such a powerful gesture to India.

If the UN is to recover any of its shattered credibility, it is through the actions of a revitalized Security Council prepared to confront the greatest threat to the ideals upon which the UN was founded six decades ago – Islamist terror and its quest for a global Caliphate.