Break India from Iran? Good luck

ARTICLE: "Lawmakers Decry Iran-India Alliance: Leaders Warn of Damage to Nuclear Deal," By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, May 3, 2007; Page A15

Trying to break India from Iran will work about as well as trying to break China from Iran.

We look at this so myopically. Ask yourself what it would take for the U.S. to ditch the House of Saud? Well, India and China view Iran's rising role in their energy security in similar ways: a very useful hedge against uncertainty. Our behavior toward Iran and the Middle East in general cannot help but give both New Delhi and Beijing serious pause, so expecting them to abandon their best hedge is really naive, in my opinion.

Comments

[Jarrod Myrick]

It's about time India stops playing patty-cake and starts bloodying noses: they need trade, energy, jobs; they don't need our permission for anything. At this point, nobody else does either.

[Lexington Green]

If our people were really smart they'd want to have access to India's connection to Iran as a back-channel. This current regime is not going to be around in ten years. Maybe not in two. Persian history is 2,500 years old or so. The nutty regime Khomenei founded is a blip. We should be looking toward the day when we can work with a successor regime.

[Tom Barnett]

Lex,

What I found in India is their belief they serve naturally as Persia's elder brother, and every leader I spoke with back then indicated their bafflement that no one in the U.S. looked upon them in this manner--like we're the only ones who can and should talk turkey with everyone.

Drucker says, concentrate on what you bring to the table and pay the best you can find to do all the rest.

The big failure of this administration has been its inability to trust anyone else to succeed on our collective behalf. In this regard, Bush leaves Nixon in the dust on paranoia, even as Tricky Dick expressed his in far more obvious ways.