Bush carves out a legacy in Asia
By M K Bhadrakumar
A long time ago, we heard that US President George W Bush had become a lame
duck. In April 2005, Craig Crawford, Washington TV commentator who famously
distilled the 25 rules for survival in the brutal and manipulative world of
American politics, felt certain "signs abound that the Bush presidency is
winding down".
The news coming in from Iraq was real bad. Four months later, with Hurricane
Katrina swamping New Orleans, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service wrote in
September, Bush was "looking like a 'political lame duck', struggling hard to
stay afloat on a rising tide of pessimism and political discontent". Lobe was
not wrong. Indeed, the polls were showing stunning drops in public
confidence; moderate Republicans were said to be deserting Bush's camp.
Bush's approval rating today is dismal. The campaign to find his successor is
well under way. He is still embattled by the Iraq war. Bush fits the textbook
definition of a lame duck. Worse still, as James Forsyth of The Spectator
magazine points out, even "Bush-hatred, like the president himself, has become
a lame duck". There were hardly any public protests during Bush's European tour
last month.
Bush is undeterred. He meant what he said during Christmas 2006, "I'm going to
sprint to the finish." Free of electoral pressures and the tyranny of
popularity rating, the sprinter is gaining in velocity. Just as experts began
concluding Bush's missile defenses were dying with his presidency comes the
news from Washington last Tuesday regarding a US-Poland deal for a future
missile shield. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be arriving in
Warsaw this week for follow-up. Not only that. US Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates revealed that Lithuania had agreed to consider hosting a missile
interceptor base if the US deal with Poland fell through. Pentagon spokesman
Geoff Morrel explained that "prudent planning requires that we simultaneously
look at backups, if necessary. Lithuania would geographically serve as a good
alternative."
Now, that is how legacies are planned - tenaciously, silently, prudently -
until the scaffolding gets removed. Russian commentators were gloating just
recently that Moscow's diplomacy had successfully buried Bush's missile defense
plans. What appears unthinkable, however, is that Bush's finest legacies may
yet be coming - from Asia, the continent that is "reshaping our world today",
to use Rice's recent words.
Rice's speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington DC on June 18 gave away
that the Bush administration was working hard. Rice underlined, "The United
States, contrary to much of the commentary, is actually in a stronger position
in Asia than at any other time." She counted the calming of tensions across the
Taiwan Strait; reaffirmation and "modernization" of traditional alliances with
Japan and South Korea; recasting of relations with China and Russia; and
finessing of a new global security agenda with Australia and an "enhanced
partnership" with the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations as
major diplomatic gains of Bush's foreign policy in Asia.
Rice said the US's "strategic accomplishments in Asia" also included
"partnerships with a newly democratic Afghanistan, a democratic Pakistan, and
an historic transformation of our relationship with the rising democratic
power, India". But the bulk of her speech related to North Korea problem,
underlining Washington's expectation Pyongyang will soon make a "verifiable,
complete and accurate" declaration of its nuclear programs, facilities and
materials so that Bush claims a legacy.
As Bush heads toward Japan for the Group of Eight (G-8) summit in Hokkaido, he
anticipates he's likely wrapping up two Asian legacies - and if luck holds,
three. Beware the lame duck. As the Washington Post summed up, "George W Bush's
presidency seems exhausted and irrelevant, but that's a dangerous illusion. The
Decider remains in command ..." Clearly, North Korea has begun disabling its
plutonium production facility at Yongbyon under the watchful eyes of US
inspectors. Rice's consultations in Beijing last week galvanized the process.
The White House announced that Bush proposed to attend the opening ceremony of
Beijing Summer Olympic Games in August.
Meanwhile, a second Asian legacy for the Bush era is also gaining traction. On
Wednesday, on the sidelines of the G-8, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
will inform Bush that New Delhi has decided to give the final push to the
civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with the US. The Indian deal goes way
beyond Kim Jong-iI's "denuclearization". It is a major non-proliferation move.
India will surrender its right to test nuclear weapons; India's nuclear program
will come under US monitoring and control; and India's capacity and will for
augmenting its weapon stockpile will remain under US scrutiny.
Equally, there is an enormous business spin-off. The US-India Business Council
estimated the downstream business to be in the region of US$150 billion. It
isn't merely pork-barrel politics. Washington's influence on the making of
Indian economic policies will greatly increase. Then there is the foreign
policy spin-off. The deal becomes a powerful tool for the US to encourage Delhi
to continue to harmonize its foreign policy with US global strategies.
The deal leads to the dismantling of US embargoes on the transfer of military
technology to India and the "interoperability" between the armed forces of the
two countries becomes realizable. Most important, India will join the US
missile defense program, which Delhi sees as vital for neutralizing China's
strategic capabilities. Thus, from the US perspective, Delhi is taking a
decisive step toward a congruence of objectives with Washington where the
principal elements are: a) making the US-India strategic partnership
irreversible; b) seeking US good offices as a facilitator in the normalization
of India-Pakistan relations; c) ensuring US support in standing up to Chinese
"hegemonism"; and d) availing of US backing for India's emergence as a world
power.
No wonder, while paying lip service to the deal as critical to India's energy
security, Washington left no stone unturned for months ensuring Delhi didn't
develop second thoughts.
The big question now is whether Bush's gargantuan appetite for Asian legacies
will be satiated. The indications are Bush is contemplating a far more
ambitious legacy - India-Pakistan relations. Just think of two nuclear
adversaries reconciling so that the world can sleep more peacefully. There will
be a lot on Bush's mind following his meeting with Manmohan on Wednesday. He
has three weeks to mull over before he hosts Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf
Raza Gilani for lunch at the White House on July 28. Like his Indian
counterpart, Gilani is also not the real power center in Islamabad. Bush knows
they are malleable individuals, but he prefers to deal with them, since their
desire for a legacy can't possibly be any less than his. It is what could be
called a "win-win" situation.
A lot of back-channel activity has been going on between Delhi, Islamabad and
Washington. Nine-tenths of the way to a framework agreement on Kashmir have
been covered. Much credit goes to President Pervez Musharraf, but there is a
broad consensus among Pakistani politicians for normalization of relations with
India. Plainly speaking, the Pakistanis are tired and they desperately want to
ensure that all is quiet on their eastern front so that they can devote
themselves with full energy to the nation's existential crisis.
The rivalry for gaining parity with India is proving too costly and deflects
Islamabad from its national priorities of countering the rising tide of
religious extremism and militancy. Besides, the nuclear deterrence has in any
case ensured that a belligerent India would think twice before embarking on any
adventurism. Islamabad, therefore, would be inclined to have a relook at the
Kashmir saga so that relations with India aren't held hostage.
As for India, the ruling Congress party hopes to reap political dividends, as
India-Pakistan relationship is an emotive issue for Indian Muslims. If a
rapprochement with Pakistan becomes possible and Manmohan visits Islamabad, the
domestic political resonance will be such that in the 2009 parliamentary
elections, Congress can tap the 130-million Indian Muslim community for a
renewed mandate to rule.
Congress has a brilliant track record on what political scientists call "vote
bank" politics. Congress realizes bitterly that the exodus of its Muslim "vote
bank", alienated by the party's ambivalent stance with regard to the rise of
Hindu fundamentalism in the 1980s and early 1990s, accounted significantly for
the party's decline at the national level. It has proven next to impossible to
arrest the party's decline. And going back to the Muslims with sack and ashes
might alienate Hindu voters. The next best thing is to charm Muslims back via
demonstrating the party's will and capacity to normalize India's relations with
Pakistan.
Delhi banks on Washington's good offices in helping out with the India-Pakistan
peace process and in nudging Pakistan to move an extra inch or two. The ideal
time would have been last year, when Musharraf was at the high noon of his
power, but, then, Congress calculated that the maximum mileage would be in the
run-up to the 2009 parliamentary elections. So, Manmohan kept postponing his
visit to Pakistan. Meanwhile, now that the India-US nuclear deal is almost
through, Washington also has a new inspiration to help out its strategic ally
in South Asia.
From Washington's perspective, harmonizing India-Pakistan relations makes the
US the predominant power in South Asia. It has serious implications for Asian
security as well as for the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. The fallout on
Afghanistan can only be helpful. India is a rising star on the Asian strategic
chessboard. Pakistan is a powerful player in the Islamic world. US diplomacy
will become optimal. It makes a great legacy.
It is extraordinary Bush's finest legacies are to be found in Asia. He embarked
on the presidential odyssey in 2001 with the promise to focus on his Latin
American backyard. But his attention soon wandered to the Middle East. Bush had
very little time to devote to Latin America. Meanwhile, his Middle East
strategy lies in tatters. His "war on terror" stands discredited. And it is in
Asia, where instead of the US being rendered a sub-theme to China's historic
rise, the Bush era is totting up success stories.
Rice said at the Heritage Foundation that when the Bush administration began,
"it was a bit rocky in Asia". But, as the Bush era draws to a close, a new
strategic foundation for US influence in Asia has been laid, "a platform of
partnerships that will enable America to advance its interests and its values
in this dynamic region for years to come".
At a corresponding point in the Bill Clinton presidency, the beleaguered
president, shaking off the Monica Lewinsky scent, sought a peace deal in
Kosovo, but the mindless NATO bombardment of Serbia took the shine off it. Then
he arranged peace talks between Israel's Ehud Barak and the Palestine
Liberation Organization's Yasser Arafat, but they failed to culminate in a
deal. Bush is a lucky man. Quacking and quacking, he is waddling towards the
sunset with an aura of success that he hopes balances out his horrific
endeavors in the Middle East.
Rice stood by him solidly as a rock. US Vice President Dick Cheney should have
been more imaginative and it was prudent to have got rid of Donald Rumsfeld at
the Pentagon, though his successor, Robert Gates, ran short of time and
couldn't do much. All the same, the Lady Vulcan, Rice made up for the whole lot
of them. Bush is comfortable in the thought that he has enough stuff to adorn
his presidential library- no doubt, he is carrying more impressive legacies
than his father's, though the family would never have imagined this to be
possible. Surely, there won't be too many tearful farewells on January 20 on
the White House lawn, but he may at least slink home to Texas with a fine
legacy or two - thanks to those inscrutable Asians.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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