OBAMA'S TRIAL BALLOON OVER DELHI

These days there is a balloon floating over Delhi. It has nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games that are going on there. Instead, it is a trial balloon created and floated by a team of bunglers in Washington. I hope that the leadership in Delhi will puncture and let the air out of the balloon as soon as possible.

The trial balloon I am talking about is the proposal by Obama team offering to consider India's request for admission to UN Security Council as a permanent member in return for giving up Kashmir. While US global influence has been so miserably degraded that it does not even have the clout to override China's veto on this or any other matter, why would India even look at this proposal?

Long ago when the Eisenhover administration gave away to Kennedy presidency, John Foster Dulles, the ever paranoid anticommunist Secretary of State was being replaced by Dean Rusk who would keep the top diplomat job for the next eight years. Kennedy team wanted to bring China into the global community and they offered recognition to China on the basis that China would be "flexible" on the issues of Taiwan and Tibet. Chinese were smarter as they always have been and they told the Americans team to take a walk. Lyndon Johnson got involved in Vietnam and the overture towards China disappeared background.

When Nixon inherited the Vietnam mess and hired Henry Kissinger to manage his foreign policy, they both knew they were in a hole and would be unceremoniously thrown out of Vietnam with the Soviet Union gleefully watching their exit. Kissinger wanted to get out of the hole with minimal losses all the while trying to limit the gains by the Soviets, so he ended up reaching out to China. He and Nixon also wanted extract a price in the form of China writing off Taiwan and Tibet. Chinese said, "No deal on Taiwan or Tibet. Not only that, we demand that you to stay out of our internal policies and let us sit in the permanent seat in Security Council with veto powers". US was in a mess, so the Chinese got everything they demanded. Chinese were smart to assess the situation rightly and negotiated wisely.

Today a significant contingent of his army is stuck in Iraq and likely to stay there for years to come. A larger contingent is in Afghanistan actively fighting with no hope of ever accomplishing any of their goals and anticipating an ignominious departure. They have to keep watching their back while Pakistan, their chief ally in their war on terrorism, claims to cooperate with them in their war on terrorism. With a Zombie economy at home President Obama will be visiting India in November when he would have lost his majority in the House of Representatives and may be even in the Senate. He will be in no position to offer much to India, instead, will be looking for help from India to bail him out. Need of the hour is for the Ministry of External Affairs is to recognize the present situation and study every step of the US-China negotiations in the 70's to learn from it.

What is happening in Kashmir is not a freedom struggle. It is the jihad staged by a small group of fanatic Islamists intending to create an Islamic state under Sahariah law financed by Saudi Arabia and choreographed by Pakistan. Compromise in Kashmir is a compromise on India's integrity. It will lead to the balkanization of India and reopening the door to the slavery that Hindus endured for eight hundred years.