Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

The Obama administration was “keen to see a level playing field,” regarding the civil nuclear agreement with India and there will “definitely” be an announcement on India’s role in Afghanistan and regional counter-terrorism issues, a senior State Department official said hours before the U.S. President embarked on his India visit.

Speaking to The Hindu from Washington the official said that the parties concerned had continued working on the civil nuclear agreement as a “priority” in the aftermath of the passage of the nuclear liability Bill in Parliament.

Responding to a question on whether India could expect any assurances about its future role in Afghanistan, in particular the safety of its workers there, the official said “You will definitely see things highlighted on strategic issues like Afghanistan.”

The official also rejected suggestions that the weakening of Democrats’ control over Congress might alter the course of the U.S.’ India policy, specifically the Obama administration’s anti-outsourcing stance.

Explaining that unlike the parliamentary system a loss of power in one house of the U.S. Congress did not imply a dramatic change, the official added that “there really is a bipartisan consensus on U.S.-India relations.”

When asked whether the Republicans’ willingness to permit outsourcing of jobs would clash with President Obama’s stated preference to keep jobs on U.S. soil the official said that there was “not going to be any significant change” in the official position.

The reason for this was that to create any bill the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President would have to approve and “the President still remains the President” even if he hoped to have the cooperation of Congress.

Besides these two critical issues the State Department expects that during Mr. Obama’s time in India significant announcements will be made in the areas of clean energy, science and technology cooperation, and agricultural cooperation. Education-sector partnerships also “surely will come up in the course of the trip.”

In particular the senior official said to The Hindu that initiatives on agricultural cooperation and science and technology would be taken forward, respectively by Indian-Americans Raj Shah of the USAID aid agency and Anish Chopra, Mr. Obama’s Chief Technology Officer. Mr. Chopra is in India already.

Reinforcing comments by the President this week, the official said that the State Department viewed the India leg of Mr. Obama’s trip as kicking off a four-country visit in Asia, and that was “actually quite important… because what it means is that India is the cornerstone of our approach to our engagement with Asia.”

Labels: AfPak policy, Nuclear liability law, Obama administration

From The Hindu

President Barack Obama said that terrorists trained “in Afghanistan and the tribal regions along the Pakistani border” were responsible for killing innocent civilians in the United States and the United Kingdom. He added that with the support he continued receive from U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron he would prevent “an even wider insurgency in Afghanistan [that] would mean an even larger safe haven for the al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates to plan their next attack.”

Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House with Mr. Cameron, Mr. Obama said that although the fight in Afghanistan was not easy, it was “a necessary one.” However he expressed confidence that they had the right strategy, arguing, “We’re going to break the Taliban’s momentum. We’re going to build Afghan capacity so Afghans can take responsibility for their future. And we’re going to deepen regional cooperation, including with Pakistan.”

Mr. Cameron echoed the President’s sentiment on Afghanistan, arguing that “there is no clearer, no more tangible illustration of Britain and America standing shoulder to shoulder in our national interest than this mission that we are engaged in together.” Illustrating the division of responsibility between the two nations he add, that British troops were working to an American commander in Helmand and American troops working to a British commander in Kandahar.

Both leaders hailed the ongoing Kabul Conference as “historic” and “another major step forward,” adding that the Afghan government had concrete plans to implement President Karzai’s commitments to improve security, economic growth, governance, and the delivery of basic services.

Mr. Obama further affirmed that “the U.S. firmly supports,” the Afghan government’s peace and reconciliation plan and also lavished praise on the recently inked Afghanistan-Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement which would “increase economic opportunity for people on both sides of the border.”

On the wider question of drawing down U.S. and U.K. troops in Afghanistan, the President said “Over the coming year, Afghans will begin to take the lead in security, and in July of next year... we will begin the transfer some of our forces out of Afghanistan.

Mr. Cameron also underscored the importance of a political strategy for Afghanistan given that “Insurgencies tend not to be defeated by military means alone.” In a reference to U.K. support for Afghan plan for reconciliation and reintegration of the Taliban and other groups, he said, “To those people currently fighting, if they give up violence, if they cut themselves off from al-Qaeda, if they accept the basic tenets of the Afghan constitution, they can have a future in a peaceful Afghanistan.”

Labels: AfPak policy, Barack Obama, James Cameron

From The Hindu

In a speech that unmistakably underscored the roots of numerous terror acts and networks in South Asia, particularly Pakistan, President Barack Obama on Saturday said, “We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities; law enforcement that can strengthen judicial systems abroad, and protect us at home.”

Speaking to cadets at the United States military academy at West Point, New York, Mr. Obama said that even as the war in Iraq came to an end, he had announced “a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan” which recognised that the U.S. faced “a tough fight” in the region.

Noting that militants fighting the U.S. there were turning to new tactics he said the Taliban had exemplified this through its use of “assassination, indiscriminate killing, and intimidation”.

He also said to the cadets that in the war against al-Qaeda, there would be “no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey’s end – no armistice or banner headline”.

Rather, he argued, the al-Qaeda “will continue to recruit, plot, and exploit our open society. We see that in bombs that go off in Kabul and Karachi. We see it in attempts to blow up an airliner over Detroit or an SUV in Times Square, even as these failed attacks show that pressure on networks like al-Qaeda is forcing them to rely on terrorists with less time and space to train”.

He said that while the al-Qaeda threat would not go away soon, the terror group and its affiliates were “small men on the wrong side of history”, leading no nation or religion.

Labels: AfPak policy, Al-Qaeda, Barack Obama