The perils of personalized diplomacy

As Ufa turns to Uf-fo, kya musibat hai, the perils of personalized diplomacy come into perspective. Modi is driven by a relentless need to be at the centre of the universe. As the sycophantic title of a recently released book calls it, Modi lives in "Modi's World". In that world, he is the sole conceiver, the sole executor and the sole beneficiary. And so, without any prior preparation, he leaps into summitry, leaving desolation in his wake.

In an insightful comment on the US-Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Chinmaya Gharekhan, the former Prime Minister's special envoy to West Asia, remarked in an article in The Indian Express that "successful diplomacy requires patience, perseverance, clear goals and the political will to offer compromises". Those are words that should be inscribed at the entrance to 7, Race Course Road and over the lintel of the door into the Prime Minister's South Block office. For, if there is any way of succinctly defining "Modi's World" it is by pointing to the total absence of "patience", the glaring lack of "perseverance", the utter failure to spell out "clear goals" and the sheer thoughtlessness with which "political compromises" are suddenly withdrawn and suddenly offered - witness the sudden cancellation of the Foreign Secretaries' talks in August last year and the equally sudden Ufa communique this year.

Relations between the US and Iran are far more fraught than India-Pakistan relations have ever been. Yet, Obama had a clear-headed understanding of his political goals: no getting dragged like Bush (and Carter before him) into a messy and unwinnable war with Iran; at the same time, enforceable guarantees that Iran would not without warning emerge as a nuclear weapon power.

Moreover, two great gains of the Manmohan era have been squandered. One, the under-wraps back-channel which Ambassador Tariq Aziz of Pakistan and Ambassador Satinder Lambah of India used with such telling effect as to even bring us to the brink of agreement on Kashmir with both sides agreed that neither would territory be exchanged nor people. And, second, the blurring of clear lines of demarcation that National Security Advisers deal with - you're right, "national security" - while diplomats deal with "diplomacy"

It is time Modi got back to tending the domestic hearth and left it to the Minister of External Affairs to do more with diplomacy than getting cosy cronies off the hook in distant foreign lands.

confuzzled dude wrote:

As Ufa turns to Uf-fo, kya musibat hai, the perils of personalized diplomacy come into perspective. Modi is driven by a relentless need to be at the centre of the universe. As the sycophantic title of a recently released book calls it, Modi lives in "Modi's World". In that world, he is the sole conceiver, the sole executor and the sole beneficiary. And so, without any prior preparation, he leaps into summitry, leaving desolation in his wake.

In an insightful comment on the US-Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Chinmaya Gharekhan, the former Prime Minister's special envoy to West Asia, remarked in an article in The Indian Express that "successful diplomacy requires patience, perseverance, clear goals and the political will to offer compromises". Those are words that should be inscribed at the entrance to 7, Race Course Road and over the lintel of the door into the Prime Minister's South Block office. For, if there is any way of succinctly defining "Modi's World" it is by pointing to the total absence of "patience", the glaring lack of "perseverance", the utter failure to spell out "clear goals" and the sheer thoughtlessness with which "political compromises" are suddenly withdrawn and suddenly offered - witness the sudden cancellation of the Foreign Secretaries' talks in August last year and the equally sudden Ufa communique this year.

Relations between the US and Iran are far more fraught than India-Pakistan relations have ever been. Yet, Obama had a clear-headed understanding of his political goals: no getting dragged like Bush (and Carter before him) into a messy and unwinnable war with Iran; at the same time, enforceable guarantees that Iran would not without warning emerge as a nuclear weapon power.

Moreover, two great gains of the Manmohan era have been squandered. One, the under-wraps back-channel which Ambassador Tariq Aziz of Pakistan and Ambassador Satinder Lambah of India used with such telling effect as to even bring us to the brink of agreement on Kashmir with both sides agreed that neither would territory be exchanged nor people. And, second, the blurring of clear lines of demarcation that National Security Advisers deal with - you're right, "national security" - while diplomats deal with "diplomacy"

It is time Modi got back to tending the domestic hearth and left it to the Minister of External Affairs to do more with diplomacy than getting cosy cronies off the hook in distant foreign lands.

http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/modi-tried-to-solve-pak-alone-and-made-a-mess-783234