Recently, the prestigious US newspaper, The New York Times (NYT), commenting on the bloody war waged by the ISIS or Islamic State in the Iraq-Syria region, conceded that the mother of IS was the Iraq "regime change" and the father of IS was Saudi Arabia. It is something more known to experts of the region and many intelligence agencies, including in India.

But the NYT description is not fully accurate. The first regime change was in Afghanistan earlier, when the Soviet-backed secular regime headed by Najibullah, was sought to be toppled by a "good terrorist" force called the Taliban, trained and armed primarily by the US and some of its NATO allies.

The Uzbek warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud and Tajik militant Abdul Rashid Dostam were given the most modern arms and massive funds. After the Soviet troops left, the Afghan leader Najibullah was not allowed to stay for too long, and was dragged out of a UN building and hanged. So much for imperialist respect for the UN and humanitarian treaties.

It should be remembered that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had a governor in Kabul. In any case it is in India's interests to have a secular Afghanistan. But where is the Afghan policy? Where is the West Asia policy? Which international actors are our friends, or could be our friends?

Foreign policy cannot be reduced to meeting foreign leaders, arms deals or exorbitant bullet train deals, but careful analysis of how to strengthen India's international standing and stature.

The prime minister is clearly not particularly interested in all this. He has to overcome the politics of a pracharak, and act as the prime minister of a country that was a founder of non-alignment, and under Prime Minsiter Jawahar Lal Nehru also a builder of self reliance.

truthbetold wrote:India's self reliance is an illusion sold to uninformed indians.  India was a soviet back up team.  Non alignment died a silent death.  Guess who cremated  the corpse? PVN and MMS.

Modi and his national security team and foreign relations team may be weak. But that is another argument. If they have to change, they have to move forward but not  go back to meaningless, confused policies of non alignment era.

truthbetold wrote:India's self reliance is an illusion sold to uninformed indians.  India was a soviet back up team.  Non alignment died a silent death.  Guess who cremated  the corpse? PVN and MMS.

Modi and his national security team and foreign relations team may be weak. But that is another argument. If they have to change, they have to move forward but not  go back to meaningless, confused policies of non alignment era.

truthbetold wrote:
CD,
Are you suggesting leaders cannot arise from all kinds of background? Is leadership limited to families like Sonia and rahul and YSR and Jagan?