-
TRANSLATION
The State of the Union on Foreign Policy
-
MOVING UP
Jake Sullivan Promoted at State
-
MUSICAL CHAIRS
Mike Hammer to State, Tommy Vietor to NSS
Posted By Laura Rozen
Saturday, January 24, 2009 - 12:12 AM
Share
When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- flanked by President Obama -- introduced Richard Holbrooke as the formidable new U.S. envoy to South Asia at a State Department ceremony on Thursday, India was noticeably absent from his title.
Holbrooke, the veteran negotiator of the Dayton accords and sharp-elbowed foreign policy hand who has long advised Clinton, was officially named "special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan" in what was meant to be one of the signature foreign policy acts of Obama's first week in office.
But the omission of India from his title, and from Clinton's official remarks introducing the new diplomatic push in the region was no accident -- not to mention a sharp departure from Obama's own previously stated approach of engaging India, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a regional dialogue. Multiple sources told The Cable that India vigorously -- and successfully -- lobbied the Obama transition team to make sure that neither India nor Kashmir was included in Holbrooke's official brief.
"When the Indian government learned Holbrooke was going to do [Pakistan]-India, they swung into action and lobbied to have India excluded from his purview," relayed one source. "And they succeeded. Holbrooke's account officially does not include India."
To many Washington South Asia experts, the decision to not include India or Kashmir in the official Terms of Reference of Holbrooke's mandate was not just appropriate, but absolutely necessary. Given India's fierce, decades-long resistance to any internationalization of the Kashmir dispute, to have done so would have been a non-starter for India, and guaranteed failure before the envoy mission had begun, several suggested.
"Leaving India out of the title actually opens up [Holbrooke's] freedom to talk to them," argued Philip Zelikow, a former counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who served until December as a consultant for a lobbying firm, BGR, retained by the Indian Government.
But to others -- including Obama himself, who proposed a special envoy to deal with Kashmir during the campaign -- the region's security challenges cannot be solved without including India. Obama told Time's Joe Klein, that working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve their Kashmir conflict would be a critical task for his administration's efforts to try to counter growing instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Kashmir in particular is an interesting situation where that is obviously a potential tar pit diplomatically," Obama told Klein. "But, for us to devote serious diplomatic resources to get a special envoy in there, to figure out a plausible approach, and essentially make the argument to the Indians, you guys are on the brink of being an economic superpower, why do you want to keep on messing with this? ... I think there is a moment where potentially we could get their attention. It won't be easy, but it's important." Obama also suggested in the interview that he had discussed the special envoy idea with former President Bill Clinton.
Whatever the case, the evidence that India was able to successfully lobby the Obama transition in the weeks before it took office to ensure Holbrooke's mission left them and Kashmir out is testament to both the sensitivity of the issue to India as well as the prowess and sophistication of its Washington political and lobbying operation.
"The Indians freaked out at talk of Bill Clinton being an envoy to Kashmir," said Daniel Markey, a South Asia expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The reason they were so worried is they don't want their activities in Kashmir to be equated with what Pakistan is doing in Afghanistan."
"They [India] are the big fish [in the region]," Markey added. "They don't want to be grouped with the 'problem children' in the region, on Kashmir, on nuclear issues. They have a fairly effective lobbying machine. They have taken a lot of notes on the Israel model, and they have gotten better. But you don't want to overstate it. Some of the lobbying effort is obvious, done through companies, but a lot of it is direct government to government contact, people talking to each other. The Indian government and those around the Indian government made clear through a variety of channels because of the Clinton rumors and they came out to quickly shoot that down."
Once Holbrooke's name was floated, the Indian lobbying campaign became even more intense. "The Indians do not like Holbrooke because he has been very good on Pakistan... and has a very good feel for the place" said one former U.S. official on condition of anonymity. "The Indians have this town down."
Initially, when Obama's plans for a corps of special envoys became public after the election, The Cable was told, the idea was for a senior diplomat to tackle the Kashmir dispute as part of the South Asia envoy portfolio and whose mandate would include India. But soon after the election and Holbrooke's name began to appear, the Indians approached key transition officials to make clear that while they could not affect what the new administration did with respect to envoys, that they would expect no mediation on the Kashmir issue.
"I have suggested to others, though not directly to Dick [Holbrooke], that his title should not/not include India, precisely so that he would be freer to work with them," Zelikow said. "If you understand Indian politics, this paradox makes sense."
"I did nothing for the [Government of India] on this," Zelikow added. The Indian government "talked directly to folks on the [Obama] transition team and I heard about it from my Indian friends. I think Holbrooke needs to talk to the Indians. But they are trying, understandably, to break out of being in a hyphenated relationship with America (i.e., comprehended on a mental map called India-Pakistan)."
Other sources said India's hired lobbyists were deployed to shape the contours of the U.S. diplomatic mission. According to lobbying records filed with the Department of Justice, since 2005, the government of India has paid BGR about $2.5 million. BGR officials who currently work on the Indian account, who according to lobbying records include former Sen. Chuck Hagel aide Andrew Parasiliti, former U.S. State Department counterproliferation official Stephen Rademaker, former Bush I and Reagan era White House aide and BGR partner Ed Rogers, and former House Foreign Affairs committee staffer Walker Roberts, did not respond to messages left Friday by Foreign Policy. Former U.S. ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, who previously served as a lobbyist for India, left BGR in 2008 for the Rand Corporation. In addition, the Indian embassy in Washington has paid lobbying firm Patton Boggs $291,665 under a six-month contract that took effect Aug. 18, according to lobbying records.
"BGR has been a registered lobbyist for the Indian government since 2005," noted one Senate staffer on condition of anonymity. "The Indian government retained BGR for the primary purpose of pushing through the Congress the civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India - hence the strategic hires of Bob Blackwill, the former U.S. Ambassador to India, and Walker Roberts, a senior staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee responsible for vetting past such agreements. BGR continues to actively lobby on behalf of the Indian government - their lobbyists sought to influence a recent Senate resolution on the Mumbai attacks. So I would be very surprised if BGR were NOT involved here."
(For its part, Pakistan has spent about $1,175,000, on lobbying during the past year, including on trade issues. That includes Dewey and LeBoeuf's work for the Ministry of Commerce, and Locke Lord's work for the Embassy of Pakistan and the Pakistan International Airlines Corp, according to lobbying records.)
It's not clear to experts and officials interviewed exactly who in the Obama transition team was contacted as part of the Indian lobbying effort. The White House did not respond to queries.
Asked about the decision to exclude India from the special envoy's official mandate, former NSC and CIA official Bruce Riedel, who served as the senior lead of the team advising the Obama campaign on South Asian issues, said by e-mail, "When Senator Clinton originally proposed the envoy idea in her campaign it was only for Afghanistan and Pakistan." He didn't respond to a further query questioning why Clinton's campaign comments on the issue mattered as much as Obama's, since, obviously, it was Obama who won the presidency and ultimately appointed her to carry out his foreign policy as the Obama administration's top diplomat.
UPDATE: An administration official responded that the transition met with no foreign governments and no representatives of foreign governments, pursuant to a policy laid out by the then President-Elect. He further said that it was never the intent for the South Asian envoy portfolio to include an Indian role.
UPDATE II: See related follow-up piece, "India's special envoy anxiety," here.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
One of Bush's handful of foreign policy successes was to recast US ties with India in a pradigm outside of the "India-Pakistan" hyphenated structure.
It is important that Obama not set back US-India ties by bringing back that hyphen.
If Obama asks Holbrooke to go to Delhi to muscle India over Kashmir, India should not only deny appointments to Holbrooke but also make sure to let the US know at the highest levels that this would set US-India ties back by decades.
If the US wants Pakistan to behave, it has to pay the piper itself. India cannot and will not bear the cost for US' appeasement of Pakistan. If the Pakistanis say "give us Kashmir" to stop terror, US must use economic and other means to bring Pakistan to book.
India will not sacrifice her interests for the sake of a collapsing terrorist nation.
We need a Separate American Special Envoy for Kashmiri
It was a brilliant move by President Obama to appoint Mr. Holbrooke as an special U.S. envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr. Holbrooke need to concentrate exactly what his mandate is "Afghanistan and Pakistan only" Giving Mr. Holbrooke Kashmir would be too much.
However, time is ripe for an additional special envoy to resolve Kashmir issue. Presiden Obama is a brilliant visionary, an out of box thinker. I love his boldness about what he recently said on CBS about solving Kashmiri problem. Mr. President, please concentrate on solving Kashmiri problem based on the wishes of the majority of the people of Kashmir only. Over 100,000 Kashmiri died from Indian violence alone...additional death came from Kashmiri side, enough is enough.
Who cares what India or Pakistan want? International community must look into what the majority of the Kashmiri people's want!
Since 1947 India's contempt against international community is well known and well documented. She never created an atmosphere for a free and fair election for Kashmiri people to express their wishes, as a number of U.N. resolution demanded.
We know India would do all she can to keep U.S. and international community out of Kashmiri issue and never ever solve the real problem. That is freedom for Kashmiri people.
If India wants to be a superpower or near superpower status respect, than she must act like one. India need to stop using her neighbors as her colony and be stingy of extra ordinary proportion. Bi-lateral trade figures with her poor neighbor Bangladesh is an example.
Whereas, India export well over U.S. $10 billion worth of goods to Bangladesh. When poor Bangladesh ask for Indian investment and tariff free export from Bangladesh, Indian reply them one year later with smokescreen agreement with 1,000 page full of terms written in fine prints.
@ Talwar,
Each and every Bush's foreign policy was a failure. That is what happens when you let the department of defense do the work of department of State.
How could you say each and every bush foreign policy was failure?
And one more thing if kashmiris think that pak would help kashmir and let go it then why it hasnt yet freed POK?
There are more restriction on POK then india has on their kashmir part.
Pak. is biasing kashmiris by the religion. think out of the box of religion and you will see better picture.
Obama knows the Subcontinent well enough.
Obama and Clinton both have deep and personal ties to the subcontinent and are well aware of the perceptions and history that shapes the contours and fault lines that exist there today.
Holbrooke is known russophobic cold warrior and most of his opinions especially with respect to India are forged in that mindset. India remembers how hostile the state dept under Albright and Holbrooke was during their second round nuclear tests in 1998.
President Clinton had to override their objections to transform our ties with India. Bush to his credit helped nurture them even though he never pressured Pakistan after they reverted to supporting terror.
Obama knows India is a natural ally and Holbrooke will have to execute his policy. Pan Jihadism is already including the Hindus in their Crusader-Zionist axis and internationalizing Kashmir and its failed "insurgency" will be counter productive.
Obama would regret if he wants to get involved in Kashmir issue. Pakistan occupies part of Kashmir which belongs to India and provide training to Terrorists who target the Indian people. India will never give a single INCH of land to Pakistan. If any politician in India supports US involvment in Kashmir issue then he can forgot about re-election. This is ridiculous for US to even think that they can ask India to compromise with Pakistan who supports terrorism against India and call the terrorists as freedom fighters. The one issue that unites all the Indians is Pakistan.
Kashmir belongs to Kashmiris and both India and Pakistan must pull out forces.
Indian army has killed 100,000 people in the valley and they have raped around 10,000 women.
People of Kashmir Hate India..and they want freedom.
That's correct. Khalistan belongs to the Sikhs. Assam belongs to the Naxalites. Tamil Nadu belongs to the LTTE. Why bother with "India" at all? Let's cut up the states and make them their own countries, so we can then fight the same wars but with new goals. I suppose the world would have much to thank for if people like you were kept away from foreign policy.
pandits are the original inhabitants of kashmir.. over the years by rape and torture in the name of your religion muslim invaders have changed the demographics and now thrown out whatever hindus are left there... our desire to hold on to our territory is viewed as occupation now!....
How different is Israel then? they have done what you did and they unlike you have a claim over the region!.
please answer this objectively...where is your humanity...and should we hindus plan revenge for the 1000 years of genocide, rape and abuse we were given by muslim invaders..? dont deny it...darfur is another example of your
view of non muslims...why didnt all the imams over the world come out aggressively against the killing of innocents there by muslims? and if someone draws a senseless cartoon you riot ? it doesnt seem right from any angle
to the above comment... Kashmiri whos a kashmiri...the one who happens to be in control of it....hindus were killed and driven out...but if india kills a few to protect its territory then we are wrong. Kashmiri muslims are viewed as muslim brothers by our countries muslims and a wrong done to them is a wrong to muslims...but they dont want to be held responsible for the wrongs committed by their brothers and forefathers.
i dont see any reason to sympathise with a kashmiri muslim..the LAND of Kashmir is ours with or without the people occupying it on this date...
Its laughable bringing up Kashmiris.
LeT, JuD and the rest of those cowardly terrorist proxies of the Pakistan Army...not one of them are Kashmiri. Not one of the murderous cowards in Mumbai were Kashmiri. All of them were rabid Pakistani Punjabi's.
No matter what Obama or Holbrooke try, India will not concede one more inch on Kashmir and nor should it.
The only thing that will be accomplished by trying to force India to bear the cost of US' Pakistan appeasement is a permanent setback of Indo-US ties and believe me, India can hit back by making sure that other Obama agenda items on Global Warming, world trade etc. are thwarted.
This is not the 1970s when India was a pushover. India may not be anything more than a regional power for a long time but Indian diplomats are well versed in digging their heels in when faced with the White Man's bullying, even it the face of the bullying is the likeable Barack Obama.
Kashmir is a tar pit and to think that Pakistan can be saved by making India concede territory to it is like trying to save a dying drug addict by giving him a can of Red Bull stolen from his neighbor.
Couldn't agree more. Israel can pull its stunts and India cannot. Sure, great foreign policy, Obama/Bush/WhatHaveYou.
Interesting report. My question is what we might be able to get from India for making the concession that an intractable problem about which no special envoy could do anything in the short term will not explicitly fall under the purview of a particular special envoy who has several more urgent problems with which to deal.
I think it's fine if India believes it has won a victory here, and have no interest in disputing that judgement. The Indian government lobbied for a specific outcome in the new administration's organization, and got what it wanted. What did we get?
India is a fast developing nation and there is a lot of great business opportunities. If US is going to mess with Kashmir then its not good for corporate America. Also i don't understand why US think they can solve all the problems in the world!! US is like an unwelcomed guest. Just leave the countries who don't want their help. Look what you guys did to Iraq. We don't want US to make Kashmir into another Iraq.
There is more to India then Kashmir
The first poster has it correct.
Pakistan has been obsessed with Kashmir since Partition. Although the Paks did not have the Propaganda machine the PLO did, and is lower profiled, Kashmir and Gaza seem to have similar pulls on the Muslim psyche. Perhaps it as to do with losing a war to Infidels.
By the rules for Partion set up by Mountbatten, and agreed to by Jenna, Kashmir is Indian.
India is a more complex and multi-ethnic society. Were it to allow Kashmir to be separated by an armed struggle, India would be wracked by rebellion and might have to compromise its democracy.
India has a whole host of other concerns which are not part of its problems with Pakistan.
The problem is with the UN. It is fairly good at stopping conflict, but poor at resolution. So we have festering situations with more violence long term them would have happened during the original conflict.
I agree with Gelb, I lifted this from Madam Secretary:
Gelb: Obama is going to come closer to many of Hillary's campaign positions, and she is on her best behavior to make this work, so clashes won’t be frequent in the first year. Failure will bring it on, and failure will come first in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
If Obama's administaration won't own up that the Indian lobbyists influenced their shift, then they owe us more of an explanation than the one given. So much for transparency. I think there were some clashes and Obama listened to Clinton on this one.
As some of the above comments demonstrate, India is, as they say, "in denial" with respect to Kashmir. When David Milliband, the British Foreign Secretary raised the issue two weeks ago, there were howls of protest from both government and press that he had spoken out of turn by suggesting that Kashmir was anything other than an internal matter for India to deal with. Of course, the overwhelming majority of Kashmiris think otherwise, and the heavy handed, violent military occupation of Kashmir demonstrates that India only hold the territory by force. That is not to say that there is any significant support for Pakistan either. What is clear is that the regional problems require vigorous and wise diplomatic effort. India's denial of the problem only provokes frustration and violence.
Read up your history before you post on a public forum, please? I thought of responding to your faff but it's a bit like Swiss cheese. Too many holes. Kashmir's history, and in fact more to the point, it's recent *agreed and signed* history is clear and unequivocal. But like Gaza, the "muslims" simply cannot get over the fact that they lost something to the "infidels".
Meddling with India on Kashmir will be a stupendous mistake
India is not in denial as stated in one of the comments.
Asking India to negotiate on Kashmir is a non starter.
It is the Muslims of the Kashmir valley that are in denial.
They do not represent the whole state but claim to speak for the whole state which is 40% Hindu. After driving out Kashmiri Hindus they feel it is alright to ask for independence. They do not want to be part of Pakistan either but they are wily enough to keep the independence slogan going so as to extort money from the Indian state, totally disproportionate to their numbers. They have played these games ever since India's independence. It is pathetic. They have never paid a dime in taxes.
As for David Millband, he is a charlatan who tried to echo Obama's pre-election statements on Kashmir. He is best ignored.
Meddling with India on Kashmir will be a stupendous mistake
India is not in denial as stated in one of the comments.
Asking India to negotiate on Kashmir is a non starter.
It is the Muslims of the Kashmir valley that are in denial.
They do not represent the whole state but claim to speak for the whole state which is 40% Hindu. After driving out Kashmiri Hindus they feel it is alright to ask for independence. They do not want to be part of Pakistan either but they are wily enough to keep the independence slogan going so as to extort money from the Indian state, totally disproportionate to their numbers. They have played these games ever since India's independence. It is pathetic. They have never paid a dime in taxes.
As for David Millband, he tried to echo Obama's pre-election statements on Kashmir. He is best ignored.
Kashmir has been left as an issue to be dealt with bilaterally for 6 decades. Has there been any progress? No. Pakistan based militants continue to occupy Kashmir and terrorize it's own people in the same of freedom. The region has become a breeding ground for Islamic militancy that is being exported throughout the world. The leaders of Pakistan who supported the endeavor to acquire Kashmir when Pakistan was born sowed the seeds for the loss of at least two generations of their own people to militant ideology. Pakistan must realize that India will not give up Kashmir. So what if the majority of the population of Kashmir is Muslim? Before they were converted by force, the people of Kashmir (as well as Pakistan) were Hindus. India is a secular country.
The land of Kashmir has been a part of India for over 2 thousand years. There can be NO plebiscite on this issue. Would the US let New Mexico secede once the Hispanic population becomes a majority and starts revolting for independence? It must be up to the world to convince Pakistan to entirely withdraw its support for the Kashmir cause, withdraw from all occupied territories and begin redirecting the population's ideology away from militancy. The reason Pakistan has not been able to deal with any of these is because it is a severely failed state where the government is incapable of accomplishing anything due to the fact that local imams have more influence over the people than the government. The entire region unfortunately will be in a state of turmoil until that changes.
Two things needs to be clarified in this article
1. India does not interfere in Pak. Occupied kashmir but pak. does.
2. Pak. is used as a base for the people who want to kill anyone in india for kashmir. Indian people dont want to kill anyone in pak. for kashmir.
Obama's plan for a special envoy on Kashmir
If President Obama has abandoned for good his plan for a Special Envoy on Kashmir, he has done the wise thing. Kashmir is not a matter for mediation. In fact, the Kashmir dispute between India and Kashmir might never be resolved. For Pakistan the resolution of the dispute means India's handing over of Kashmir to Pakistan. No government in India can agree to such a course of action and survive. More over, such handing over of Kashmir can trigger massive attacks on Muslims in India. So, no responsible government in India will do it.
What the US can do is to convey to Pakistan that it is ints interest to establish normal good neighborly relations with India. But, will US do the obvious?
India - Pak never in the same breath again
It is most illogical to speak of India and Pakistan in the same breath. Pakistan is a nation teetering on the brink of collapse of its administration and institutions, a nation where a constitutionally elected head of govt is ruling the nation under a President who is not the constitutional head, but considers himself the numero uno. After its independence from British India, Pakistan has never given a chance for democracy to work and it never will. India is a time tested free democracy where the constitution guarantees certain individual freedoms to its citizenry. Considering US as the greatest champion of liberty and freedom of expression in this world, it has only stood by its character and conscience in not naming one single diplomat to address India along with two countries Pakistan and Afghanistan where the terror modules hold the rest of their populations to ransom.
Pakistan matters more to the US
than India. This is what history has shown. It's easy to deal with a single colonial general over drinks, than a democratic messy process.
Good India resisted the bucket treatment. What a neighborhood. how can India NOT rely on Russia as it's only ally given that the US/Pakistan/China are TOO DEEP in each others PANTS to be of any help. and this will remain so it appears. God, can u imagine Hillary getting Bill on payroll!??? His presidency on South Asia was terrible...remember that scummy Robin Raphel...what rubbish she was!!! Still knowing Hillary, she will still find a way to get Bill the JOB!!
India missed a great opportunity to take action against America's ally Pakistan over the 26/11 attacks. Imagine: the US KNEW Israel was to act vs Gaza in the coming weeks...imagine the concessions India could have extracted by the TIMING alone...throwing a monkey wrench into the biggest Foreign LOBBYING relationship in the US (the US Isreal relationship)!!! But as usual Israel can do as it pleases, while India gets to be sat upon by some viceroy or other!
the super envoys: a flawed process
Thank you for this timely and well researched article on the India lobby and the territorial limitations of Richard Holbrooke's brief.
However, the broader context of his and George Mitchell's appointments suggest deeper flaws in the process through which the new administration is hoping to address and ultimately resolve major flash points in international relations. Is the United States going to work with others or only through others to achieve peace.
The send-off ceremony on January 22nd did not hold any promise of greater humility in the conduct of US foreign policy than we saw in the Clinton or George W. Bush years. Clinton spoke of "engaging NATO and other key friends, allies, and those around the world who are interested in supporting these efforts. This begins to sound very much like yet another 'coalition of the willing.' What we have here is clearly the 'toolkit' approach to alliances that undercut all of the Bush administration's pretence at multilateralism. This policy does not move one inch forward in the only direction that can work: namely to set up Contact Groups of all the interested regional players in the given regional conflicts instead of co-opting American client states from the rest of the world as a surrogate to the United Nations and other existing international organizations.
Thanks TheCable. This is an excellent post and I would've never read about it in other websites.
Josh Rogin reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.
Read More
January/February 2011
-
Cover Story
-
Special Report
-
Feature
(27)
HIDE COMMENTS LOGIN OR REGISTER REPORT ABUSE