Should we sleep with him?



Post Iran-vote and the President's visit, the much debated topic among the so-called intellectuals is this: What kind of relationship are we going to have with United States of America?

I thank Vinod Mehta for putting this idea in perspective. Because our politicos and policy makers are quite confused as to how to deal with this nation. Thanks to the banal politics of the left and the undefined gung-ho's of the corporate, fuelled by the misplaced optimism of Thomas Friedman, we don't know which stand to take. Some feel that we should sleep with US unconditionlly and some, driven by Leftist policies and brainwashed by left-oriented media houses like The Hindu, feel that we should treat US cautiously. The likes of Arundati Roy feel that we should shun them at any cost. Bush is a bad guy and we need to snap even the tiniest ties we may have with them.

While the Arundati school sounds quite romantic, it is at best ludicrous. If your foreign policy is to be decided based on which country invaded the other or intended invading, you'll end up being friends with countries like Switzerland, Fiji, Peru, etc. And I'm not sure if Peru went to war with someone. Vinod Mehta who is a less romantic than Roy, professes that US and us should be sleeping partners with left being the referee. Even Arundati Roy will make a better referee than Prakash Karat.

Back to the main point. I strongly feel that we should not be sleeping partners with US. Neither be mudslingers. We should be honourable friends who share common interests and give and take. We have a lot to give. If you look at it seriously, India is the only pure and stable democratic country in Asia. Even Japan has some form of Monarchy, however weak it is. America will want to strenghten India so that we can act as a stabilising force in this continent. And they need our market, our services, our software, our expertise in fighting terror. And we need their money, technology and military assistance. We should honourably give and take like how friends do.

That's -I believe- has what Manmohan Singh has precisely done. On a lot of aspects, I have problems with this government. But I'm happy that Dr. Singh could pull off such a favourable deal with Bush. We also should remember that good-realtions with US was initiated by Vajpayee and is being carried out by this government, which is a good news.

As I often mention during my interactions with friends, a country's foreign policies are not decided on moral grounds but on what's good for their economy, security and sovergnity. Association with not just US but any other country should be approached through this view only.

Finally, a word about Clinton. Because one of the comments to my earlier posts did mention about him. The Indo-US relations were not very good during Clinton tenure. Clinton twisted our arms on CTBT and denied various goodies when we refused to sign it. He also slapped huge sanctions on us when we went Nuke. His visit to India did nothing to either countries except some nice photo-ops in the Taj backdrop. And it was Bush who shoved the CTBT aside, released the sanctions and offered to be friendly with us despite we being the only country in the world to have condemned Iraq in their parliament.