India

When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh comes to Washington next week, the Obama administration will be challenged to reassure India, and the Washington foreign-policy community, that the relationship is keeping up the momentum established during the Bush years.

The visit comes at a time when the Obama administration is making overtures to China and focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Indians are worried their rank on the White House priority list is falling. While U.S.-India relations are generally strong, in what is often seen as the zero-sum struggle for White House attention, New Delhi simply can't compete with Beijing and is increasingly worried about what that means for power politics in Asia.

"From the Indian point of view, they are very unhappy with Obama," said Stephen Cohen, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, "Indians are really bent out of shape by what they see as a shift of American policy from India to China in Asia. This is complicated by America's dependence on Pakistan."

Administration critics saw Obama's joint statement with Hu Jintao in Beijing as an implicit downgrading of the U.S.-India relationship. The statement said the "two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region."

"If China and America work together on South Asian issues, such as peace between India and Pakistan, then China is the great power while India is simply another South Asian country that needs help from others to solve its problems," wrote former Pentagon official Dan Blumenthal, "With the joint statement, Obama officially accorded India junior status in Asia."

Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security, said that while "the relationship with India is clearly coming second," progress in the U.S.-China relationship indirectly benefits India.

"If the United States and China can't figure out a way to manage their strategic competition, then India and all of us lose," said Cronin. "They need to give the administration more space to try to put the U.S.-China relationship on the most positive trajectory possible."

Nevertheless, the Obama-Singh summit will stand in stark contrast to Singh's 2005 tête-à-tête with George W. Bush, when the two countries embarked on a "strategic partnership" that has taken the relationship far and paved the way for the U.S.-India nuclear agreement.

"Bush already capitalized on what you could from that relationship," said Cronin. "They picked already the low-hanging fruit."

The trip is likely to result in agreements to move forward on second-tier issues, such as an educational agreement, some new military sales to the Indians, or shared information on homeland security. But on big issues like Iran, moving forward with nonproliferation, and coming to terms on climate change, India hands expect little movement.

Underlying the dynamic is a sense that the Obama administration has yet to really commit to a real plan for advancing the U.S.-India relationship. A State Department review is ongoing.

One issue is that there is no real powerful driver for India policy within the administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is well versed on India, but too busy to address it day-to-day. That work has fallen to Under Secretary of State William Burns, but he too has a broad portfolio. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake is the highest identifiable official with a constant, determined focus on the relationship. Even at the National Security Council, India doesn't have a strong advocate yet.

India lobbied against having Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, as its lead interlocutor, leaving the relationship without a specific manager.

Ashley Tellis, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is hoping the Obama administration will take the opportunity to announce its support for India to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

"Although it would have no short-term practical consequence, it would provide the benefits in ‘atmospherics' sought from Prime Minister Singh's visit," he wrote.

That's not likely, according to most observers, but many argue that Obama must make some show of commitment to actually advancing the relationship, not just maintaining it.

"Obama needs to show that we are trying to institutionalize what is the growing strategic relationship with India," said Cronin. "He can't have the prime minister go back to New Dehli without having a sense that we know where we are going together."

Cohen pointed out that the White House might also be frustrated that India hasn't come through in the one area that could really benefit U.S. interests right now: reducing tensions with Pakistan so that Pakistan can divert its attention and resources toward cracking down on terrorism and militancy.

"Where is their contribution to what's going in Afghanistan and what are they doing with respect to Pakistan that might make our problem there easier?" asked Cohen of the Pakistanis. "What have they done for Americans lately?"

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The Indian government wants the United States to "stay the course" in Afghanistan, New Delhi's ambassador to Washington said Monday evening.

Speaking at a meeting of the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, Indian Ambassador H.E. Meera Shankar said the Indian government would not favor a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, despite recent trepidations expressed by senior U.S. Democratic lawmakers.

"We believe that peace, stability, and security in this region will require a sustained U.S. commitment and will not in a short time come to pass," she said. "We do think that the imperative to stay the course is strong and we would hope that this is something which the U.S. would find a way to accept."

Shankar also called on the U.S. government to make changes to the character and oversight of U.S. military assistance to Pakistan, in light of recent claims by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that he diverted U.S. aid meant to fight extremists to Pakistan's Indian front.

Although India supports the economic and development aid given to Pakistan, "We do feel that in the security field, the assistance should be more tightly focused on building counterinsurgency capabilities rather than conventional defense equipment, which can be diverted for other purposes," said Shankar, adding that there may be a need for greater accountability for how the funds are spent.

She also criticized the Pakistani government for what she sees as its slow-walking of the investigation and trials of suspects in the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Pointing out that the India-based trial for one of the alleged perpetrators is already well underway, she said that "Pakistan has yet to bring those responsible for the Mumbai attacks to trial."

"We would like more vigorous investigation of people who might have been responsible for the terrorist attacks and who at present have not been apprehended, including several key leaders," she added.

On the topic of climate change, Shankar addressed differences over the issue that were highlighted during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's July visit to New Delhi. According to reports, Indian officials told Clinton during that visit that India would not accept limits on carbon emissions, complicating the Obama administration's effort to secure an effective worldwide climate-change accord.

Looking ahead to December's U.N. climate-change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Shanker said that due to India's rapid growth and sparse energy availability, "absolute reductions in emissions may become very challenging and perhaps impossible."

But she added that India could be guided by the declaration that came out of the July major-economies meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, which said that developing countries could alter their emissions in a way that represents a "meaningful deviation from business as usual."

"That provides a more realistic basis to move ahead and represents the consensus that could be forged at the end of that [next] meeting of major economies on climate change [in Copenhagen]," said Shankar.

The CIA played a back-channel role in serving as an arbiter and vehicle for intelligence sharing in order to ease tensions between India and Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks, the Washington Post reports today. "In the aftermath of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the CIA orchestrated back-channel intelligence exchanges between India and Pakistan, allowing the two former enemies to quietly share highly sensitive evidence while the Americans served as neutral arbiters, according to U.S. and foreign government sources familiar with the arrangement," the paper writes.

Former U.S. intelligence sources concerned about the potential for the situation to escalate had brought the channel to the attention of The Cable a few weeks ago. A few days before Christmas, they said, the United States sent then Director of National  Intelligence Michael McConnell and veteran CIA analyst Charlie Allen, who at the time was a top DHS intelligence official, to India. Allen and McConnell were there to talk about Mumbai. Both have since retired and could not be immediately reached.

Also on the trip to India, another U.S. government official said on condition of anonymity, was Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. "It was a quick in and out trip," the US official said, of the previously undisclosed visit of the three intelligence officials to India. "They got in on a Sunday [Dec. 21], and were out on Tuesday morning," Dec. 23. McConnell had previously visited India last June, the official said.

But the former intelligence officers said the person the United States should be sending to defuse a potential India-Pakistani conflict is Defense Secretary Robert Gates. "The only guy in this administration they are likely to listen to is Gates," one former U.S. intelligence official said. "He's done this twice before." Gates, who was then deputy national security advisor for the first President Bush, was sent to "talk the Indians and Pakistanis out of war" in both 1988 and 1990, the former official, who had been among those involved in briefing Gates at the time, said.

The former official said the message Gates told India is, "If you go to war with Pakistan, you'll win. But your industrial infrastructure will be destroyed." And the message Gates told Pakistan is, "If you go to war with India, you'll lose. And at the end, you will not have a country."

"Bob Gates was the cool hand in keeping the Indians and the Pakistanis from going to war during Brass Tacks (Indian military exercise) in 1987," another former U.S. intelligence officer said, referring to when Gates was then serving as acting Director of Central Intelligence. "It was very tense."

"They are constantly shooting at one another along the line of control," the first former intelligence official said. "These little skirmishes risk getting out of hand. Both [India and Pakistan] feel they are great players at brinkmanship. But in fact they are terrible at it. They lose control very quickly. They don't know where their people are and what they are doing."

The former intelligence official strongly supported the regional approach to Afghanistan suggested by US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke. "Afghanistan is a classic power vacuum," the former official said. "Neighbors see it as point of instability to guarantee their own stability or an opportunity to score points."

While the U.S. media has frequently reported on Pakistani ties to jihadi elements launching attacks in Afghanistan, it has less often mentioned that India supports insurgent forces attacking Pakistan, the former intelligence official said. "The Indians are up to their necks in supporting the Taliban against the Pakistani government in Afghanistan and Pakistan," the former intelligence official who served in both countries said. "The same anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan also shooting at American soldiers are getting support from India. India should close its diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan and get the Christ out of there."

"None of this is ever one-sided," he added. "That is why it was so devastating and we were so let down" when India got taken out of Holbrooke's official brief.

Holbrooke flew to India Sunday night after visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. "Mr. Holbrooke ... said he was shocked by the problems he saw in the country [Pakistan], which he last visited a year ago," the New York Times reports. "He said he was especially concerned that the Swat Valley, a onetime ski resort about 100 miles from Islamabad, had been seized by Taliban guerrillas, who blow up schools, assassinate police officers and beat -- or behead -- those who do not adhere to their strict version of Islam." On Sunday, the paper also reports, the Taliban declared a 10 day cease-fire with Pakistani forces in Swat valley.

The Post report, sourced initially to unnamed Pakistani officials, could be interpreted as an effort by Pakistan to prevent Indian actions against the country that some U.S. military analysts predict are likely before Indian elections this spring.

"The Indians are almost certainly going to do something before [their] elections," said AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly. "They will strike camps in Pakistan. They are really pissed about the incompetence of the response to the [Mumbai] attacks.  .... It doesn't look like the Pakistanis are willing to or even can do anything that will satisfy the Indians. I would really be surprised if something doesn't happen, unless that changes. They got an election coming up in March or April. It will be an interesting test for the United States."

A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it would have no comment on travel taken by the DNI.

UPDATE: A Washington South Asia expert, among others, wrote to dispute the allegation made by a former U.S. intelligence official cited in the piece that India is aiding the Taliban, although he said such support may be going to other anti-Pakistan insurgent groups.  "It doesn't square with my observations/sources, even though lots of Pakistanis will say it is true," one said. "The Indians have - by many accounts - had a longstanding connection with Baluch nationalists/separatists in Pakistan, but these are not Taliban and they aren't active in Afghanistan fighting against US/NATO forces. So yes, India gives Pakistan grief (as Pakistan has in India), but I've seen no evidence that it comes from Pakistani or Afghan Taliban.

"As for the consulates, that's a regular refrain from Pakistani government and military," the expert added, "but there's very little US evidence to support the claims of major Indian activity in these locations, which appear to be minor operations with rather few personnel." The former U.S. intelligence officer who made the allegation said that U.S. policymakers do not require the U.S. government to collect intelligence on the issue.

At an off-the-record Aspen Strategy Group meeting held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, D.C. in early December, a high-level delegation from India told American foreign policy experts -- including three officials who were part of the formal Obama transition team -- that India might preemptively make Richard Holbrooke persona non grata if his South Asia envoy mandate officially included India or Kashmir, people familiar with the meeting said.

Among the Obama transition figures who attended the meeting, held as part of the Aspen Institute's U.S. India Strategic Dialogue: former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig; Kurt Campbell, the director of the Aspen Strategy Group who is expected to be named assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs; and former Pentagon official Ashton Carter, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Such foreign-policy events occur throughout the city every week, of course, and it's certainly no surprise that top foreign-policy hands, including some who advised President Obama's campaign and his transition, were included.

But Obama administration officials have insisted to Foreign Policy that the Obama transition held no meetings with foreign governments or representatives of foreign governments at all during the transition. "The transition met with no foreign governments and no representatives of foreign governments pursuant to a policy laid out by the then President-Elect," one administration official said by e-mail. What's more, he said, in effect, they did not have to be influenced to exclude India from Holbrooke's official mission, because it was "not contemplated" for the South Asia envoy's portfolio to have an Indian role.

India's exclusion from the envisioned mission was not so obvious to everyone, however, including the Indians and several Washington South Asia hands. The New York Times' Mark Landler, moreover, reported Jan. 7 that Holbrooke would likely be named "a special envoy to Pakistan and India."

"The notion of an envoy on Kashmir or that would include Kashmir came up as soon as Obama mentioned it" in an October 2008 interview with Time, one Washington South Asia expert not associated with any of the campaigns and who did not attend the dialogue said on condition of anonymity. "It was widely discussed by the 50 key South Asia watchers."

And while the Obama transition may not have met with any foreign governments or representatives of foreign governments in any official capacity, foreign governments including India's did try to influence the future administration's policy decisions by working the phones, meeting with Obama transition figures at the margins of conferences, at Washington receptions, and through third parties.

"The message was clearly conveyed by India to the Transition and received," The Cable was told. "It led to a change in how Richard Holbrooke's mission was publicly described and unveiled."

The Obama people may be overly sensitive to the perception they were lobbied, suggested one person baffled by the new administration's insistence that no such contacts regarding South Asia occurred. "And then since the President-Elect said they were not meeting with any foreign government officials. [But] it seems unimportant to me," he said, referring to what he perceived as the Obama team's touchiness on this issue.

"There was a whole delegation of Indians who came through in early December through the Aspen dialogue," he said. "They were almost all former officials. They were interacting ... with people in various capacities, in addition to formal meetings inside the government. They were all over this - what Holbrooke's portfolio would be. The Indians were preemptively irate and were reacting in perhaps a disproportionate way" due to concerns that Holbrooke's mandate might officially include India or Kashmir.

The National Security Council did not respond to messages left by Foreign Policy. Campbell and Danzig did not immediately respond to messages. Carter e-mailed to say he only attended the lunch of the December U.S.-India dialogue.

Photo: File; Alex Wong/Getty Images

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.

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