11-07-2005, 11:59 PM
Pioneer.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>With Minister out, Man can plot Iran vote </b>
Kanchan Gupta / New Delhi
Irrespective of the political response to Mr K Natwar Singh's exit from the Ministry of External Affairs but not the Council of Ministers, <b>bureaucrats in South Block will heave a sigh of relief at being saved from further embarrassment caused by their Minister's increasingly high-pitched rant against one and all</b>.
Desperate to paint the Volcker Committee's report as an American conspiracy to malign him for "opposing the war in Iraq", over the past week Mr Singh has lurched from one wild utterance to another, freely giving vent to his anger.
Though he claimed "controlled indignation" over the Volcker Report's revelations, there was nothing controlled or dignified about his choice of words -<b> "bullshit", "pack of lies" - that threatened to cause huge damage to India's foreign relations as well as dent the country's image as a matured democracy.</b>
<b>By boldly asserting that the transitional Government of Iraq "has no credibility anywhere in the world", </b>Mr Singh has gone against the collective decision of the UPA Government to "welcome the formation" of this Government and accord it full recognition. It also isolates India from every other country in the world since apart from Saddam Hussein, the remnants of his regime and the Al Qaeda forces fighting US troops, everybody else has recognised the interim Government.
No less damaging have been Mr Singh's bizarre statements that impinge on India-US relations and have the potential of causing more than red faces. <b>By calling for an India-Africa axis against the US, and repeatedly berating the American Administration, he could not but have caused consternation in Washington</b>.
What has been most alarming for foreign office mandarins is their Minister's attempt to curry favour with the Left by promising a pro-Iran stance at the IAEA when the governors meet again later this month for a possible vote on referring Tehran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. <b>He declared in public that as Foreign Minister, he would advice the Government to "revise its vote" - from voting against Iran, as India did on September 24, to voting against a UN referral</b>.
This must have come as a whopping shock to those who played a crucial role in deciding the course of India's vote on September 24, including the Prime Minister. Diplomats involved with IAEA affairs were understandably stumped. <b>Senior foreign diplomats posted in New Delhi found the situation turning increasingly unbelievable - the spectacle of the Foreign Minister shoving his feet in his mouth in full public glare was, to put it mildly, not edifying.</b>
Now that Mr Singh has been banished from South Block - at least for the time being - the Prime Minister and the bureaucrats can breathe easy. The immediate task on hand, of choosing sides when the IAEA meets in Vienna to discuss future action on Iran's nuclear programme, has become a lot more easier.
With the man who believes the break-up of the Soviet Union was a "tragedy" and the Americans ought to be taught a lesson for their "imperialist" designs no longer at the helm of foreign affairs, it is more than likely that India will go along with the EU and the US while deciding how to vote on Iran on November 24.
However, it is more than likely that as a Cabinet member, Mr Singh will try his best to influence policy on Iran as well as other areas of foreign affairs. And he will do so with greater gusto, if only to endear himself with the Left and the old socialists in the Congress. He has already demonstrated his lobbying skills in the past; there is no reason to underestimate those skills now.
There are other tricky issues that need the urgent attention of the foreign policy establishment and the Prime Minister. For instance, the July 18 India-US agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation is increasingly getting tangled in perceptional differences and needs to be rescued before it gets inexorably bogged down in the quagmire of varying interpretations.
With Mr Singh casting aspersions on American motives and urging a revival of anti-Americanism of Cold War vintage, this task would have been rendered that much more difficult. It is unlikely that too many people in the current Administration would have happily dealt with him after his outbursts to work out the nuts and bolts of President Bush's proposed visit to India in early-2006.
An even more immediate event that would have required Mr Singh's presence is the upcoming 13th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Dhaka on November 12-13. <b>It would have been extremely embarrassing if Mr Natwar Singh, under a cloud over the Oil-for-Food scam, had attended the Dhaka conclave as India's "tainted" Foreign Minister</b>.
The embarrassment would have been greater if Mr Singh had flown off the handle in front of mediapersons and other dignitaries in Dhaka, repeating his "anti-imperialist" diatribe from foreign soil. That was a distinct possibility, given his unrestrained behaviour this past week.
Not so anymore. At least till such time he stays out of Foreign Office. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>With Minister out, Man can plot Iran vote </b>
Kanchan Gupta / New Delhi
Irrespective of the political response to Mr K Natwar Singh's exit from the Ministry of External Affairs but not the Council of Ministers, <b>bureaucrats in South Block will heave a sigh of relief at being saved from further embarrassment caused by their Minister's increasingly high-pitched rant against one and all</b>.
Desperate to paint the Volcker Committee's report as an American conspiracy to malign him for "opposing the war in Iraq", over the past week Mr Singh has lurched from one wild utterance to another, freely giving vent to his anger.
Though he claimed "controlled indignation" over the Volcker Report's revelations, there was nothing controlled or dignified about his choice of words -<b> "bullshit", "pack of lies" - that threatened to cause huge damage to India's foreign relations as well as dent the country's image as a matured democracy.</b>
<b>By boldly asserting that the transitional Government of Iraq "has no credibility anywhere in the world", </b>Mr Singh has gone against the collective decision of the UPA Government to "welcome the formation" of this Government and accord it full recognition. It also isolates India from every other country in the world since apart from Saddam Hussein, the remnants of his regime and the Al Qaeda forces fighting US troops, everybody else has recognised the interim Government.
No less damaging have been Mr Singh's bizarre statements that impinge on India-US relations and have the potential of causing more than red faces. <b>By calling for an India-Africa axis against the US, and repeatedly berating the American Administration, he could not but have caused consternation in Washington</b>.
What has been most alarming for foreign office mandarins is their Minister's attempt to curry favour with the Left by promising a pro-Iran stance at the IAEA when the governors meet again later this month for a possible vote on referring Tehran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. <b>He declared in public that as Foreign Minister, he would advice the Government to "revise its vote" - from voting against Iran, as India did on September 24, to voting against a UN referral</b>.
This must have come as a whopping shock to those who played a crucial role in deciding the course of India's vote on September 24, including the Prime Minister. Diplomats involved with IAEA affairs were understandably stumped. <b>Senior foreign diplomats posted in New Delhi found the situation turning increasingly unbelievable - the spectacle of the Foreign Minister shoving his feet in his mouth in full public glare was, to put it mildly, not edifying.</b>
Now that Mr Singh has been banished from South Block - at least for the time being - the Prime Minister and the bureaucrats can breathe easy. The immediate task on hand, of choosing sides when the IAEA meets in Vienna to discuss future action on Iran's nuclear programme, has become a lot more easier.
With the man who believes the break-up of the Soviet Union was a "tragedy" and the Americans ought to be taught a lesson for their "imperialist" designs no longer at the helm of foreign affairs, it is more than likely that India will go along with the EU and the US while deciding how to vote on Iran on November 24.
However, it is more than likely that as a Cabinet member, Mr Singh will try his best to influence policy on Iran as well as other areas of foreign affairs. And he will do so with greater gusto, if only to endear himself with the Left and the old socialists in the Congress. He has already demonstrated his lobbying skills in the past; there is no reason to underestimate those skills now.
There are other tricky issues that need the urgent attention of the foreign policy establishment and the Prime Minister. For instance, the July 18 India-US agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation is increasingly getting tangled in perceptional differences and needs to be rescued before it gets inexorably bogged down in the quagmire of varying interpretations.
With Mr Singh casting aspersions on American motives and urging a revival of anti-Americanism of Cold War vintage, this task would have been rendered that much more difficult. It is unlikely that too many people in the current Administration would have happily dealt with him after his outbursts to work out the nuts and bolts of President Bush's proposed visit to India in early-2006.
An even more immediate event that would have required Mr Singh's presence is the upcoming 13th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Dhaka on November 12-13. <b>It would have been extremely embarrassing if Mr Natwar Singh, under a cloud over the Oil-for-Food scam, had attended the Dhaka conclave as India's "tainted" Foreign Minister</b>.
The embarrassment would have been greater if Mr Singh had flown off the handle in front of mediapersons and other dignitaries in Dhaka, repeating his "anti-imperialist" diatribe from foreign soil. That was a distinct possibility, given his unrestrained behaviour this past week.
Not so anymore. At least till such time he stays out of Foreign Office. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->