+Nepal: Domestic Politics &
External Relations
+India’s Great Power Ambitions
+Trajectory of Putin’s War
+Iran 2023: Year of Destiny
+Divided Government & US Foreign
Policy
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Nepal’s Nexus of Domestic Politics & External Relations
Nepal’s close connection between domestic politics and external relations has again been highlighted lately.
Only the other day, UML Chairman and former prime minister K.P. Sharma Oli accused the former PM Sher Bahadur Deuba and the Nepali Congress (NC) of colluding with “foreign powers” of trying to topple the newly constituted Dahal-led government – a child of Oli’s making!
This is, of course, a figment of Oli’s imagination. The Nepalese public is used to Oli’s comical and impossible statements which have earned him the epithet of “Oily’.
There is no doubt that the two regional behemoths India and China are understandably very interested in Nepal’s internal developments and often engage.
Since the United States is currently engaged in an intense economic and strategic competition with China, it is also understandable that it considers Nepal a geo-political focal point.
However, the days of one country not interfering in the internal affairs of another is long past. This is especially the case where Nepal is concerned.
The main thing is not to get unduly excited about ‘foreign’ interference and machinations.
It is left to the genius of Nepali leadership to steer a clear and independent path.
In the case of Oli’s recent accusation, he was probably pointing the finger at India – but it was just a blatant attempt to muddy the waters.
Most literate Nepalese know that Dahal-Prachanda is a creature of the Indian establishment and responsible for the deaths of seventeen thousand innocent Nepali during the so-called ‘People’s War’ – which in effect was “a special Indian military operation” to subjugate the Nepalese state.
Deuba’s Options
Deuba must have realized in his hearts of hearts that his days as the top leader of the Nepali Congress are over.
Moreover, he cannot have an interest in perpetuating ‘gerontocracy’. He should now pave the way to younger leadership. He should rest on his laurels and enjoy life as an ‘elder statesman’.
Russia’s War & India’s Great Power Aspirations
Learning from history, India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar needs no reminder of “how the tides of history sweep away antiquated systems to usher in the new”. This is the assessment of New York Times columnist, Roger Cohen (NYT/Jan. 7-8).
Jaishankar told Cohen in an interview that the world today has now reached such a “transformative moment” – a “world order which is still very, very deeply Western,” is being hurried out of existence by the impact of the war in Ukraine, to be replaced by a world of “multi-alignment” in which countries will choose their own “particular policies and preferences and interests.”
Certainly, that is what India has been doing since Putin’s war in Ukraine was launched on February 24 last year.
India’s pursuit of ‘multi-alignment’ has guided its ascent in a changing world order.
Like China and some countries of the Global South, India has:
- rejected American and European pressure at the United Nations to condemn the Russian aggression;
- turned Moscow into its largest oil supplier;
- dismissed the perceived hypocrisy of the West.
India’s tone has been unabashed and its self-interest starkly naked. It is practicing Realpolitik, plain and simple.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is pursuing India’s own interests with a new assertiveness, throwing off any sense of inferiority and rejecting compromising alignment with the West.
But as Cohen poses, which India will strut the 21st century global stage, and how will its influence be felt?
“The country is [currently] at a crossroads, poised between the vibrant plurality of its democracy since independence in 1947 and a turn towards illiberalism under Modi”.
Modi’s “Hindu Renaissance” is acutely threatening some of the core pillars of India’s democracy: equal treatment of all citizens, the right to dissent, the independence of the courts and the media.
“Hatred has penetrated into society at a level that is absolutely terrifying,” the acclaimed Indian novelist Arundhati Roy has said.
India’s rise in the new world order is heavily constrained by Modi’s repressive domestic leadership, and that is the fundamental contradiction of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The U.S. has been unhappy with India’s self-aggrandizing approach to Putin since Russia’s aggression.
However, teeth-grinding, the US has had to accept India’s new posture – America’s own realpolitik – in the face of China rising – demands that Modi not be alienated.
India: A Leader of the Global South?
In the meantime, India has taken steps to bolster its role as the presumptive leader of the Global South.
It is hosting the virtual “Voice of Global South Summit” under the theme “Unity of Voice, Unity of Purpose”.
Modi has also promised that India’s G-20 Presidency will be shaped in consultation with not just its G-20 members, but also the developing countries, whose voices often go unheard.
The tricky path will be what role India assigns to Russia in the G-20.
Putin: Quo Vadis?
After more than 10 months of Russia’s unprovoked invasion, analysts are not in agreement on Putin’s war trajectory.
Leading experts have differing views in two new essays in Foreign Affairs.
Liana Fic and Michael Kimmage contemplate three scenarios:
- A negotiated settlement that favours Ukraine [least likely, in their view];
- Russian “failure and escalation” [e.g. drawing NATO into the war];
- Putin’s overthrow (“Russia has a history of regime change in the aftermath of unsuccessful wars,” as they point out).
On the other hand, Barry R. Posen has a completely different point of view.
Posen argues that Russia has rebounded from its initial battlefield failures and “seems to have gotten smarter. Russian strategic decisions are finally starting to make military sense.”
He also points to Putin mobilization of reservists; an orderly withdrawal from Kherson; and attacks on Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure that, while cruel and inhuman in their terrible harm to civilians, have diverted resources that could support Ukraine’s front lines.
Meanwhile, the human toll on both sides continues to mount relentlessly.
Recent weeks have featured not only infrastructure attacks, but also a deadly and grinding fight over the seemingly insignificant town of Bakhmut, which the private Russian Wagner Group mercenary army has been assaulting.
Should Ukraine Press Ahead?
Separate from the matter whether experts differ as to which side is gaining the upper hand in Russia’s war in Ukraine, and while the fighting continues in a deadly fashion that has drawn comparisons to World War I, is the crucial question whether there is a case for Ukraine pressing ahead (CNN/Fareed’s Global Briefing).
Since last year, those more optimistic about Ukraine’s battlefield chances have debated how far Kyiv should seek to go, in terms of recapturing territory – with particular attention paid, recently, to whether attempting to retake to Crimean Peninsula would be discerning.
Joining that discussion is another Foreign Affairs essay by Andriy Zagorodnyuk, who argues forcefully for it.
Zagorodnyuk suggests cogently that any negotiated peace would merely amount to a temporary interlude before Russia attacks again, and Crimea could be a staging ground for such an assault.
Ukraine seizing back Crimea “is the only way to inflict the kind of major defeat Russia must experience if it is to abandon its imperial ambitions and start abiding by international norms and laws.”
Crossing “Red Lines”
Amid ongoing calls for the United States and other Western powers to supply Kyiv with increased (and more powerful) weapons, the risk of provoking Russia has progressively loomed, generating intense concern about widening the current war into an open Russia-NATO armed conflict.
At The New York Times, a brilliant opinion essay by Nigel Gould Davies dismisses those worries.
He argues convincingly that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no factual “Red Lines” – an international security term with dubious antecedents, and on which Gould-Davies rightly casts doubt.
No matter what lines a country draws, Gould-Davies argues, it is nonetheless presented with constantly evolving costs and benefits to its potential responses, if said so-called ‘red line’ is crossed, and those calculations are what matter.
Time is not on Ukraine’s Side
Two American political heavyweights – Condoleezza Rice (former secretary of state) and Robert M. Gates former secretary of defence) – now argue that the United States and its allies must no longer dilly-dally, but immediately provide Ukraine with a dramatic increase in military supplies and capabilities.
History supplies the lesson that Putin must be stopped – sooner rather than later, to avoid catastrophic consequences for the world at large (WP/The Washington Post, Jan. 7).
Iran: More Repression or Reform in 2023?
This year will be an extremely difficult one for Iran as the chasm between the authoritarian rulers and the ruled becomes greater than ever.
Even on the foreign policy front, Tehran has reached an impasse. It has achieved ‘pariah status’ in the international community of nations – reviled by most.
The women-led mass protests last year demanding equal gender rights and more freedoms have posed the biggest challenge to the country’s extremist clerical regime since the 1979 Islamic Revolution (DW/Deutsche Welle, Dec. 2022).
The tragic death of 22-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini [‘Jina’ is a polite and friendly honorific] in police custody has mobilized Iranian women to take to the streets in protest against everyday humiliation, mistreatment and gender discrimination.
Despite a brutal clampdown by security forces, thousands of Iranian girls and women continue to refuse to wear the headscarf or hijab [the ‘flag’ of the Islamic Republic].
Regime Relies on Repression
Despite the nationwide mass protests, which have resulted in the deaths of over 400 demonstrators and the imprisonment of about 18,000 people, Iran’s antediluvian leaders are hardly thinking about serious reforms.
Instead, the regime is relying on a brutal crackdown and trying to intimidate protesters by carrying out summary executions of arrested protesters.
Since the regime has proposed no solutions, either for the political or for the social sphere, mass protests could re-erupt at any time.
All Parts of Society are Engaged
In 2022, Iran witnessed the most severe and longest protest wave since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.
The protesters were not organized in any real sense and their numbers have not yet reached a critical mass so as to fundamentally threaten the clerical regime.
Nevertheless, the demonstrators come from all strata of society, including ethnic and religious minorities.
Apart from a lack of basic political freedoms, they all are suffering from the ongoing economic crisis, galloping inflation, increased water shortages and growing environmental problems.
The antiquated political system, which values ideological loyalty over expertise and experience in recruiting officials, has found no answers to the problems that make life so difficult for the nation’s nearly 84 million people year after year.
Tehran under Regional & Global Pressure
On the foreign policy front, the Iranian government has reached a dead end.
The negotiations in Vienna to revive the nuclear agreement between Tehran and world powers have been at a standstill for months.
Iran has not made progress when it comes to deepening its economic cooperation with China.
It is the proverbial odd man out in the triangular relations with China and Saudi Arabia.
It is most painful for Iran seeing China’s flourishing relations with Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s archrival in West Asia.
The Shiite clerics in Iran and the Sunni royal family in Saudi Arabia see themselves as rival religious leaders in the Islamic world and are involved in proxy wars in countries across the region.
Cooperation with Russia
Increased cooperation with Russia has brought little economic benefit to Iran.
In fact, Russia is currently offering oil and gas at significant discounts to countries such as China, India and Turkey, which are traditionally Iran’s customers.
On the military front, in addition to ballistic missiles, Moscow has received drones from Iran, which have been used to attack and severely damage energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
These arms deliveries violate UN Security Council resolutions.
Iran is an international pariah, isolated in the international community, and its role is that of spoiler in the rules based international system.
US Divided Government & Implications for US Foreign Policy
The United States has again to cope with divided government. After two years of Democratic control of the presidency and both houses of Congress – just barely in the case of the Senate – the 118th Congress that opened on January 3 puts Republicans in charge of the U.S. House of Representatives.
A single party has controlled the White House and the two houses of Congress only three times in the last three decades.
The new situation in the US legislature will have implications for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.
James M. Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations spells out the possibilities and probabilities:
- President Joe Biden will face far stronger headwinds in his second two terms than he did in his first two.
House Republicans will not cooperate with him.
It will be up to him to defend his legislative achievements.
However, like all presidents, Biden has more discretionary authority in foreign policy than in domestic policy.
With a two-seat majority in the Senate, confirming nominees for ambassadorships and executive branch positions will be easier than in a 50-50 Senate.
- The 118th Congress could become possibly the “Do-Nothing Congress.”
Congress can act only when the House and Senate agree.
However, agreement can be few and far between over the next two years.
Just getting House Republicans to agree among themselves will be a major challenge, as the serpentine struggle over selecting the new speaker showed.
Now a rump group of House Republicans will have an outsized influence on policy. They will even shut down the government to get what they want, and have been characterized as “legislative terrorists”.
The far-right, extremist Republicans will now have leverage over the speaker.
One critical challenge will be the debt ceiling.
According to Lindsay, Congress is looking at massive political dysfunction. “Gridlock may be the best outcome; chaos the worst.”
- Congress will embrace Biden’s get-tough policy on China, and it might complicate but won’t end support for Ukraine.
Bipartisanship may be endangered on Capitol Hill today, but it is still invigorated with regard to U.S. policy toward China.
Both political parties have abandoned strategic engagement with Beijing and embraced geopolitical competition.
Signaling U.S. resolve is one thing, but too much determination can escalate tensions if it is perceived as provocation.
Thus, the new speaker to travel to Taiwan should not be in the cards.
Future support for Ukraine
Republican voters do seem to be less supportive of Ukraine, but most Republican lawmakers continue to back Kyiv.
The challenge that Biden faces is not that the House – under a Republican majority — will vote outright to end U.S. support for Ukraine.
The looming problem is that the small but vocal anti-Ukraine bloc in the House will attempt to tie up support for Ukraine to making major changes to U.S. immigration and asylum policy – changes that most Democrats will find unacceptable.
The far-right, extremist Republican bloc’s argument is fallacious and diabolical: the Biden administration wants to secure Ukraine’s borders but not America’s!
However inaccurate, this is a powerful argument to appease the anti-Ukraine base and even sway some pro-Ukraine Republicans in both chambers.
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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