M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — Iran's ongoing effort to master uranium enrichment technology, despite its denials, is likely to lead to a series of surgical U.S. air and missile strikes designed to cripple reprocessing capacity. The risks and rewards of such an action have been extensively detailed; hence the focus here is on a small part of the overall mosaic -- the response of India to such a strike.
Manipal, India — Iran's ongoing effort to master uranium enrichment technology, despite its denials, is likely to lead to a series of surgical U.S. air and missile strikes designed to cripple reprocessing capacity. The risks and rewards of such an action have been extensively detailed; hence the focus here is on a small part of the overall mosaic -- the response of India to such a strike.
Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is
solicitous of perceived U.S. interests, and has been working to create an
alliance between the world's two biggest democracies, geopolitical logic will
dictate that New Delhi will sit out a future Iran conflict, rather than follow
its instincts and back the United States.
In evidence that India-Iran strategic ties
remain in good standing, the chief of the Iranian Navy, Rear Admiral S.
Kouchaki, is on a March 4-9 visit to India, during which he will visit key
installations and discuss joint exercises.
The reasons for India to avoid conflict
with Iran are primarily four:
First is the Shiite factor. There have been
a little over 17,000 Muslim-Hindu clashes since India became independent in
1947, of which less than two hundred involved Shiites and Hindus. Almost all
such clashes have been Sunni versus Hindu, and 87 percent of these have been
Wahabbi-Hindu, as the more moderate sections of Sunni Muslim society seldom
adopt a confrontational posture with their Hindu neighbors.
