WASHINGTON: New Delhi can breathe easy for now as the new Obama administration has recognised ‘Indian sensitivities’ and opted to keep India, more specifically Kashmir, out of the purview of its newly appointed special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Initial indications were that veteran diplomat Richard Holbrooke would be named special envoy for South Asia, but this has now been unambiguously curtailed to the role of ‘Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan’.
That contrasts with the title and mission of the other emissary named simultaneously by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - former Senate Democratic Leader George Mitchell, who has been assigned a regional role and designated as ‘Special Envoy for Middle East peace’.
The new administration’s approach is being seen as a likely reversal of the line Obama himself had advanced during his presidential campaign, when he had hinted at the possibility of naming former President Bill Clinton as a ‘special envoy’ on Kashmir. It, however, remains to be seen if the Obama administration opts to revisit the subject at a later date.
But, the exclusion as of now is being viewed as a big success for India’s vigorous lobbying in recent times against the US playing into Pakistani hands and assuming a pro-active role on Kashmir in return for Islamabad doing its bidding against the Al-Qaeda/ Taliban forces along the Afghan border.
Washington’s ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine notes the omission of India from Holbrooke’s title and from Hillary Clinton’s remarks while announcing the appointment ‘‘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’’.
It cited multiple sources as saying 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 ” once it learned about the diplomat’s upcoming assignment.
Many South Asia experts cited by it stressed that the decision not to include India or Kashmir in Holbrooke’s terms of reference was ‘‘not just appropriate, but absolutely necessary.’’ ‘‘Given India’s fierce, decadeslong resistance to any internationalisation 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,’’ the magazine wrote.
A Congressional report, published last month in the wake of the Mumbai attacks, had also counselled the incoming Obama administration to refrained from any ‘‘high-visibility’’ focus on the Kashmir issue as it could evoke Indian resistance even while fuelling Pakistani expectations of a settlement in its favour.
Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation is among the South Asian experts who have welcomed restricting Holbrooke’s brief to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “There had been earlier speculation that Holbrooke’s brief might centre around the issue of Kashmir, which would have been a grave mistake,” she said adding: ‘‘Fortunately, the Obama team seems to have recognised the key to stabilising Afghanistan does not lie in resolving Kashmir as some have recently tried to assert.’’ Apparently, the import of the recent diplomatic storm triggered by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s comments on Kashmir was not lost on the Obama administration as it finalised the Holbrooke’s appointment and brief.
However, Bruce Riedel, another leading South Asia expert who was advising the Obama campaign on South Asian issues, told the ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine: ‘‘When Senator Clinton originally proposed the envoy idea in her campaign, it was only for Afghanistan and Pakistan.’’
