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Is India’s Policy Towards Iran Folly?

Sadanand Dhume faults India for having an Iran policy that serves Indian interests: To be fair, as I pointed out in my most recent WSJ column, India has genuine reasons to seek friendly relations with Iran—chiefly oil, access to Central Asia, and a common stake in preventing a Pakistan-backed Taliban comeback in Afghanistan. But by […]

Sadanand Dhume faults India for having an Iran policy that serves Indian interests:

To be fair, as I pointed out in my most recent WSJ column, India has genuine reasons to seek friendly relations with Iran—chiefly oil, access to Central Asia, and a common stake in preventing a Pakistan-backed Taliban comeback in Afghanistan.

But by thumbing their noses at Washington in the face of its most pressing security challenge, the mandarins who run Indian foreign policy risk destroying goodwill painstakingly built over a decade by well-wishers of the relationship in both countries. The long term costs for India of a West that’s suspicious rather than enthusiastic about its rise are inestimably greater than the short term benefits of playing footsie with Iran.

Are all Western governments so obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program that they are going to hold India’s Iran policy against it for years to come? Why are Western governments going to be particularly “suspicious” of India’s rise because of this? Won’t Western governments, the U.S. included, continue to cultivate stronger ties with India because of India’s growing economic power and political clout?

The Indians are no more “thumbing their noses at Washington” than Turkey was when it opposed the Iraq war. A government in the region sees the harm that a calamitous U.S. policy could do to their country, and it chooses not to participate. That is inconvenient for the policy in question, but it isn’t folly. The Indian government is putting what it perceives to be the Indian national interest first, and they are naturally reluctant to damage Indian interests for the sake of pressuring Iran just so that they can appear to be a “responsible” major power. India is being asked to sacrifice tangible benefits that it derives from its relationship with Iran for the sake of squeezing the Iranian regime over the nuclear issue. What incentive are Western governments offering India to get them to do this? None, as far as I can see. Is it any wonder that India prefers the “folly” that secures its interests over the “wisdom” that would undermine them?

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