C. C India and Iran

A S I A P R O G R A M S P E C I A L R E P O R T

The “Strategic Partnership” BetweenIndia and Iran

NO. 120 APRIL 2004

In January 2003, Mohammed Khatami,the president of Iran, visited India as thatcountry’s chief guest for India’s Republic

Day celebration. This is an honor customarilyaccorded only India’s closest friends. Duringthe course of Khatami’s visit, he and the Indianprime minister,Atal Bihari Vajpayee, signed theNew Delhi Declaration,which boldly set forththe vision of a “strategic partnership” betweenthe two countries. The two leaders alsopledged to collaborate on energy, trade, andother economic issues, to strengthen theircooperation on counter-terrorism, and tobroaden their “strategic collaboration in thirdcountries,” which most analysts took to meanAfghanistan. The Khatami visit, one promi-nent Indian analyst subsequently declared, wasnotable not only for its symbolism, but for itssubstance.1

Two months later, Iranian and Indian war-ships conducted joint naval exercises. Indianarms sales to Tehran are said to be in theworks, and India has agreed to help train

Iranian military personnel. Bilateral exchangesof defense and intelligence officials havebecome routine. Indian aeronautical engi-neers will help Iran maintain and upgrade itsRussian-made MiG-29 fighter aircraft.According to some press accounts, New Delhiwill have the right to use Iranian military basesfor combat operations against Pakistan shouldanother Indo-Pakistani war break out. Indiahas also agreed to assist in the development ofIranian port facilities and with the construc-tion of road and rail links in Iran. The twocountries, along with Russia, have talked ofcreating a Russo-Iranian-Indian transport cor-ridor. Such a trade route, if fully developed,could have a major impact on political andstrategic as well as economic realities in theregion.

Clearly, something potentially significant istranspiring in relations between New Delhiand Tehran.

Inasmuch as Iran is one of the chartermembers of President George W. Bush’s “axisof evil,” and in light of the widespread talk inWashington of a new “strategic partnership”between the United States and India, the Asia

INSIDE

C. CHRISTINE FAIR

Indo-Iranian Relations:Prospects for BilateralCooperation Post–9-11

page 6

JALIL ROSHANDEL

The Overdue “Strategic”Partnership BetweenIran and India

page 16

SUNIL DASGUPTA

Pakistan Responds toNew Ties Between Indiaand Iran

page 20

P.R. KUMARASWAMY

Indo-Iranian Ties:The Israeli Dimension

page 27

ABSTRACT: India and Iran—one the object of much wooing from Washington, the othera member of President Bush’s “axis of evil” —announced the creation of a “strategic partner-ship” in 2003. This Special Report explores the new cordiality in relations between NewDelhi and Tehran, as well as the ways this partnership may impact upon the interests of otherregional players. Christine Fair explains the calculations that make Iran an attractive partnerfor New Delhi, and concludes that the bilateral relationship is here to stay. Jalil Roshandeloffers an Iranian perspective on the relationship. Pakistan, geographically situated between thetwo, views closer links between its neighbors with considerable alarm, a subject examined bySunil Dasgupta. P.R. Kumaraswamy asks how this new Indian-Iranian collaboration mayinfluence New Delhi’s economic and strategic ties with Israel. In addition, all four essaysaddress the implications for the United States of the new warmth in Indian-Iranian ties.

IntroductionRobert M. Hathaway

ASIA PROGRAM

Robert M. Hathaway is director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Asia Program.

This Special Report is a joint publication of the Asia Program and the Middle East Program at the

Woodrow Wilson Center and was made possible through a grant from the Ford Foundation.

Program and the Middle East Program, constituentcomponents of the Woodrow Wilson InternationalCenter for Scholars, decided last autumn to take asecond look at the newly invigorated relationshipbetween India and Iran. This Special Report growsout of that October 16, 2003, conference.

In this report’s first essay, C. Christine Fair ofthe United States Institute of Peace explores India’sconception of its strategic environment and notesthat American officials and analysts seldom defineIndia’s strategic environment in terms as expansiveas is common in India. Fair then surveys the historyof the Indian-Iranian relationship since India’s cre-ation in 1947, with the end of the Cold War and thecollapse of the Soviet Union serving as importantmilestones in this story. By the 1990s,Tehran andNew Delhi shared interests in a stable Central Asia,in opposing Sunni extremism as it gained strength inSouth and Central Asia, and in containing the influ-ence of the Taliban once that group seized power inAfghanistan. India’s desire for a friend in the Islamicworld and its greatly expanded need for secure sup-plies of energy also dictated a closer partnershipwith Tehran.

Iran for its part looked to India for help in escap-ing from the U.S. policy of containment and as asource of high-tech goods and assistance. And eachcountry came to see the other as an increasinglyimportant security partner. The terrorist attacks onNew York and Washington on September 11, 2001,Fair judges, also served to bring India and Iran clos-

er together. “While these two states have been talk-ing about ‘strategic relations’ for some time with fewconcrete results,” Fair notes, “the last year has seensubstantive advances in relatively little time.”

The concluding section of Fair’s essay broadensher focus by bringing in other regional actors,including China, Pakistan, Israel, and the Gulf States,and looking at how each may be affected by theemerging partnership between Tehran and NewDelhi. The new vitality in Indo-Iranian relations, forinstance,may encourage Pakistan to repair its tatteredties with Tehran, and even to reach out to Israel. Thissection also examines the mixed implications of thispartnership for the United States. While acknowl-edging that many Americans, for perhaps under-standable reasons, will be unsettled by the newwarmth in ties between India and Iran, Fair alsoargues that this relationship could help advance long-standing U.S. objectives, including regional security,democracy promotion, the fight against HIV/AIDS,and the containment of Wahabbi extremism.

The India-Iran relationship, Fair concludes, islikely to become increasingly important to bothstates in the years ahead. Nonetheless, India’s desireto build a close partnership with the United Statesand its pursuit of robust defense ties with Israel willplace limits on the degree to which Tehran and NewDelhi will be able to forge an across-the-board part-nership.

Iranian-born Jalil Roshandel looks at some ofthese same issues from the perspective of Iran. He

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ASIA PROGRAM SPECIAL REPORT

THE ASIA PROGRAM

The Wilson Center’s Asia Program is dedicated tothe proposition that only those with a sound schol-arly grounding can begin to understand contempo-rary events. One of the Center’s oldest regional pro-grams, the Asia Program seeks to bring historicaland cultural sensitivity to the discussion of Asia inthe nation’s capital. In seminars, workshops, briefin-gs, and conferences, prominent scholars of Asiainteract with one another and with policy practition-ers to further understanding of the peoples, tradi-tions, and behaviors of the world’s most populouscontinent.

Asia Program Staff:Robert M. Hathaway, DirectorGang Lin, Program AssociateAmy McCreedy, Program AssociateWilson Lee, Program AssistantTimothy R. Hildebrandt, Program Assistant

THE MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM

The Middle East Program's meetings, conferencesand reports assess the policy implications of region-al developments (political, economic, and social),the Middle East's role in the international arena,American interests in the region, strategic threats toand from the regional states, and the role and futureprospects of the region's energy resources. TheProgram pays special attention to gender issues,democratization, and civil society in the region.Rather than spotlighting day-to-day issues, theProgram concentrates on long-term developmentsand their impact on the region and on the relationsof regional countries with the United States.

Middle East Program Staff:Haleh Esfandiari, DirectorJillian Frumkin, Program Associate

opens his essay by exploring the strategic calcula-tions in Tehran that would, in 2003, lead to the dec-laration of an Indian-Iranian strategic partnership.As Roshandel ably demonstrates, Iran turned towardIndia in the early 1990s as a way to escape interna-tional isolation and a variety of regional challenges.But the choice of New Delhi as a partner was notpreordained; the originators of Tehran’s “lookingEast” policy—former Prime Minister Mir HusseinMousavi is singled out for special mention in thisregard—do not appear to have displayed any partic-ular preference among India, Pakistan, China, Japan,or the countries of Southeast Asia. Beijing,Roshandel writes, met Iranian overtures with a sur-prising lack of enthusiasm, perhaps not wishing tojeopardize its links to the United States. Indiaappealed to Tehran because unlike Islamabad, NewDelhi’s historical ties to the despised United Stateshad been strained. Over time, creating an enhancedpartnership with New Delhi assumed increasingimportance for Iran’s decision makers, especially asTehran came to see itself as the logical, eveninevitable, transit route for a new Indian-Iranian-Central Asian nexus.

What do the two countries hope to get out ofthe enhanced relationship announced last year?Roshandel underscores three benefits for the newpartners.• First, each seeks more developed economic links,

especially in the energy sector. India is a majorimporter of oil and natural gas, and Tehran, withample supplies of both, is eager to fulfill thatneed. Roshandel notes, however, that India alsofaces political and strategic considerations, such asthe importance it places on military purchasesfrom Israel, that may impede the development ofa thriving economic partnership with Iran.

• Second, both Tehran and New Delhi value aug-mented political cooperation in areas of commoninterest, starting with Afghanistan.

• Third, the two hope for enhanced cooperation inthe military sphere. Although officials from bothinsist that such cooperation is not aimed at anythird country, Pakistan and the United States, forstarters, are likely to be uneasy over this expand-ed military partnership. Roshandel, introducing atheme explored more closely in the essay bySunil Dasgupta, suggests that Pakistani defenseplanners cannot completely rule out the possibil-

ity that in a future war between India andPakistan, New Delhi may have access to Iranianmilitary bases. Such an occurrence, Roshandelnotes, would present Islamabad with the specterof a two-front war and must of necessity alterPakistan’s strategic calculations in a fundamentalmanner. But Iran also fears growing ties betweenIndia and Israel, the subject of this report’s finalessay and a factor that may impede the creationof close military links between New Delhi andTehran.

Other regional players have observed this emergingpartnership between Tehran and New Delhi with considerable interest and, on occasion, alarm. AsSunil Dasgupta makes clear in his essay, Pakistan,geographically situated between India and Iran, has followed the evolution of ties between India and Iran with special care, particularly in light of the intimate military links Islamabad once enjoyed with Tehran. As Dasgupta puts it, a close political, economic, and possibly military relationship between India and Iran “poses a serious challenge” to important Pakistani interests.

Pakistan and Iran at one point enjoyed close ties,and indeed, Iran lent Pakistan valuable financial andeven military support in the latter’s 1965 war withIndia. But beginning with the 1979 revolution inIran and the re-establishment of the U.S.-Pakistanialliance in the 1980s, the Iranian-Pakistani relation-ship gradually soured. Nonetheless, Islamabad andTehran maintained a working relationship through-out the 1980s and, we now know, entered into asecret nuclear partnership in 1986-87. In the 1990s,the two found themselves on opposite sides in theAfghan civil war. Rising anti-Shia violence inPakistan has also led many Iranians to question thepossibility of productive ties with majority SunniPakistan. This deteriorating Pakistani-Iranian rela-tionship provides the immediate backdrop asPakistan contemplates Tehran’s new ties toIslamabad’s traditional enemy in New Delhi.

In response to growing Indian-Iranian linkages,Pakistan has stepped up its efforts to neutralize India’sposition in Iran and to maintain its own influencethere. The proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipelineis one manifestation of this strategy. Rather thanfinding itself surrounded by potential adversaries,Pakistan,were this project to come to fruition,wouldbe an essential partner to both India and Iran. But

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THE “STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP” BETWEEN INDIA AND IRAN

since New Delhi has vetoed any pipeline runningthrough Pakistan, the idea appears dead, at least untilsuch time as India and Pakistan find a way of over-coming their historical animosities.

More interesting, Dasgupta tells us, is the diagno-sis of a relatively small but influential group ofPakistani business leaders and professionals whoargue that the geopolitical realities of the region willinevitably drive India and Iran together unlessPakistan reorients its policies toward Afghanistanand, intriguingly, Kashmir. Absent fundamentalchanges in Pakistani policies, this regional peacecamp maintains, the government’s hope of prevent-ing Indian-Iranian entente is groundless.

Islamabad is especially worried about defensecollaboration between India and Iran and inextremis, the danger of a two-front war against bothIndia and Iran. This possibility, Dasgupta judges,even if remote, may encourage Pakistan to develop amore robust nuclear arsenal. But Islamabad mustnot overreact to the new warmth in Indian-Iranianties, since to do so may create the very threat ofencirclement Pakistanis most fear.

For Pakistan, the logical choice is to continue itsrecent rapprochement with New Delhi, whilesimultaneously improving ties with Tehran.Pakistani strategic planners can also take comfortfrom the realization that should India move too farin the direction of Iran, this will undoubtedly slowprogress in Washington’s courtship with Islamabad’sold rival in New Delhi.

The final essay in this collection, by Indian schol-ar P.R. Kumaraswamy of Jawaharlal NehruUniversity, looks at how the new Indian-Iranianpartnership impacts on New Delhi’s close relation-ship with Israel. India’s bilateral ties with these twobitter enemies, Kumaraswamy judges, operate inde-pendently of one another. This is not to say thateither Tehran or Tel Aviv is oblivious to India’s linkswith the other. Israel in particular is apprehensive ofgrowing New Delhi–Tehran proximity. Iran, on theother hand, is largely indifferent, at least publicly,toward India’s growing cordiality with Israel.

India was late in extending formal diplomatic rela-tions to Israel, finally doing so only in 1992. Indeed,New Delhi, arguing that religion should not be thebasis for nationhood, voted at the United Nations in1948 against the creation of Israel. In recent years,however, as if to make up for their tardy start, Indo-

Israeli ties have flourished, with counter-terrorismand weapons sales emerging as key elements in thispartnership. A seminal moment in the evolvingfriendship between the two, Kumaraswamy writes,occurred during the 2001 Durban World Conferenceagainst Racism, when India refused to go along withefforts by Arab and Islamic countries to condemnIsrael and Zionism. The cordiality of these ties washighlighted by the visit to New Delhi last Septemberof Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The absence of an adverse reaction from theMuslim world to India’s burgeoning ties with Israelhas surprised some analysts. Indeed, according toKumaraswamy, Iran has been “extremely accom-modative and understanding” of India’s new linkswith Israel. While Pakistan and occasionally Egypthave grumbled about the warmth in Indo-Israelirelations,Tehran “has consciously avoided making itsties with New Delhi a hostage to the Israeli angle.”Tel Aviv and New Delhi, for their part, have beencareful not to present their cooperation as driven byan anti-Islamic agenda. As an Israeli officialexplained to journalists during the Sharon visit lastfall, the two countries “are not fighting Islam, we arefighting agents of terrorism.”

Kumaraswamy and Roshandel disagree onwhether Indian ties with Israel give Tehran pause;the latter believes they do. But there can be littledebate on the opposite question of whether Israel iscomplacent about the Indian-Iranian relationship.To the contrary,Tel Aviv worries about the growingpolitical and economic ties between the two, andabout the potential diversion of Israeli military tech-nology through India to Iran. Indeed, these fearssparked considerable discussion during Sharon’s visitto New Delhi last fall, a visit that coincided withnew terror bombings in Israel. For Sharon,Kumaraswamy writes, Iran is the “epicenter of ter-rorism.” In Indian eyes, Pakistan occupies that posi-tion, and New Delhi is unlikely to bow to the pref-erences of many Israelis that it carefully circum-scribe its relations with Iran or other hardline Arabstates. Indeed, within weeks of the Sharon visit toIndia last September,Vajpayee made a state visit toSyria, a country deemed just short of pariah statusby both Israel and the United States.

Quite clearly, its close ties with Iran place NewDelhi somewhat at odds with the United States aswell as with its friends in Israel. As Dasgupta

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observes, India will have to work hard to persuadeits friends in Washington and Tel Aviv that growingties between India and Iran will not jeopardizeimportant U.S. or Israeli interests. But so long as thecordiality between India and Iran exists, Dasguptawarns,“the door of doubt remains open.”

Nonetheless, Iran offers India too many politicaland economic advantages for New Delhi to walkaway from its friends in Tehran. And neither Israelnor the United States would be wise to push Indiatoo vigorously on its partnership with Iran. AsKumaraswamy rightly declares, Israel “will have torecognize, accept and accommodate India’s interestsin cultivating friendly ties with Iran.” The samemight equally be said of American policy makers.

Indeed, it would be naïve for Washington toexpect New Delhi to automatically accept a U.S.definition of which countries constitute acceptablepartners. And it would surely be foolish wereWashington to demand that India, as the price for abetter relationship with the United States, forsake itsties with Iran. To the contrary, many would arguethat an India with friendly relations with Tehranmight be well positioned to assist the United Statesin its own tortured dealings with Iran.

Nonetheless, many in Washington who talk withgreat enthusiasm about a new Indo-American part-nership give the impression that the two coun-tries—perhaps drawn together by shared values or a

common devotion to democracy—will inevitablysee eye-to-eye on most major foreign policy ques-tions. Of course this is nonsense; the war in Iraqshould surely have dispelled this delusion. So, if theauthors whose essays grace this report are correct,will Iran.

In a city known for its bickering and partisandivisions, it is a great pleasure to acknowledge thewonderful collaboration that resulted in lastOctober’s Wilson Center conference on the newIndian-Iranian partnership, and in this report. HalehEsfandiari, who heads the Center’s Middle EastProgram, is both a knowledgeable regional expertand a splendid colleague. Thanks to Jillian Frumkinon the Middle East Program’s staff and AmyMcCreedy, program associate with the AsiaProgram, for their able assistance in organizing theconference and editing this publication. Specialthanks to the Asia Program’s Timothy Hildebrandt,whose wizardry in the realm of desktop publishinghas carried this project to fruition. Finally, our deepappreciation to the Ford Foundation, withoutwhose financial support neither our conference northis report would have been possible.

ENDNOTES

1. K.K. Katyal, “New warmth in Indo-Iran ties,”The Hindu, January 29, 2003.

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Indo-Iranian Relations: Prospects for Bilateral Cooperation Post–9-11

C. CHRISTINE FAIR

C. Christine Fair recently joined the United States Institute of Peace as a South Asia specialist. Previously, she wasan associate political scientist at RAND Corporation where she concentrated on political military affairs in SouthAsia.

On January 26, 2003, Iran’s presidentMohammed Khatami was the chief guestof India’s Republic Day parade. This is an

honor bestowed only upon India’s closest friends.President Khatami was accompanied by a high-leveldelegation, which included Foreign Minister KamalKharrazi, Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani, Ministerfor Science and Technology Mostafa Moeen, andPetroleum Minister Bijan Zangneh. DuringKhatami’s visit, the two nations penned the “DelhiDeclaration” and the “Road Map to StrategicCooperation,” which promulgated a plan for theevolving partnership between the two countries.

The Indo-Iranian tête-à-tête was significant for anumber of reasons. First, the timing was provocativebecause the visit took place while the United Stateswas amassing a large show of force in the PersianGulf to mount military action against Iraq. India,the newfound U.S. strategic partner, vociferouslyobjected to the U.S.-planned military action in Iraqwhile rolling out the red carpet to one of the found-ing member states of the Axis of Evil. Second, thisdisplay of amiability between Iran and India dis-comfited Islamabad, which still anticipates that it cancount on Iran for strategic depth in the event of aconflict with India. This meeting between Pakistan’stwo massive neighbors, occurring at a time ofheightened Indo-Pakistani tension, suggested thatIslamabad’s hopes may be ill-founded. Finally, theagreements signed by the two states addressed sever-al issues, including the expansion of defense ties,cooperation in the areas of science and technology,and a broad set of engagements that both sides call“strategic” levels of cooperation.

While the timing of President Khatami’s NewDelhi visit and some of the resultant agreements castan air of significance to the meeting, in many waysthere is nothing particularly new about the directionand contours of the Indo-Iranian relationship. Indiaand Iran have managed to maintain some level ofdétente even through the toughest moments of theirhistories. What then are the unique or substantially

important aspects of this latest turn of the Indo-Iranian relationship? This paper argues that whilethe current trajectory of the Indo-Iranian relation-ship is in many ways a continuation of past policies,it is likely to become increasingly important to bothstates in the near future.

Many of the issues that undergird the Indo-Iranian relationship have been remarkably durable:e.g., security of sea lanes, integrity of energy sup-plies through the Persian Gulf, the relevance of Indiaas a source of technology and low-cost developmentinitiatives, India’s desire to use Iran as a commercialcorridor to markets in Central Asia, and security andstability of Afghanistan and of Pakistan. Since theterrorist attacks on the United States of September11, 2001, and the subsequent U.S. military actions inAfghanistan and Iraq, the neighborhood in whichIran and India are situated has been fundamentallyaltered. As a result of the transfigured security envi-ronment, many of these issues of common interesthave gained newfound salience.

The Indo-Iranian relationship can be analyzed byimposing a framework that examines their engage-ments in three distinct phases. The first ostensiblephase begins in 1947 with India’s independence andextends to 1989 with the collapse of the SovietUnion and the conclusion of the Cold War. Thesecond posited phase is 1990-2001. This phase isbound by the beginnings of a new world order bornin the detritus of the Cold War and by the terroristattacks on the United States of September 2001.The third phase is the contemporary post–9-11period. Notably, because this author is a scholar ofSouth Asian security issues and has come to studyIran as an extension of those analytical efforts, thispaper will necessarily reflect the perspective of NewDelhi specifically and the vantage point of SouthAsia generally.

This paper will explore the significance andimpetus of the Indo-Iranian relationship throughoutthese phases. Before turning to an analysis of thesethree periods, it is useful to first understand India’s

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conception of its strategic environment, withinwhich India has actively launched diplomatic effortsto look east, west, north and south. Therefore, thefirst section exposits the features of India’s extendedneighborhood and the equities that New Delhiclaims in this region. The next section turns to ananalysis of the Indo-Iranian relationship in the threechronological periods noted above, drawing out thekey drivers and sources of limitations. The final sec-tion will suggest ways in which other regional actors(e.g. China, Pakistan, Israel, and the Gulf States) mayrespond to emergent trends in the Indo-Iranianrelationship.This section concludes with a discus-sion of the implications of this relationship for theUnited States and its relationship with India.

Indian analysts often describe their strategic envi-ronment in terms of the entire Indian Ocean basin.According to this view, India’s strategic neighbor-hood stretches to the Strait of Hormoz and thePersian Gulf in the west; some analysts will evenclaim the eastern coast of Africa as the western mostborder of this strategic space. To the east, India’sstrategic neighborhood includes the Strait ofMalacca and extends up to the South China Sea.Tothe north it contains Central Asia, and to the south,it reaches out to Antarctica.

INDIA’S STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT1

Indian analysts often describe their strategic envi-ronment in terms of the entire Indian Ocean basin.Such persons explain that India’s strategic neighbor-hood stretches to the Strait of Hormoz and thePersian Gulf in the west; some will even claim theeastern coast of Africa as the western-most border ofthis strategic space. To the east, India’s strategicneighborhood includes the Strait of Malacca andextends up to the South China Sea.To the north it iscomprised of Central Asia, and to the south, itreaches out to Antarctica.

In contrast,American analysts do not articulate asimilar view of India’s extended neighborhood, inpart because the entire Indian Ocean basin does notexist as a discrete entity within the U.S. military andpolicymaking bureaucracies. Different U.S. organi-zations divide up this region into the areas ofSouthwest Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, andSoutheast Asia. The U.S. military divides India’sextended neighborhood within two Unified

Commands: Pacific Command (PACOM), whichincludes India, and Central Command (CENT-COM), which includes Pakistan. The U.S. CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA) includes India within itsNear East South Asia office.The CIA therefore doesnot situate India within Southeast Asia and beyond.The United States Department of State includesIndia within its Bureau of South Asian Affairs,which also includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh,Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.This means that State Department cartography ofIndia’s neighborhood does not include Southwest,Central or Southeast Asia. As Juli MacDonald notes,these varied U.S. government offices “apply multipleand overlapping analytical policy filters that includeIndia in different contexts.”2 American analysts aremore likely to describe India as sitting at a “strategiccrossroads” where Southwest, Central and SoutheastAsia converge.3 One of the consequences of theways in which the various apparatus of the U.S. gov-ernment examine India is that there are few meansto examine India’s foreign policy holistically.

Within this extended strategic neighborhood,India has a number of strategic interests. First andforemost, it seeks to be the preeminent power with-in the Indian Ocean basin. Second, New Delhibelieves that it has a natural role in shaping regionalsecurity arrangements to foster stability.Third, Indiais willing to be proactive to prevent developmentsthat are fundamentally inimical to its interests.Indian interviewees explained that here “proactive”does not mean pre-emption in the sense promulgat-ed by U.S. President George W. Bush. Rather, whenasked how India seeks to achieve these objectivesand project power throughout this expansive neigh-borhood, interlocutors identified two instruments ofsoft power: economic and political influences.These individuals expanded upon the utilization ofthese instruments by explaining that India seeks topromote itself as role model for economic and polit-ical development.

Consonant with this expansive set of interestswithin the entire Indian Ocean basin, India has pur-sued actively a “Look East” policy in which PrimeMinister Vajpayee has made a number of openings tothe states of Southeast and Northeast Asia. Indiaalso has a very sophisticated greater Middle Eastpolicy that includes Israel, Iran, and several Arabstates. In addition, India is continuing its efforts to

consolidate its strategic footing in Central Asia andin Afghanistan, for which Iran and Russia have hadtremendous import.

PHASES OF INDO-IRANIAN RELATIONS:KEY DRIVERS AND LIMITATIONS

1947-1989: Relations tethered to Cold Waralignments

In March of 1947, the Iranian delegate to the “AsianRelations Conference” in New Delhi extendedIran’s friendship and amity to the newly independ-ent India. At the time, cooperation was logical asboth states were stepping out of various entangle-ments with imperialism and occupation. But thefriendship soon grew complicated. Iran and Indiafound themselves enmeshed in the complex web ofinternational relations of the Cold War. Iranianmonarch Mohammad Reza Shah saw communismas a threat to both the integrity of the Iranian stateand the Shah’s regime. The Shah’s concerns wereexacerbated by the activities of Iran’s influentialcommunist Tudeh party. In response, the Shah pur-sued a policy of brutal oppression against the Tudehparty, brought Iran into alignment with the Westand, in 1955, entered into the Baghdad Pact withIraq, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Pakistan.Prime Minister Nehru denounced the BaghdadPact (CENTO) as a dangerous approach to interna-tional relations and led India into the Non-AlignedMovement. While India claimed that it wasunaligned to either power bloc, it in fact developedvery close ties with the Soviet Union, whichbecame a major military supplier.

The India-Iran relationship was further compli-cated by improved relationships between Iran andPakistan when the two countries joined theBaghdad Pact, albeit for different reasons. Iran joinedthe Baghdad Pact because of genuine commitmentto the pact’s security principles,while Pakistan choseparticipation in the Baghdad Pact principally toobtain military support and resources to fortify itagainst its fast emerging nemesis: India. Althoughthe Baghdad Pact brought Iran and Pakistan closer,Iran was very amicable towards the fledging state ofPakistan even early on. Iran was the first nation torecognize Pakistan and established formal diplomat-ic relations in May 1948. One year later, the Shah

visited Pakistan, at which time he and PrimeMinister Liaquat Ali Khan penned a Treaty ofFriendship.

In contrast to the alacrity with which Tehranacknowledged Pakistan, formal diplomatic relationsbetween Iran and India were formalized only inMarch of 1950. However, within one year, IranianPrime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq nationalizedthe Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC). Oilnationalization had become a serious issue: Iranianswere increasingly vexed at the indifference of theBritish towards this growing Iranian concern andthe yawning disparity in oil revenues shared by theIranian and British governments from the exploita-tion of Iranian oil. India was ambivalent about theissue and perhaps leaned towards the side of theBritish. Nehru remarked that “The Iranian govern-ment has taken up a very strong and unbending atti-tude and perhaps it may be criticized to someextent.”4

Throughout much of the 1960s, India and Irandrew closer. This was in part due to the détentebetween the superpowers and the different regionalpriorities of the United States, which de-empha-sized the significance of Iran. Iran, disenchantedwith the contingent nature of such external support,began looking for alternatives to the United States.In its quest,Tehran sought to normalize its relationswith the Soviet Union.

The 1970s was also a period of growth in theIndo-Iranian relationship, despite a bumpy startwhen Iran sided with Pakistan in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war. While Iran formally supportedPakistan,Tehran declined to take a hard line againstNew Delhi and rebuffed Islamabad’s efforts to acti-vate reciprocal defense obligations under CENTO.

In the aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war andthe surge in oil revenues, Iran’s coffers had expandedand Iran felt well positioned to pursue joint devel-opment projects with other countries. India, havingemerged as the decisive winner in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, was perceived by Iran to be a majorregional power. It was in the mutual interest of bothto pursue strong political links with each other.Both states were careful to avoid any entanglementin each other’s defense commitments and prioritiesand were steadfast in their efforts to keep differencesof opinion over such matters from derailing theirmutual economic and development objectives.

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During the 1970s, there were also numerous high-level visits between India and Iran. Both PrimeMinisters Indira Gandhi and Morarji Desai visitedIran in 1974 and 1977 respectively. In February1978, the Shah of Iran visited India. Both sides heldvery similar views on a number of major interna-tional issues, such as disarmament, the ongoingsecurity problems in the Middle East, and keepingthe Indian Ocean free of aggression and outsideinterference.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran was initial-ly seen in India as an assertion of national identityand independence from superpower rivalry.However, this favorable view was not sustained asonce again bilateral relations waned in importance.The new regime in Tehran quickly becameembroiled in a long, bloody war with Iraq. Iran alsobecame keen to export its Islamic revolutionary zealand pursued positions towards Kashmir that discom-fited New Delhi. Despite India’s displeasure withIran’s Kashmir stance, India did not vociferouslyrebuff Tehran. India believed that realists within theIslamic Republic sought to maintain robust eco-nomic ties with India despite differences of opin-ion.5 The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan wasyet another sticking point. Iran vehementlyopposed the conflict on its northern frontier andfound Indira Gandhi’s “behind the scenes” opposi-tion to Moscow to be too subtle. Despite thesenumerous challenges and significant sources ofpolitical difference, both Iran and India continued tocooperate economically throughout the 1980s.

1990-2001: The Soviet Union’s demise opensnew opportunities

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the conclu-sion of the Cold War presented India and Iran witha number of challenges as well as opportunities.Both countries faced uncertainty as to what wouldbe the fate of its robust and long-standing arms sup-ply relationship with the former Soviet Union.Moreover, in the wake of the Cold War, India andIran grew unsettled when the United Statesemerged as the global hegemon.

As the Soviet Union crumbled, chaos ensued inCentral Asia, disconcerting both Iran and India for anumber of reasons. First, the new states thatemerged from the detritus of the Soviet Union were

politically unstable and ill at ease with their neigh-bors. Iran was leery of becoming entangled in theirdisagreements and the ever-present possibility thatany emerging ethnic conflict in Central Asia couldspill into Iran and embolden any fissiparous tenden-cies among Iran’s diverse ethnic minorities. Indiashared Iran’s interest in a stable Central Asia: CentralAsia had long been a captive market for Indiangoods exported to the Soviet Union. Iran becamethe only viable corridor through which India couldaccess the natural resources and economic opportu-nities of Central Asia and Afghanistan.

Iran and India’s vexation with the emergentproblems in Central Asia were further exacerbatedwith the upsurge in Sunni Islamic extremist move-ments that fanned throughout South Asia andCentral Asia in the early and mid-1990s. The con-solidation of power by the Taliban (backed and nur-tured by Pakistan) was a major source of mutualanxiety both for New Delhi and Tehran. In thisregard, both Tehran and New Delhi converged intheir interests in checking cross-border terrorism aswell as the spread of narcotics from Afghanistan.

Thus, the Cold War’s conclusion brought to bothstates a number of challenges. However, it also pre-sented both states newfound opportunities. CentralAsia became an open field where both states couldproject their equities and jockey for influence in thearea. Russia, India and Iran engaged in a number ofjoint ventures to build infrastructure in support ofmoving goods between India and Russia, via Iranand/or Afghanistan. India sought to establish robustrelationships with Iran and the states of Central Asiaat least in part to strategically outmaneuver Pakistan.The convergence of interests with Iran presentedNew Delhi with an attractive option of cultivatingrobust relations with a key Muslim state, at least inpart to deflect Pakistan’s rhetoric in internationalforums and to mollify the increasingly disenchantedMuslim population within India. Iran, for its part,saw in India a potential means to break out of itsisolation caused in part by the containment policiesof the United States. India’s value in this regard hasonly expanded in recent years as India has forgedkey relations with the United States, Israel, theEuropean Union and the states of Southeast andNortheast Asia. Tehran also looks to India as a cost-effective source of high-technology inputs and assis-tance in the development of information technolo-

gy. Finally, both states see tremendous value in mil-itary cooperation—a point to which I return in thesubsequent section of this paper.

In the early 1990s, a policy of economic reformbrought about a period of sustained economicgrowth in India, which expanded the country’sdemand for hydrocarbon energy sources. Iran, forits part, was both endowed with one of the world’slargest supplies of natural gas as well as oil, and des-perate to find new markets for these products.Energy interests, with Iran as a supplier and India asa consumer, cemented Indo-Iranian relations andmotivated both states to explore ways of gettingIran’s hydrocarbons to India’s market.

This general rapprochement of the 1990s wasalso facilitated by Tehran’s subtle shifts towards therecalcitrant Kashmir issue. 1991 witnessed a seriesof high-level exchanges. During a visit of the Indianexternal affairs minister,Tehran first acknowledgedKashmir to be an integral part of India. This wassubsequently reiterated during 1993 visits to Tehranof the Indian foreign minister and Prime MinisterNarasimha Rao.

By the late 1990s both Iran and India convergedon several key issues: (1) stability in Central Asia,Afghanistan and Pakistan, (2) security of energy sup-plies, (3) checking the deleterious consequences ofWahabbist/Deobandi extremism emanating fromthe Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Pakistan andelsewhere, and (4) the mutual benefit from econom-ic cooperation in a broad swathe of areas.

This cluster of shared concerns brought about anumber of key milestones. For example, in 2000Iran and India agreed to build a North-SouthCorridor, which would permit facile movement ofgoods across Central Asia and Russia.6 As a part ofthis accord, India agreed to help expand the Iranianport of Chahbahar and lay railway tracks that wouldconnect Chahbahar to the Afghan city of Zaranj.

Cooperation between the two states increased inthe area of defense as well. In March 2001, IndianDefense Secretary Yogendra Narain met with hisIranian counterpart, Ali Shamkhani, and agreed toinitiate a security dialogue to examine key issues ofmutual concern.7 This meeting was followed byPrime Minister Vajpayee’s historic visit to Tehran inApril 2001, which resulted in the TehranDeclaration. This document aimed to enhancebilateral cooperation, to articulate their mutual

interests in establishing a broad-based governmentin Afghanistan, and to express their apprehensionover international terrorism and their mutual pref-erence for a comprehensive convention againstinternational terrorism at the United Nations.8

Despite positive developments in Indo-Iranian tiesin this decade, there were persistent limits to the depthand breadth that the relationship could take. Many ofthese limits continue to frustrate and circumscribe therelationship. First, throughout the 1990s, India soughta rapprochement with the United States. India’s desireto cultivate robust security ties with the United Stateshas been and will remain a serious constraint on theIndo-Iranian relationship. Second, India has simulta-neously pursued robust defense ties with Israel. Infact, Israel has become the second largest supplier ofmilitary equipment to India. Third, India is also seek-ing more robust ties with a number of Arab states,which have been less than thrilled by the upswing inIndo-Iranian relations.9

September 11, 2001–Present: Changing securityenvironments

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, broughtto the region a number of far-reaching changes.First, the attacks brought to the fore the significanceof South Asia within the larger context of the glob-al war on terrorism. This gave a greater impetus tothe fast-developing Indo-U.S. strategic relationship.Second, the global focus on terrorism and the trendsin political Islam have also encouraged India andIsrael to deepen their already extent robust relation-ship. Third, stakeholders within India, Israel and theUnited States have also pushed for an Indo-U.S.-Israel triangular relationship to “fight terrorism.”10

It should be noted that Pakistani observers view thisas little more than a patina for an axis to fight Islamand to counter legitimate political claims ofMuslims such as Palestinian and Kashmiri liberation,to name but two.11 Fourth, the military action inAfghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom)brought the official rule of the Taliban to an end.This was a welcome change in both Tehran andNew Delhi. Fifth, the recent military engagementin Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom) has also resultedin the ousting of Saddam Hussein. While his exitfrom Iraqi politics and capture was welcomed inTehran and elsewhere, U.S. efforts to do so without

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global consensus or UN cover was discomfitingboth to Tehran and New Delhi.

While aspects of the war on terrorism and theinvolvement of the United States in the subcontinenthave clearly been positive for New Delhi, otheraspects have been less so. The war on terrorism againmotivated the United States to resuscitate its ever-tentative relationship with India’s vexing westernneighbor. India, while seeking enhanced militarysupply relations with Washington, has argued thatWashington should strictly limit its military assis-tance to Islamabad.12 India has also watched withdismay as the United States made President PervezMusharraf, who is viewed dubiously in New Delhias the author of the Kargil conflict, a critical partnerin the war on terror. From New Delhi’s perspective,Washington has largely turned a blind eye onPakistan support for militancy in Kashmir, and hasacted with relative public insouciance towardsPakistan’s demonstrable nuclear proliferation.

While Iran no longer has to contend with theodious Taliban and Saddam Hussein regimes, it toohas had much to fret about in this new environ-ment. While the United States has been a closeneighbor due to its military presence in the Gulfsince 1990/1991, the U.S. footprint in the regionhas expanded dramatically since 9-11. The UnitedStates has a robust military presence in Afghanistan,Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and obviously Iraq. Iran isclearly concerned that the United States will culti-vate regimes in these countries that are pro-American and hostile to Iran’s equities in theregion.

This changed environment has also opened upopportunities for both India and Iran. Afghanistan isnow more open and both states are considerablymore free to use whatever means at their disposal toinfluence the eventual outcomes in Kabul and else-where. Both states are hoping that the demise of theTaliban, the U.S. presence in Pakistan, and theenhanced international concern surroundingextreme Sunni Islamic movements (e.g., strands ofWahhabi and Deobandi belief) will check the spreadof Sunni militarism. The convergence of sharedthreats and perceived opportunities have encour-aged Iran and India to move more swiftly on keyareas that undergird their developing strategic rela-tions such as: threats of terrorism (particularly frommilitant Sunni groups), security of the sea lanes of

control (e.g., Strait of Hormuz), and integrity ofenergy supplies. Moreover, the possibility ofAfghanistan eventually being stabilized has openedup new commercial and development possibilitiesthat compel both India and Iran to work togetherwith other key collaborators such as Russia.

It should also be noted that both states need eachother politically now more than ever. India, withthe political consolidation of the Hindu nationalistparty (the BJP) and its associated “saffron alliance,”faces ongoing challenges arising from the fears andpolitical alienation of its burgeoning Muslim popu-lation. The 2002 gruesome massacre of Muslims inthe state of Gujarat persists as a political thorn inIndia’s side. There have been a number of recentrevelations that the state of Gujarat has failed toprosecute those responsible for the violence.Reports suggest that intimidation and threats ofbodily harm have been used to coerce witnesses andto compel victims to retract their charges. Mediacoverage also alleges the direct intervention of cor-rupt judges who are sympathetic with the Hindunationalist project.13 While India’s relations with itsMuslims in the plains have been deteriorating, inrecent years, the Kashmir dispute has increasinglybecome connected with Hindu-Muslim politics inthe Indian hinterland. (For most of the dispute’s his-tory, it was isolated to the northern parts of India.)These developments, coupled with India’s increasedrelations with Israel and its concomitant diminishingof support for the Palestinian cause, have compelledIndia to fortify its relations with countries of theMuslim world.14

Iran, for its part, also needs India now more thanever. Iran has been branded a member of the axis ofevil, and Iran will have to redouble its efforts toovercome the U.S. efforts to contain it. Yet Iranunderstands the importance of détente with theUnited States as a country actively shaping most ofthe key states in Iran’s neighborhood, particularlyAfghanistan, Iraq and possibly Pakistan. UnderPresident Khatami, Iran has done much to break outof its isolation. India may provide Iran with someenhanced means to do so. For example, India haslong supported the admission of Iran into the WorldTrade Organization, which the United States hasconsistently resisted.

Much of this convergence in interests becameoverly manifest during one of the key milestones of

the Indo-Iranian relationship in this post–9-11 era:the January 2003 visit of President Khatami to NewDelhi. The state visit included the signing of theNew Delhi Declaration and seven additionalMemoranda of Understandings and agreements.Thekey areas of focus included international terrorismand the shared position of both states that the Iraqsituation should be resolved through the UnitedNations. Both states expressed an interest in pursu-ing enhanced cooperation in the areas of scienceand technology, including information technology,pharmaceutical development and manufacture, foodtechnology and space (e.g., satellite launch).15 Theenduring mainstays of the engagement, hydrocarbonand water issues, also figured prominently, as didmutual interests in exploring education and trainingopportunities. (India has a robust post-secondaryeducation infrastructure from which Iran couldbenefit tremendously.) Naturally, both concurredthat there should be close cooperation on efforts toreconstruct and rehabilitate Afghanistan.16

One of the key instruments signed was the“Road Map to Strategic Cooperation.” This docu-ment follows the New Delhi Declaration closelyand establishes a targeted framework to fulfill theobjectives set forth by the Declaration. The keyareas mapped out include concrete steps on oil andgas issues (e.g., the ever-challenging pipeline proj-ect), the commitment to expand non-hydrocarbonbilateral trade and other forms of significant eco-nomic cooperation, the joint effort to further devel-op the Chahbahar port complex, the Chahbahar-Fahranj-Bam railway link, and the Marine OilTanking Terminal. Perhaps the most controversialcommitment spelled out more robust defence coop-eration between the two.17

While these two states have been talking about“strategic relations” for some time with few con-crete results, the last year has seen substantiveadvances in relatively little time. For example, bothare moving to forge institutional defense linkages.They have established working groups on terrorismand counter-narcotics. Both of these initiatives areal-Qaeda focused. As noted, the salience of issuessurrounding sea-lanes of control and political dis-comfort with the emerging hegemonic presence ofthe United States in the Persian Gulf motivated thefirst Indo-Iranian naval exercise in March 2003.This naval exercise was perhaps notable because its

timing was simultaneous with the mounting U.S.presence in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. It wasalso striking because among the burgeoning U.S.-Indian defense ties, the U.S.-Indian naval relation-ship has been the most dramatic in its depth andbreadth.

Iran is also hoping that India can be a key partnerin its efforts to fortify and modernize its defenses, asnoted in the previous section. Iran hopes that Indiacan provide expertise in electronics and telecommu-nications. According to the Indian press, India hastrained Iranian naval engineers in Mumbai and atViskhapatnam. Iran is also seeking combat trainingfor missile boat crews and hopes to purchase fromIndia simulators for ships and subs. Iran also antici-pates that India can provide mid-life service andupgrades for its MiG-29 fighters, and retrofit itswarships and subs in Indian dockyards.18 There werealso reports that Iran hopes that Indian technicianswill refit and maintain Iran’s T-27 tanks as well as itsBMP infantry fighting vehicles and the towed 105mm and 130mm artillery guns.19

While the interest between India and Iran incloser and more robust ties may have intensified, thesame obstacles and limitations that bound them inthe past will continue to do so. India will have tofind ways of balancing its relations with Iran, whilesimultaneously managing its deepened relationswith the United States, Israel and other states withinits Greater Middle East policy. Right now, it doesnot appear as if the benefits to New Delhi in woo-ing Tehran outweigh the costs to its other key rela-tionships. Moreover, while the changed strategicenvironment of both have pushed Iran and Indiatogether in many ways, it remains unclear at thisjuncture how enduring this convergence will be.For example, other states such as Pakistan, SaudiArabia and even Israel may also shift their policies toexploit the changed regional environment.

CONCLUSIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE

UNITED STATES AND KEY REGIONAL

ACTORS

Pakistan is one state that has surely felt the impact ofthe ever-strengthening ties between India and Iran.In early 2003, bogus reporting circulated of anIndo-Iranian military agreement that permittedIndia access to Iranian airbases in the event of a war

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with Pakistan.20 While that report was putativelyspurious, the Pakistani press responded with surpriseand outrage that Islamabad had managed so poorlyPakistan’s relations with its neighbor to the west.However, astute observers have remarked that eventhough there was no such defense pact, the newdefense relationship between India and Iran affordsNew Delhi a number of advantages. As onePakistani security analyst wrote:

Any Indian presence on Iranian military bases, even if it issolely for the purpose of training the Iranians, would allowIndia a more subtle “operational” use of early warning,intelligence gathering, etc facilities against Pakistan. AnIndian military presence in Iran with or without strikecapability would enable India in the event of war withPakistan to create a “holding threat” along its western bor-ders. Indeed, Indian leverage with Iran has steadily grownwith the souring of ties between Pakistan and Iran. 21

From Islamabad’s vantage point, changes in itsimmediate backyard are less than salutary forPakistan’s perception of itself as an inherently inse-cure state. Tension with Iran emerged in the mid-1990s over the Taliban. (One may recall that in1998, Iran nearly went to war with Afghanistan andmade a number of threats towards Pakistan wheneight diplomats and an Iranian reporter were slain inMazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Iran held Pakistanresponsible for those deaths because of its close asso-ciation with the Taliban.) Afghanistan has proven tobe a persistent concern to Islamabad. Not only didthe Taliban fail to provide Pakistan with muchsought, but ultimately chimerical, strategic depth,but the future of Pakistani-Afghan relations is inde-terminate at this juncture. All signs are thatIslamabad is nonplussed over the form of govern-ment shaping up in Kabul and the paucity ofPashtun representation. Even China, Pakistan’sostensibly robust military partner, has shied fromtaking hard diplomatic and political stands inPakistan’s favor. During Pakistan’s foray into Kargil,China supported the position of the internationalcommunity that Pakistan needs to respect the sanc-tity of the de facto border, the Line of Control.22

The current warming trends between China andIndia are also putting Islamabad on notice.

From Pakistan’s perspective, it may well appearthat India is successfully prosecuting a policy to

strategically strangle and isolate Pakistan.23 Pakistanlikely has a number of options, some of which maynot have a palliative effect on regional security.Certainly one option that Islamabad may consider isthe continued reliance upon proxy forces to projectits equities in Afghanistan, Kashmir and elsewhere.Pakistan may pursue relatively unexplored asym-metric strategies using proxies based in Bangladesh,Sri Lanka, Nepal and elsewhere. This is surely unde-sirable and will have an immediate impact on U.S.objectives for the region, including stabilizingAfghanistan and minimizing the possibility of con-flict between India and Pakistan. Pakistan may alsoseek to renew efforts to fortify its relations withIran. While there is evidence that this is proceeding,Pakistani-Iranian relations are still largely tactical innature. Pakistan has also been intimating that itwould like some sort of rapprochement with Israel.This has been most evident in President Musharraf ’svarious statements in 2003 that Pakistan would con-sider recognizing Israel. This would hopefullydampen the threat that Islamabad perceives fromIsrael and its partnership with India and the UnitedStates. Pakistan may also turn to other key statessuch as Saudi Arabia and other “Muslim” states in itsongoing quest for political support.

24Given the his-

torical involvement of Saudi Arabia and other Arabstates in fomenting sectarian conflict in Pakistan andin supporting militant Sunni organizations, thiscould be deleterious for Pakistan’s internal securityand for the region.

As noted, other states in Southwest Asia are likelywatching the Indo-Iranian relationship with somecaution. Israel will certainly use whatever leverage ithas to limit the extent of Indo-Iranian rapproche-ment.25 Arab states, fearing an alliance betweenNew Delhi and Tehran to project interests inAfghanistan and Central Asia, may step up efforts toproliferate Wahabbist influence in the region. ArabStates and Pakistan may find again that they sharemany common interests in the region.

Finally, how might warming in Indo-Iranian tiesaffect U.S. equities in the region? There certainlyare a number of concerns. First, opening up theNorth-South corridor and the concomitant oppor-tunities to move goods also suggests the possibilityof transferring illicit goods. Without proper moni-toring, the North-South corridor could easilybecome a facile transit route for narcotics, small

arms, and even for weapons of mass destructionand/or their key components and related technicalinformation. Second, the United States is lookingto India as an important strategic partner. India maybe hesitant to engage in policies to contain Iran.Indo-Iranian space cooperation may unsettle thosein the United States who understand satellite launchcapabilities to be an existential intercontinental bal-listic missile capability. (This could certainly retardeventual Indo-U.S. cooperation in this area.) Third,such persons would further be unsettled by thesummer 2003 reports that the former chairman andmanaging director of the Nuclear PowerCorporation (Dr.Y.S.R. Prasad) took a job in Iranafter his retirement in July 2000.26 This, coupledwith the episodic but vocal statements of mutualinterest in civilian nuclear cooperation, likelyunnerves those Americans who continue to be leeryof India for resuming nuclear tests in 1998.

On the other hand, India’s bilateral ties withIran may make India more, rather than less, valuableto the United States. This relationship may be animportant element in bringing stability to Southand Central Asia, which would benefit all partiesconcerned. Should such projects as the gas pipelinecome to fruition and pass through Pakistan, this willcreate much-needed economic opportunities forthe three states. Such a pipeline could also be animportant area of cooperation between India andPakistan. Second, both Iran and India—like theUnited States—are anxious about the spread ofSaudi-sponsored Wahabbist ideology. Their effortsto circumscribe the expansion of these sentimentsmay be welcomed by the other regional and extra-regional actors engaged in the same struggle. Third,enhanced exchanges of Iranian students withinIndian educational institutions may also exposeIranians to yet another model of democracy.Fourth, Iran faces a number of social challengessuch as HIV transmission (mostly through intra-venous drug use) and drug addiction. India too iswrestling with these challenges and has promulgat-ed policy approaches that are suitable for a societythat considers itself to be culturally conservative.India may offer Iran some guidance on how to dothe same.

ENDNOTES

1. This work draws from several rounds of field-work in India under various RAND-sponsored proj-ects. These trips were made in June, 2003, October2002 and September 2002.

2. Juli A. MacDonald, Indo-U.S. Military Relationship:Expectations and Perceptions (Falls Church: Booze AllenHamilton, 2002.), xx.

3. Ibid.The author’s own experience dealing withU.S. personnel in CENTCOM, PACOM and else-where conform generally to MacDonald’s findings.

4. Jawaharlal Nehru,“Letter to the Chief Minister,”July 7, 1951, in G. Parthasarthy, ed., Jawaharlal Nehru,Letters to the Chief Minister 1947-1964, 2, 1950-52(London: Oxford University Press, 1986), 438.

5. A.K. Pasha, “India, Iran and the GCC States:Common Political and Strategic Concerns,” India, Iranand the GCC States: Political Strategy and Foreign Policy,(New Delhi: Manas Publication, 2000), 227-228.

6. Stephen Blank,“The Indian-Iranian Connectionand Its Importance for Central Asia,” Eurasianet.orgMarch 12, 2003. Last accessed November 11, 2003.

7. Dinesh Kumar, “The Limits of the India-IranRapprochement,” Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence,June 1, 2001. Available at http://www.westerndefense.org/bulletins/June1-01.htm. Last accessedFebruary 11, 2004.

8. Mohammed Nassem Khan, “Vajpayee’s Visit toIran: Indo-Iranian Relations and Prospects of BilateralCooperation,” September 2001. Available athttp://www.idsa-india.org/an-sept-4.01.htm. Lastaccessed October 6, 2003.

9. Sushil J.Aaron, Straddling Faultlines: India’s ForeignPolicy Towards the Greater Middle East, CSH OccasionalPaper, No. 7, (French Research Institutes in India,August 2003).

10. Sheela Bhatt, “Indo-US-Israel dialogue pushesfor anti-terror partnership,” Rediff.com, February 9,2003. Available at http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/feb/08secu.htm. Last accessed February 15,2004.;“Unwritten Indo-US-Israel axis created: Lapid,”IndianInfo.com. September 10, 2003. Available athttp://news.indiainfo.com/2003/09/10/10axis.html.Last accessed February 15, 2004.

11. Ghani Jafar, “The Brahmanic-TalmudistAlliance,” Regional Studies, Spring 2002, 4-89.Availableat http://irs.org.pk/regional%20studies%20editions/Spring%202002.pdf. Last accessed February 15, 2004.

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12. Author interviews in India with officials fromthe Ministry of External Affairs, Army Headquarters,and Integrated Defence Staff in June 2003 andSeptember and October 2002.

13.The case of Zahira Sheikh is illuminating. Shewas a key witness in the mass murder at Vadodara’s“Best Bakery.” Several of her relatives were among the14 slain in that attack. Upon retracting her testimony,she claimed that she was intimidated by BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)leaders to retract her testimony.

14. Notably, India also has an enormous populationof Shia Muslims. Some observers put its Shia popula-tion as the third or fourth largest, perhaps equivalent tothat of Iraq. Of course, statistics on the numbers of ShiaMuslims is problematic—particularly in states that aredominated by Sunni and which marginalize ShiaMuslims. According to one estimate (using data from1999), the largest population of Shia is in Iran (nearly46 million). Pakistan’s Shia population is the secondlargest with some 19 million. (It should be noted thatthe Pakistan figures are deeply suspect as Pakistan doesnot include the Shia dominant Northern Areas in itscensus). Iraq and India are nearly tied with 14 millionand 13 million respectively.

15. “India, Iran have co-operation in spaceresearch,” IndiaInfo.com, February 1, 2003. Available athttp://finance.indiainfo.com/news/2003/02/01/01indiiran.html. Last accessed February 15, 2004.; “India,Iran Cooperating on Space Research,” Times of India,February 1, 2003.Available at http://timesofindia.indi-atimes.com/articleshow/36162048.cms. Last accessedFebruary 15, 2004.; Sengupta, Ramananda.“India-IranGas Pipeline: A Transit Challenge.” Rediff.com, January22, 2003. Available at http://in.rediff.com/news/2003/jan/22ram.htm. Last accessed February 15, 2004.

16.“India, Iran Discuss Modalities for Execution ofS&T Agreement,” Press Information Bureau (of India),January 28, 2003. Available at http://pib.nic.in/a r c h i e v e / l r e l e n g / l y r 2 0 0 3 / r j a n 2 0 0 3 /28012003/r280120036.html. Last accessed February15, 2004.

17. C. Raja Mohan, “Tending to theNeighborhood,”The Hindu, February 3, 2003.

18. John Calebrese, “Indo-Iranian Relations inTransition,” Journal of South Asian and Middle EasternStudies, 25, No. 5, summer 2002, 75-76; “India-Iranmilitary ties growing,” Strategic Affairs, June 16, 2001,http://www.stratmag.com/issueJune15/page01.htm#a04. Last accessed February 15, 2004.

19. Rizwan Zeb. “The Emerging Indo-IranianStrategic Alliance and Pakistan,” Central Asia-CaucasusAnalyst, February 12, 2003. Available athttp://www.cacianalyst.org/view_article.php?articleid=1054. Last accessed November 11, 2003.

20. Ehsan Ahrari, “As India and Iran Snuggle,Pakistan Feels the Chill,” Asia Times, February 11,2003.

21. Zeb, “The Emerging Indo-Iranian StrategicAlliance and Pakistan.”

22.Ashley J.Tellis, C. Christine Fair, and Jamison JoMedby. Limited Conflict Under the Nuclear Umbrella:Indian and Pakistani Lessons from the Kargil Crisis (SantaMonica: RAND, 2001).

23.This perception is likely exacerbated by the factthat India now has a presence not only at Iranian basesand ports, but also in Tajikistan at Farkhor and Ayni.

24. While the extent of Pakistan’s use of nucleartechnology as a carrot for friendship remains to befully excavated, it is clear that Pakistan has peddled thisknow-how.

25. India and Israel are also embarking upon closercoordination on issues of space and satellite launch.Tothe extent that satellite launch is a proxy for inter-con-tinental ballistic capability, similar cooperation betweenIran and India will not be welcome in Israel.

26.“India Science News of the Week,” Science andTechnology Section, U.S. Embassy, New Delhi, India,October 24, 2003. Available at http://www.atip.org/INDIANEWS/EMBASSY/20031024.pdf .Lastaccessed February 16, 2004. According to theHindustan Times, which broke the story, this “leadingIndian nuclear scientist is believed to have helped Iranbuild its nuclear power plant.” (“Top Indian nuclearexpert helped Iran develop power plant: report,”October 23, 2003).

15


In a rare moment of cooperation during India’s54th Republic Day celebrations in January2003, Iran and India declared a “strategic part-

nership.” However, the origins of the New DelhiDeclaration, signed by Iranian PresidentMohammad Khatami and Indian Prime MinisterAtal Bihari Vajpayee in January 2003, go back morethan a decade.That the agreement’s foundation waslaid in the early years of Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presi-dency is perhaps not surprising to those who followIran’s regional activities. The partnership that hasemerged only recently is, in a sense, overdue.

BACKGROUND

To understand how the New Delhi Declarationfinally became possible, one must look back to theyears following Iranian leader Imam Khomeini’sdeath (1980) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).Iran was involved in a multi-dimensional challengeto survive as a political regime that had to build acoherent foreign policy and national identity amid amaelstrom of obstacles and challenges.

First, Iran was facing tremendous pressure fromthe West. The fatwa against novelist Salman Rushdiand the Mykonos Restaurant shooting incident1

endangered relations with other countries (particu-larly in Europe) by implicating the Islamic Republicin terrorism. Iranian support for Hezbollah encour-aged terrorism while failing to alleviate thePalestinians’ plight, and brought pressure and con-demnation from the United States and Israel.Meanwhile, Iran suffered isolation, embargoed bythe United States as part of Washington’s dual con-tainment policy against Iran and Iraq, and was alsocontinuously monitored for development ofweapons of destruction.

Iran also had problems at the regional level. Ithad failed in its efforts to expand influence amongthe newly independent Central Asian states, unableto export even such mundane goods as spaghetti andmacaroni—perhaps because it had so excessivelyexported the Qur’an and ideologically motivated

books.2 Meanwhile, Iran was threatened by theTaliban, and drugs from Afghanistan contaminatedIran’s young population. The Taliban had beenorganized by Islamabad, profiting from Western(especially U.S.) and Saudi government support,along Iran’s eastern border. Iran also had difficultrelations with Azerbaijan, which invited the IranianAzeri population to join in forming a “greaterAzerbaijan.” Iran tried to counter these dreams ofAzeri unity by supporting Armenia’s claim againstAzerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In1992, Iran tried to help mediate Tajikistan’s civil warin order to display a peaceful profile and to eventu-ally increase its influence.

Iran’s response to these international and region-al challenges, which would lay the foundation forthe New Delhi Declaration, was a shift toward“looking East.” The most important issue forRafsanjani’s government was dealing with Iran’sstrategic predicament without compromising therevolution’s Islamic ideals. Iran had had no alliesduring the grueling war with Iraq, the outcome ofwhich failed to reduce Tehran’s strategic and securi-ty concerns. It therefore tried to reduce its vulnera-bility through ambitious regional plans.3 The col-lapse of the Soviet Union seemed to offer newavenues and opportunities that the Iranian govern-ment was determined to make the most of, in spiteof tremendous external and internal obstacles.

Modifications to the constitution eliminated theposition of prime minister in 1989, giving morepower to Rafsanjani as president. The last primeminister, Mir Hussein Mousavi, was relegated to asmall office in a building detached from the presi-dent’s office. Mousavi’s position was a formality anda “fifth wheel,” and his research and recommenda-tions rarely resulted in policy. Yet he strongly sup-ported Iran’s striking out East (instead of mendingties with the West) and was one of the mastermindsbehind this movement.

Mousavi believed Iran could gain nothing fromthe West, which (he claimed) had historically acted

16


Jalil Roshandel is a visiting professor of political science at Duke University. He has held research/teaching posi-tions at UCLA, Stanford University, Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Copenhagen Peace ResearchInstitute, the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS) in Tehran, and the University of Tehran.

The Overdue “Strategic” PartnershipBetween Iran and India

JALIL ROSHANDEL

against Iranian interests. The East offered greaterpromise for a prosperous future; at the least, itinvolved fewer security risks. Therefore, every effortmust be made to reorient Iran’s foreign policy inthat direction.4 Mousavi’s concept of the East wasbroad and probably vague, but included Afghanistan,Pakistan, India, Southeast Asia, and even China andJapan—any country that was situated geographicallyeast of Iran.

Iran’s decision to bypass Pakistan and sign anagreement with India was the result of several fac-tors. Of key importance was the old belief that “theenemy of my enemy is my friend.” Iran had simplylearned to distrust the West through experiences likethe 1953 coup, in which the United States support-ed the Shah, and even older British and Europeaninterventionist policies. In the late 1980s, Pakistanwas still seen as a close ally of the despised UnitedStates.

Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament and foreign min-istry were making their own individual studies andarrangements based on “looking East.” Soon stepswere taken to develop relations with India andChina, as well as with Central Asian countries suchas Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan andKazakhstan.

Rumors had it that the Chinese rejected theseovertures for fear that closer ties with Iran (whichfrom the Iranian side would mean cooperation innuclear issues) would jeopardize Beijing’s expandingrelations with the United States. India seemedinterested, however. By 1996, trilateral cooperationamong Iran, India and Central Asia became modusoperandi.5 Two major think tanks, the Institute forPolitical and International Studies (IPIS) in Tehranand the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for ContemporaryStudies (RGICS) in New Delhi, were involvedclosely and arranged several joint research projects.6

During 1996, members of Parliament and otherauthorities traveled to such locations as Indonesiaand China, though these exploratory missions pro-duced no tangible results.

Though initial achievements were minor, theidea that “looking East” would build on its smallbeginnings and eventually pave the way for eco-nomic interdependence and stability seemed theo-retically convincing. The concept had support espe-cially among decision-makers and policy planners.7

The broadening of cooperation always involves

some complications which, along with Iran’s diplo-matic naivety, delayed implementation. Gradually,however, Iran expanded its horizons. Looking East,particularly toward India, became formal policy by1997. Among other goals this policy was designedto:• help Iran obtain wider access to resources in

Central Asia.• facilitate access of countries like India or even the

Persian Gulf states to landlocked Central Asiancountries, always with the final goal of profitingIran.

• search out (initially small) economic benefits forIran as a transit country that provides roads, trans-portation and storage between Central Asia andthe Indian Ocean.

• create mutual interdependencies that wouldeventually reduce harmful dependencies on theWest.

Iran, India and the Central Asian states all sufferedfrom weak economies, and therefore a kind of bartertrade seemed to offer the most suitable mode foreconomic deals. Financial conditions were easy forall parties, though the volume of the transactionsremained insignificant.

Iran was somewhat successful in demonstratingits potential to link the Arab Persian Gulf to thenewly independent states of Central Asia. However,air transportation proved more practical thanground links due to the type, volume and value ofgoods. Moreover, cultural and moral impedimentsalso dissuaded Iran from acting as a link betweenCentral Asia and the Persian Gulf. Chief amongthese was a concern that the sex trade would expandfrom Russia and other former Soviet republicsthrough Iran to the Persian Gulf states.

Overall, the policy of “looking East” tended tohave international and political, rather than eco-nomic, significance. Iran was careful to avoid orbypass controversial issues like the export of Islamicrevolution or goals. In the past, Tehran’s directapproach towards Central Asia had frightened theformer communist leaders of those countries, whofeared the export of the revolution to their Muslimpopulations. But using trade between Iran andCentral Asia as a wedge effectively widened Iran’shorizons.Today, via Turkmenistan, Iran and CentralAsia are connected by highway and railroad,although political obstacles keep these transporta-

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tion links from being fully used. It is worth men-tioning that Turkmenistan, in addition to many cul-tural, ethnic, and historical commonalities, has along border (of 600 miles) with Iran.

A STRATEGIC ALLIANCE:THE NEW DELHI DECLARATION

After more than a decade of Iran’s “looking East,”Tehran and New Delhi signed the unprecedentedNew Delhi Declaration early last year.8 PrimeMinister Vajpayee’s 2001 visit to Iran was the first byan Indian prime minister since 1993, and ever sincehe has maintained a brisk pace of official meetingsto strengthen the two countries’ ties.The result wasthe January 2003 agreement, which aims for mutualbenefit on three fronts: economic, political, and mil-itary.

On the economic front, the agreement acknowl-edges the two countries’ interdependence and theimportance of boosting cooperation, particularly inthe energy sector. Iran’s role as energy supplier tothe growing Indian market cannot be underestimat-ed. Iran has the world’s second largest natural gasreserves, and India is one of the world’s largest gasimporters. As emphasized by the New DelhiDeclaration, Iran is strategically located to serve asIndia’s gateway to Middle Eastern and Central Asianenergy suppliers.

Plans for pipelines from Iran to India are stillunclear.The two major options are through Pakistanor under the Indian Ocean. The former hasimmense potential to promote security in theregion, since it depends upon expanding coopera-tion among Iran, India and Pakistan. It remains to beseen whether a dire need for energy will promptIndia and Pakistan to overcome their long conflictover Kashmir, or whether they will instead decide toexamine other options.

Under the terms of the Agreement, Iran andIndia will make efforts to encourage bilateral tradeand economic cooperation not only in energy, butin other areas as well. They will boost non-oil tradeand investment in infrastructure projects. For exam-ple, discussion will continue on projects in Iran suchas the Chahbahar Free Trade Zone port complex,the Chahbahar-Fahraj-Bam railway link, and theMarine Oil Tanking Terminal. In turn, Iran willinvest and participate in infrastructure projects in

India. To date, Indian cooperation in response toIran’s interest in nuclear technology remains embry-onic.

Currently, Iran’s exports to India—mainly ship-ments of crude oil—equal about $1 billion annually.Last year Iran imported less than $200 million worthof goods from India, mainly iron ore, chemicals, andtextiles.9 Trade both ways should grow in volumeand variety, as India’s needs grow and the situationcontinues to change in Iran.There exist economicadvantages for both sides to increase their economicties, but India appears reluctant to move forward andprefers to have more ties with Israel for instance.India keeps its Iran option open for two major rea-sons. First, relations with Iran are strategicallyimportant for India’s relations with Pakistan.Second, even a superficially good relationship withIran can be sold politically to Muslim Indians whomight have some sympathy towards the IslamicRepublic of Iran.

Iran and India find themselves coming togethernot only economically, but also politically. The for-eign policies of the two countries have always hadcommonalities; in particular, both detestedAfghanistan’s Taliban and feared the militant SunniIslam that the Taliban represented. (It is worthremembering that India has more Muslims thaneither Iran or Pakistan.) Though the Taliban are nolonger in power,Afghanistan remains unstable and aregional concern. Both Iran and India have had dif-ficult dealings with Pakistan as well—it is wellknown that India blames Pakistan for fanning asecessionist struggle in India’s majority-Muslim stateof Kashmir. One more factor that has helped solderties between the two countries is Iran’s desire to sur-vive under American pressure and the U.S.-ledembargo—in a sense, Iran is still “looking East.”

On the military side, India and Iran agreed toexplore opportunities for joint training andexchange of visits, while declaring that defensecooperation is not aimed against any third country.That the military aspect of the deal will go muchfurther is unlikely. Both India and Iran fear the pos-sible seizure of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal by Islamicfundamentalists—but both Iran and India have theirown religious thugs who might attempt to do thesame thing. In the worst-case scenario of war withPakistan, the possibility that India might accessIranian military bases, thereby encircling and con-

18


taining Pakistan, cannot be excluded. Such a movewould fundamentally alter Islamabad’s strategic cal-culations. Depending on the strength of India-Iranrelations, Iran could get access to advanced Indianmilitary technology.

One of Iran’s anxieties that hinders close relationswith India is concern about the Israeli-U.S.-Indiaaxis. Until recently, critical comments that Israel istrying to “encircle” Iran have come mainly fromextreme right-wing conservatives, since Iran hasbeen preoccupied with internal debates on humanrights and Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Peace Prize.10 Butsuspicions have grown since Israeli Prime MinisterAriel Sharon’s visit to India last fall and India’s sub-sequent deal to buy billions of dollars of Israeli-made airborne early-warning radars.

An Iranian fear that Israel is encircling Iranthrough an invisible network of relations withneighboring countries has existed for the past twodecades, particularly since the Soviet Union’s col-lapse. Israel has a significant presence in Azerbaijan,Armenia, Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Turkey, Qatarand other places. Many Muslim and Turkic-speakingcountries from China’s borders to theMediterranean have excellent relations with Israel.The fact that Turkish-Israeli military cooperation isat its peak point has only multiplied Iran’s concern.

CONCLUSION

Stability in the Middle East and the Indian subcon-tinent is of paramount importance to all countries,perhaps particularly to the United States. A strongand stable Iran can help contribute to this stability.Though the current Iranian regime may be viewedas rickety or undesirable, the desire of youngIranians to change the system from within will like-ly prevail.

The Iran-India agreement of 2003 has beenhailed for contributing to peace and stability, but itsstrategic aspects are undervalued. Why is it “strate-gic”? Indeed, both sides could easily live without it;in fact, no major part of the agreement has actuallybecome operational. Yet its implementation willencourage three major regional players—namelyIran, India, and Pakistan (particularly if the pipelineproject proceeds through the later)—to cooperate inways that enhance regional security. Iran-India rela-tions have taken over a decade to develop to this

critical point. The United States and the entireworld should welcome such an agreement thatimproves world peace and tranquility rather thanfanning the flames of competition and conflict.

ENDNOTES

1. It was only in 1998 that the infamous fatwa wasunofficially lifted. However, even today conserva-tives resort to its validity in order to put thereformist government of President Khatami underfurther pressure. On why the fatwa was lifted, readScott Macleod, “Why the Rushdie Fatwa was liftednow,” Time, October 5, 1998.

2. A more successful exporter was Turkey. Iranwas pained to see Turkey advance even in areas likeUzbekistan, where many have Persian origins andhave been traditionally under the influence ofPersian culture and civilization.

3. Abandoning an alliance system and enteringinto the non-aligned movement after the revolutionwas a strategic mistake that Iran has not yet had thechance to alter.

4.These comments on Mir Hussein Mousavi arerecollected from a personal meeting with him whenhe was High Adviser to President Rafsanjani.

5. Jalil Roshandel,“Trilateral Relations:A Way toFight against Imbalanced Interdependence,” AmuDarya (Iranian Journal of Central Asian Studies) 2, no.1 , spring 1997.

6.As an IPIS researcher, I participated in some ofthese trips to carry out field studies.

7. Jalil Roshandel, “Iran, India and Central Asia:Case for Trilateral Relations in Uzbekistan,” inIndia, Iran and Central Asia: Delineating FutureEconomic Relations, RGICS Project No. 23, ed.AhmadMukarram (Rajiv Gandhi Institute forContemporary Studies, 1998).

8. Available at: http://news.indiainfo.com/2003/01/25/25indoiran.html.

9.According to Hamshahri (Iranian daily newspa-per), imports from India equaled $165 million andexports equaled approximately $1 billion in 1999and 2000. Hamshahri, April 10, 2001. Available at:ht tp ://www.hamshahr i .net/hamnews/1380/800121/kharj.htm#kharj1.

10. Mayam-ol Sadat Amir Shahkarami, “FromStrategic Cooperation to Strategic Partnership” (inPersian).Available at: http://216.55. 151.46/index.asp?ID= 7657&Subject=News.

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Aclose political, economic, and possibly mil-itary alliance between India and Iran posesa serious challenge to Pakistan. Though

Pakistanis are uncertain and disagree over the truenature of the new relationship, there is special con-cern about reports last year—which Tehran has sincedenied—that Iran might allow India access to mili-tary bases. Close policy coordination between thetwo countries could also undercut Pakistan’s posi-tion on issues such as Kashmir.While military con-frontation involving the three states is nearly impos-sible, invigorated ties between New Delhi andTehran could open a protracted episode of politicalmaneuvering in the region. Many Pakistanis believethat the new Iran-India relationship could surroundand isolate Pakistan, but those in charge inIslamabad are confident that they can manage theconsequences of anything India and Iran might dotogether. In 1994, when India, Iran, and Russia hadtogether aided the Tajik Northern Alliance againstthe southern Pashtun tribes in the Afghan civil war,Pakistan assembled a force of Islamic seminary stu-dents, the Taliban, to dramatically assert its influence.Pakistan’s Foreign Office says Iran has providedassurances that Tehran has no deal with New Delhion military bases.The irony of all this, of course, isthat Iran used to be a strong ally of Pakistan and hadassisted the country militarily and financially in itswars with India.

Pakistan’s direct response to the new India-Iranrelationship depends on three variables:• Islamabad’s relationship with India, which is like-

ly to remain wary in the future despite the recentpositive turn;

• Pakistan’s relationship with Iran, which in thepast has alternated between good and bad; itreached its nadir in the mid-1990s with Pakistan’ssupport of the Taliban; and

• the actual content of the alliance between Indiaand Iran.

The first variable is least important, since a near-term improvement in India-Pakistan relations is

unlikely to lead the Pakistan army, which holds vetopower on foreign policy and security decisions, toreconsider India’s long-term intentions.The othertwo more directly influence Pakistan’s response.Theshape, size, and content of Indo-Iranian ties willdetermine how threatened the Pakistan army feels,while the health of Pakistan-Iran relations will becritical in Islamabad’s evaluation of the alliance.Thisessay primarily explores these two elements to theneglect of the first.

PAKISTAN’S RELATIONS WITH IRAN

The foundation of the close relationship betweenPakistan and Iran was laid in the 1950s when theUnited States enlisted the two countries intoCENTO (Central Treaty Organization), which wasto be the West Asian component of the worldwidealliance structure designed to contain communism.The organization did not last, but Pakistan and Iranremained close. In the 1965 war between India andPakistan, the Shah freely provided military andfinancial assistance to Pakistan.The two countriesformally agreed on a military pact, which providedPakistan an Iranian armored division in case of a warwith India, and Iran a Pakistani armored brigade incase of a war with Iraq. In the 1970s, when Balochnationalists in Pakistan rose up in rebellion, insur-gents crossed the porous desert border between thetwo countries to hide among Iranian Baloch tribes.The Shah responded by giving the Pakistan armyhelicopters for the counterinsurgency effort. Thishistory of military cooperation makes the India-Iranmilitary relationship particularly galling in Pakistan.

In 1977, Pakistan and Iran, along with Turkey, oldmembers of CENTO, signed the Treaty of Izmir,formalizing an intergovernmental initiative calledthe Regional Cooperation for Development(RCD).The RCD structure stopped functioning in1979 after the Iranian revolution, but would reap-pear later. In 1985, the RCD was renamed theEconomic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

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Pakistan Responds to New Ties Between India and Iran

SUNIL DASGUPTA

Sunil Dasgupta is Guest Scholar in the Governance Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and adjunct assis-tant professor in Georgetown University's Security Studies Program.

Under Pakistan’s leadership, the ECO admittedseven new regional states as members in 1992, afterthe fall of the Soviet Union.As late as 1997, Pakistanwas still making efforts to get the ECO jumpstarted,though by then it may have been too late. Since theSoviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the idea ofregional cooperation and trade westwards had beena driving force of Pakistan’s regional policy.Thus,India’s going around Pakistan into Iran and possiblyonward to Central Asia directly hurts Pakistaniambitions.

The 1979 revolution in Iran brought the firstserious strains in Pakistan-Iran relations. ThePakistani government was in the awkward positionof having had a close relationship with the Shah andhis regime. General Zia-ul Haq, Pakistan’s new mil-itary leader and then chairman of the Organizationof the Islamic Conference (OIC), had visited Tehranduring the monarchy’s last days with the hope ofbringing about a ceasefire between the clerics andthe Shah. Still, there was much in common, especial-ly in the streets. In a reprise of the attack on the U.S.embassy in Tehran, Pakistani mobs comprising bothShia and Sunni Muslims attacked the U.S. mission inIslamabad, leading to a hurried evacuation that camevery close to becoming fatal for the entire Americandiplomatic community. (As it was, two U.S. service-men and two Pakistani employees of the embassydied in the melee.) Incriminating documents fromthe embassy turned up in Tehran, where they werepublished as pamphlets showing U.S. complicity inregional despotism.

Soon after, superpower politics intruded uponthe Tehran-Islamabad relationship. The SovietUnion invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and Pakistanjoined the United States to support the Afghanresistance. Pakistan’s status as a frontline ally of theUnited States diminished its relations with Iran.TheUnited States bore particular animus toward Iran forholding its embassy staff in Tehran hostage. Pakistanalso accepted growing Sunni Wahabi influence inAfghanistan and Pakistan, which came as part ofSaudi assistance for the Afghan war effort.This even-tually led in the 1990s to Shia-Sunni violence insidePakistan in which Iran would become implicated.

Despite the geopolitical intrusion represented byAfghanistan, Pakistan and Iran maintained a work-ing relationship throughout the 1980s.The Pakistanigovernment used Shia religious leaders to reach out

to Iran and posted influential diplomats to Tehran.President Zia-ul Haq visited Iran a number of times.Iran, too, conciliated Pakistan by maintaining adegree of supportive rhetoric on the Kashmir issue,much to India’s annoyance. Though Pakistan andIran reportedly transacted a secret nuclear deal in1986-1987, the two countries were now engaged ina more ambivalent relationship.

This ambivalence began to wear off as Iran andPakistan competed for influence in Central Asia andAfghanistan following the Soviet disintegration.Pakistan viewed Afghanistan as the prize throughwhich trade and energy routes could pass in anorth-south corridor from the Ferghana Valley to itsport city of Karachi. One particularly ambitiousproposal, which fanned regional conflict, was an oiland gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.Further, a government in Kabul comprising south-ern Pashtuns amenable to Islamabad’s interestswould give Pakistan the strategic depth that thearmy had sought since its birth. Similarly, Iran want-ed influence in Afghanistan to ensure that the traderoutes and the pipelines passed through its territoryto the ports of Abadan and Bandar Abbas. Tehranalso saw a sphere of influence in Central Asia as away of breaking out from its U.S.-imposed isolation.Moreover, Iran had direct cultural links with theShia Hazara community in western Afghanistan.

The ensuing Afghan civil war pitted Iran (withRussia and India) against Pakistan (with Saudi sup-port) fighting through their proxies. The conflictdevastated Afghanistan and particularly the city ofKabul, which was repeatedly won and lost. Thedestruction crushed Pakistani hopes of turningCentral Asia into its own hinterland. In 1994,Pakistan garnered Saudi assistance and Americanapproval to back the Taliban, a devout group ofSunni Wahabi extremists from southern Afghanistanand Pakistan’s own Northwest Frontier Province.The idea was to bring order to a lawless land andserve as Pakistan’s proxy in the north. In short order,Islamabad did achieve those goals.The Taliban’s reli-gious zeal and ruthlessness won most of the countryexcept the far north. But the Taliban also brought itsown extreme laws and practices. When theyemerged victorious from a murderous battle, theymassacred their opponents en masse. They metedout rough justice ordained by historic religioustexts. Mazar-e-Sharif, the main city in western

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Afghanistan and home to the Shia Hazara, was aparticular target of Taliban ire. There they killedthousands. Iran not only lost its influence in thecountry, but also was deeply disturbed by Pakistan’ssupport of the vicious Taliban.The final straw waswhen the Taliban executed 10 Iranian diplomats anda journalist in Mazar on August 8, 1998.

The Afghan civil war extended into Pakistanitself through Shia-Sunni violence. Though thecountry’s population had always been overwhelm-ingly Sunni, overt sectarianism emerged only in the1980s. Generous Saudi assistance for Islamic semi-naries and schooling propagated extreme Wahabipractice. It found a natural political and religiouspartner in the indigenous puritanism of theDeoband school of Hanafi Islam, which was domi-nant in southern Afghanistan and the NorthwestFrontier Province, and has also created a hardcorecadre in the Punjab where the Barelvi-Hanafischool traditionally dominated. In the Punjab, thegrowth of sectarianism was also tied to exploitationby Shia landowners of a peasant class of Sunnis.During the 1980s, President Zia supported theWahabi and Deobandi expansion both to furtherthe Afghan war effort and to undercut the main-stream political opposition.

Tehran took a dim view of the persecution ofShias, while Pakistan accused Iran of taking sides inan internal conflict.The extent of Iranian help toPakistani Shia militancy is a matter of some debate,but it is clear that the Pakistani state has been unableto stop the sectarian violence. Pakistan’s rulers rejectsectarian violence, but find it difficult to deal withthe problem.They are disconnected from the pur-veyors of the violence. Most Sunni extremists areoutside state control, educated in madrassas, andoften employed in the informal sector. Many, mor-ever, have done tours of duty in Afghanistan orKashmir. Also, there is no way to stop the violenceagainst Shias without ceasing support for the state’sefforts, through militant Sunni groups, inAfghanistan and Kashmir.

The confrontation between Pakistani and Iranianproxies in Afghanistan notwithstanding, both coun-tries have tried to revive their relationship. In 1997,the ECO agenda and constitution were revised toprovide a new basis for cooperation, but the twostates have failed to find common ground. Leadersfrom the two countries have visited each other and

proclaimed friendship, but are unable to proceedfurther. By expanding its ties with India, Iranseemed to be indicating a long-term revision of itsview of Pakistan, though both Iranian and Indianleaders have explicitly said that their new relation-ship is not aimed at any third country, includingPakistan.

CONVERGING DOMESTIC VIEWS

Except for a small hardline element, most ofPakistan’s ruling elite believe that their governmentmust redouble its effort to improve relations withIran. Indeed, there is the expectation that Islamabadshould be able to wean Iran away from India.President Musharraf, mainstream Pakistan army offi-cers, the government of Prime Minister MirZafarullah Jamali, and the bureaucrats and diplomatsall hold the view that they can maintain a relation-ship with Iran sufficient to prevent the emergenceof a full-fledged military alliance between India andIran.These pragmatists have renewed their efforts toneutralize Indian influence in Iran following theannouncement of the invigorated ties between thecountries.

Some critics of the government have differentassumptions and make different calculations. TheIslamists-many of them Sunni extremists-hold Iranresponsible for helping Shia militancy in Pakistan,but are nevertheless willing to accommodate Iran-and indeed India-to gather strength to fight thebiggest enemy, the United States. Many of theIslamists are allies of the Taliban and some support alQaeda. Many thoughtful Islamists, in fact, viewIran’s Islamic state as a limited model for their ownaspirations. They find Tehran’s defiance of theUnited States as something to emulate.Consequently, they are willing to accept an uneasypeace with Iran in Afghanistan and limited gains inthe sectarian power balance inside Pakistan, if thatwould improve relations between the two countries.Most, however, stop short of publicly using Iran as amodel because of the highly Sunni character of theirmobilization.The Islamists have a tactical perspec-tive, but if Iran responds positively, they would bewilling to reciprocate in the long-term as well.Among the mainstream political players, theIslamists were the group most likely to favor transferof nuclear technology to Iran. They have come outin strong support of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father

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of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, who recently admittedhis role in the transfer of Pakistani nuclear technolo-gy to Iran.

A second group of critics suggests an even morefundamental reordering of Pakistan’s strategic inter-ests. They argue that Iran and India are driven tocombine their forces by the geopolitical situation. Intheir view, Islamabad can neutralize the alliance bydeveloping new ties with both India and Iran.Theyrecognize that this would be possible only ifIslamabad abandoned its expansive policy interestsin Kashmir and Afghanistan. According to thisgroup, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan protectsPakistan’s nominal interests there, and Kashmirmight not be winnable, given India’s growing eco-nomic and technological strength.A more congenialregional security environment would stem the wasteof resources in war abroad and put them towardmuch needed development at home. This view isnot widespread, but is influential among the coun-try’s business elite, economists, and professionals.They find short-sighted the pragmatists’ hope ofpreventing Iran from growing closer to India with-out making fundamental changes in Pakistani policy.They are also skeptical of the state’s ability to stopsectarian violence while continuing to support whatis, after all, a Sunni mobilization on behalf of itsinterests in Kashmir and Afghanistan.

While these viewpoints do not agree on thediagnoses, they do agree that Pakistan must strength-en its own relations with Iran. Based on this broadbase of support, Prime Minister Jamali visited Iran inOctober 2003 with an agenda prominently featur-ing India and Kashmir. Politically, Pakistan has beenexpecting the India-Iran convergence and sought toinsert itself, quite literally, in the middle by pushingfor a pipeline project to bring Iranian gas to Indiathrough Pakistan. While Iran initially agreed to apipeline running through Pakistan, India rejectedthe proposal for fear of Pakistani control of the gassupply. Iran and India are now exploring ways ofavoiding Pakistan in transporting the gas. Pakistanstands to lose more than $500 million in annualtransit fees. Islamabad has countered India’s refusalwith the suggestion of a pipeline from Iran toPakistan, without extending it further east. Mostexperts believe Pakistan does not have the market tomake the project viable, but the offer reflectsIslamabad’s concern about the growing India-Iran

relationship and its own efforts to neutralize it.In the short- to medium-term, excepting a major

breakthrough in India-Pakistan relations, a reorder-ing of Pakistani priorities in line with the wishes ofeither the Islamists or the regional peace camp isunlikely.The pragmatists will hold dear their alliancewith the United States while trying to defuse orcounteract regional threats.The pragmatic leader-ship, however, has broad support to pursue betterrelations with Iran, but whether it can achieve thisgoal without fundamental changes in priorities isdoubtful.

THE CONTENT OF AN INDIA-IRAN ALLIANCE

Politically and diplomatically, the alliance betweenTehran and New Delhi could very well keepPakistan off balance. India is clearly keen to neutral-ize Pakistan’s influence in the Muslim world. NewDelhi has asked for membership in the OIC. Analliance with Iran could make it easier for India todefeat Pakistan’s objections to its entry and quicklyjeopardize the support Pakistan has enjoyed inIslamic forums. The legitimacy Iran bestows onIndia by virtue of this alliance is likely to diminishPakistan’s traditional role as a torch-bearer for theMuslim ummah. In return, India will help Iranescape the “rogue” status conferred on it by theUnited States. Pakistani hardliners will be deter-mined to prevent India from gaining this advantage.They are likely to point out to the United StatesIndia’s growing closeness to a country in the “axis ofevil” in order to gain sympathy for their beleagueredposition.

One area the India-Iran relationship will seek toinfluence directly is Afghanistan and Central Asia,where Tehran and New Delhi will specifically seekto limit Pakistani influence. Both countries haveactive assistance programs in Afghanistan and arewell-connected in the Karzai government in Kabul.As part of its agreement with New Delhi, Iran hasallowed India a land route to Afghanistan thatPakistan had long denied to New Delhi.The effectof this India-Iran initiative may not be evident yetbecause the United States presently dominates everyother player in Afghanistan. But if and when U.S.withdrawal becomes imminent, the others will asserttheir interests aggressively.An alliance between Indiaand Iran puts in place the rudiments of a coordinat-ed strategy to take advantage of the opportunity.

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Faced with this eventuality, Pakistan is likely tointensify its demand for including moderate Talibanin Karzai’s cabinet as a guarantee of its own interests;the U.S. will probably agree.

Economically, India and Iran have areas of inher-ent compatibility. India’s growing economicstrength makes the country an attractive trading andinvestment partner. Iran wants Indian foreign directinvestment in infrastructure such as oil and railways,but also in manufacturing cheap consumer goods.India, for instance, will invest $200 million in theroad from an Iranian port in the south toAfghanistan. Indian companies are likely to partici-pate in other large projects as well.As India’s energyneeds grow rapidly, the country is looking to devel-op long-term supply relationships that will not beaffected by political upheaval.The two countries areexploring the possibility of bringing Iranian naturalgas to India by an offshore pipeline, but are mostlikely to settle on tanker-carried supply of liquefiednatural gas. India has been building large LNG han-dling facilities and already has long-term contractswith Qatar and Oman.Together with the militaryand technology agreements, these projects couldprovide the basis for a strong economic relationship.

FUTURE MILITARY IMPLICATIONS

New Delhi and Tehran have released details ofIndian technical help for upgrading Iranian MiG-29fighters, T-72 tanks, armored carriers, ships, andother weapons. India recently undertook theseupgrades for its own fleet of military aircraft, tanks,and ships. India can also offer medium-technologyweapons such as medium-range howitzers, andimportantly, jointly train with the Iranian forces.Thebroad range of cooperation involving all three mili-tary services is quite a turnaround in the strategicsituation in southern Asia in the last two decades.

More dramatically, a few speculative reports havesuggested that Iran has agreed to allow Indian forcesthe use of its air bases and other facilities in theevent of a war in the subcontinent, but these reportsremain unverified. If basing agreements do comeabout, it would represent a serious threat forPakistan’s security. The Pakistan army has longfeared a two-front war that would divide its forcesbetween the western and eastern borders and allowIndia an easy victory. Islamabad’s obsession with

maintaining influence in Afghanistan is in part driv-en by this fear. The army is unlikely to tolerate agovernment in Afghanistan that might work in con-cert with India. Though Pakistan shares a muchshorter border with Iran than it does withAfghanistan, the possibility of similar two-frontcoordination between India and Iran cannot betaken lightly.That India might be able to use Iranianair bases opens the possibility for India to dominatethe skies, which would be disastrous for Pakistan’sconventional capability. Despite the unlikelihood ofa war that pits both India and Iran openly againstPakistan, the army will not be willing to accept theincreased risk.The possibility that India could sur-round Pakistan in the event of a war will force thePakistan Army to dramatically rethink its militarystrategy and push further and harder toward devel-oping nuclear weapons.

While it is to be expected that Pakistan preparefor the worst Indian intentions, the army cannotexpend unlimited resources in developing capabili-ties for a two-front war—indeed if Iran is consid-ered a war front, it will be the third, after India andAfghanistan. For this reason, the army’s view of theactual military threat emanating from an India-Iranalliance is very important. Both New Delhi andTehran recognize Pakistan’s dilemma in making thisdetermination.They have not officially announcedthe content of their new relationship, but selectivelyleaked its details to keep Pakistan guessing.The chal-lenge Pakistan’s rulers face is not to overreact toIran’s role, but also not to be unprepared if India andIran have actually formed a military alliance aimedat their country. An overreaction from Pakistan,which may equate Iran with India and involve somesaber-rattling missile tests on the western border, canturn Tehran hostile, leaving little room for Pakistanto neutralize Indian influence politically. Equally,Iran is unlikely to enter into a relationship withIndia that is openly hostile to Pakistan. An openlyhostile relationship with Iran could be disastrousbecause it would bring the Afghan conflict rightinto Pakistan. It would also necessitate a militarybuild-up on the Iranian border, with the conse-quence of dividing Pakistan’s forces, exactly whatthe Indians probably want. Currently, Pakistanenjoys a terrain advantage against India on its east-ern front, which it would lose if India could attackfrom the western border as well.The trick, therefore,

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will be to keep the military reaction limited and, ifpossible, hidden while engaging Tehran politically.

The most direct response to the possible militarycomponent of the India-Iran alliance, if the Pakistanarmy believes the most extreme reports, would be toaccelerate the development of the nuclear arsenal.While critics point out that Pakistan’s nuclear rear-mament is already in the highest possible gear giventhe country’s resources and constraints, the sureknowledge that India and Iran are militarily alliedagainst Pakistan will definitely increase the sense ofinsecurity and paranoia in Islamabad. Pakistan coulddevelop new missiles and harden vulnerablenuclear-related targets.Though it is a matter of someguesswork, Pakistan maintains important nuclearfacilities in the Chagai Hills in the province ofBalochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan.The closer reach to these targets the Indian AirForce might have as a result of the alliance with Iranwould necessitate further defensive measures.Thedevelopment of offensive missiles can remainrhetorically focused on India, but without makingthings obvious convey to the Iranians the dangerthey bring upon themselves should they continue toproceed with a military alliance with India.Pakistan’s willingness to remain in alliance with theUnited States, however, will serve as a constraint onPakistani ambitions in this regard.

More realistically, Pakistan can move to address itsair inferiority problem. The problem as it standstoday is that the country’s air defenses are concen-trated on the eastern front. The possibility thatIndian Air Force fighters might intrude from thewest would require a similar investment in airdefense on the Iranian border. This is a resourceproblem-perhaps intended by India and Iran tostretch Pakistan-that would have to be resolved.Pakistan established its eastern air defenses duringthe bonanza of U.S. assistance in the 1980s.Thoughthe country is once more a U.S. ally,American aid ismuch reduced and earmarked for social develop-ment, though reports of diversion are rife.

Astute Pakistanis also point to the limits of anIndia-Iran alliance, particularly the military compo-nent, if indeed this amounts to anything.What Indiacan do with Iran is limited by its own and growingrelationships with Israel and the United States, bothof which view Iran with great hostility. Israel andthe United States are wary that India might help

legitimate Iran’s claims against their interests ininternational forums.Though New Delhi might bewilling to risk American antagonism on the issue, itis less likely to jeopardize its flourishing military tieswith Israel by getting too close to Iran. Israel consid-ers the Iranian Hezbollah as one of the primaryinstigators of violence in Palestine. This wouldensure that India puts its own brakes on the alliance.

For many of these reasons, the military elementsof the alliance, as dramatic as they may be, areunlikely to come about. The political-diplomaticaspects, however, are at the front and center, and tieinto the big power game currently ongoing withrespect to Afghanistan and Central Asia.The ques-tion is to what extent the political machinations willbring Pakistan into play and wrest control overPakistan from the hands of its traditional rulers.

INTERNATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

In what could be another episode of the GreatGame, Pakistanis are in something of a squeeze.India seems embarked on soft containment of theircountry. New Delhi has improved its relations withChina enough that Beijing did not come out in fullsupport of Pakistan during the Kargil War in 1999.India has at least some influence in Kabul, thoughobviously the United States is the most importantplayer in that country. Now with an alliance in themaking between India and Iran, Pakistan fears find-ing itself surrounded.

Pakistan is allied with the United States, the mostdominant power in the region and in the world, butthe alliance both works for and against Islamabad.The United States has until now guaranteedPakistan’s nominal interests in Kabul, but equallylimited Pakistan’s intervention in that country.Pakistan’s real allies in Afghanistan, the leftoverTaliban and a few Pashtun groups, are opposed tothe United States.This has somewhat immobilizedPakistani policy. Pakistan may be able to force theU.S. hand by increasing or cutting support to theremaining Taliban, though any leakage to al Qaedaor complicity in international terrorism wouldbring down the wrath of America. Meanwhile, theUnited States is in a parallel process, trying to devel-op a new and robust military relationship withPakistan’s archenemy, India.The ultimate card theUnited States holds against Pakistan is that it will

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execute a full-fledged alliance with India aimed atcontaining or punishing Pakistan. Pakistan’s moredependable ally, China, seems unwilling to becomeovertly involved in the Afghanistan game except tokeep its own Muslim population passive, whileSaudi Arabia, another long-time friend, has beenforced to withdraw from Afghan politics by theUnited States.

Still, the country’s rulers have taken a rather san-guine view of being able to manage the fallout of anIndia-Iran alliance based on their understanding ofthe geopolitical situation. Thus, the India-Iranalliance presents a threat to Pakistan, but also bringsopportunities. Given Washington’s distaste for Iran,the new alliance could slow down progress in U.S.-India ties, which is by far a more important politicalgoal from Pakistan’s point of view.The United Statesis very likely to take a dim view of India trying torehabilitate Iran in the community of nations, espe-cially when such efforts run contrary to Americanefforts to punish Iran with economic sanctions.Further, India could lose momentum in its militaryrelationship with Israel, which also sees Iran as amortal enemy. This could retard India’s efforts toimprove its surveillance and intelligence technology,much of which comes from Israel. India will have towork to convince the United States and Israel that itis not going to help Iran further its anti-Americanand anti-Israeli objectives, but so long as the alliance

exists, the door of doubt remains open. Most dra-matically, reports emanating from Pakistan suggestthat as part of the new alliance India is likely to helpthe Iranian nuclear program. If that happens, boththe United States and Israel are likely to hold Indiaresponsible for arming their enemy.

The best hope in Pakistan is that India might failto resolve these contradictions and, that the Indo-Iranian relationship falls under the weight of its ownambitions.The worst outcome, however, would be ifPakistan’s rulers failed to recognize the seriousnessof Pakistan’s own situation and, instead of reorderingtheir priorities in Kashmir and Afghanistan, pursuedtheir expansive goals with greater vigor, therebyputting at stake the country itself and their controlof it. Misplaced confidence in being able to maneu-ver themselves politically out of a sticky situationmight lead to a larger failure, where Pakistan’s tradi-tional rulers—the military, the establishment, andthe landowners—lose control and their country, likeAfghanistan, is laid waste in the grinder of big powerpolitics.The recent upswing in Pakistan’s relationswith India reduces the burden on Islamabad torespond forcefully and urgently to the alliance. IfPakistan could simultaneously improve its relationswith Iran, as most of the country would like to do, itcould defuse the underlying anti-Pakistani premisein the new relationship between its neighbors.

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India’s emerging relationships with Iran andIsrael are independent of one another.WhileIran has adopted an indifferent posture toward

India’s closer ties with Israel, the latter has beenapprehensive of growing New Delhi-Tehran prox-imity.The manner in which India has approachedand sought to balance its ties with the other tworegional powers re-emphasizes the non-parallelnature of the relationship.

INDO-ISRAELI NORMALIZATION

Following the normalization of relations betweenIndia and Israel in 1992, both countries havestrengthened and consolidated a wide range ofpolitical, economic, cultural and above all strategiccooperation.1 Despite criticisms from some sec-tions, the bilateral relationship has been stable andenjoys widespread domestic support and endorse-ment in India.Within the framework of joint work-ing groups (JWG), senior security officials fromboth countries periodically meet and discuss issuesof strategic importance. Consultations between thesecurity establishments of both countries havebecome normal and routine with counter-terrorismemerging as the key element in their strategic dia-logue.

Moreover, in recent years India obtained a host ofmilitary inventories from Israel including remotelypiloted vehicles (RPVs), Barak ship-borne anti-mis-sile systems for the navy, ammunition for the Boforsfield guns during the Kargil operations, and upgrad-ing of its MiG jets. Management of porous borderswith Pakistan is a new avenue for cooperation, andIndia seeks to curtail if not eliminate cross borderinfiltration from Pakistan through Israeli electronicsurveillance and border fencing systems. Aftermonths of negotiations, both sides have agreed tothe supply of Phalcon airborne early warning sys-tems to India. Estimated to cost over a billion dol-lars, this is the largest single defense contractbetween the two countries. Media reports in India

suggest that India has also expressed its interest inthe supply of the Arrow anti-ballistic missile defensesystem.When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharonvisited India in September 2003, both sides dis-cussed Israeli partnership in the development of anew class of attack submarines for the Indian navy.Both sides are also exploring new avenues of coop-eration in missile and space technology. Thus thegrowing military cooperation between the twocountries is accompanied by an ambitious Indianshopping list of arms from Israel.

The growing military cooperation between thetwo countries is accompanied by an ambitiousIndian shopping list from Israel.These developmentsin turn have renewed Israeli anxieties over increas-ing politico-economic relations between India andIran. Eager to promote highly lucrative defense dealswith India, Israel is keen to escape a technologicalboomerang whereby its military technology reachesits Middle Eastern adversaries like Iran, via NewDelhi.Therefore, during his deliberations in NewDelhi, Sharon demanded explicit guarantees fromIndian leaders that the latter would not transfer anyacquired technology to a third country, especiallyIran. Assuring Israel that there was no possibility ofany “leaking” of Israeli technology, India rejectedIsraeli calls to shun Iran. The Delhi Declarationissued at the end of Sharon’s visit presented bothcountries as “partners” against terrorism and con-demned “states and individuals who aid and abetterrorism across borders, harbor and provide sanctu-ary to terrorists and provide them with financialmeans, training or patronage.” While India couldinterpret this to mean Pakistan, for Israel this wouldmean Iran.

A joint approach toward terrorism that identifiesIslamic fundamentalism as a common adversary hasits downside. Given its historic relations with Islamand its substantial Muslim population, India could illafford to align itself with any anti-Islam forces. Sucha course would be contrary to India’s domestic pol-itics as well as its national interests.Therefore, with-

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Indo-Iranian Ties: The Israeli Dimension

P.R. KUMARASWAMY

P.R. Kumaraswamy is associate professor at the Center for West Asian and African Studies, School of InternationalStudies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

out altogether ignoring the use of religion by vari-ous terrorist groups operating against them, bothcountries have been careful not to present theircooperation as an anti-Islamic alliance. As a seniorofficial who accompanied Prime Minister Sharontold reporters in New Delhi, “We are not fightingIslam, we are fighting agents of terrorism.”2

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in1992, the Iranian angle has figured in the Indo-Israeli dialogue. Indeed when a senior Indian foreignministry official visited the Jewish state in March1993, Israel expressed its apprehensions over possiblenuclear cooperation between India and Iran. Theformal Indian denial of such cooperation got wide-spread media coverage.3

The September 2001 Durban World Conferenceagainst Racism proved to be a defining moment inthe Indo-Israeli relations. The conference agendawas set when the organizers met in Tehran forpreparations and included a strong condemnation ofIsrael.This resulted not only in the United Statesand Israel pulling out of the meet, but also in Indiafor the first time refusing to go along with the Araband Islamic countries in condemning Israel andZionism. Otherwise, the Iranian angle remaineddormant, at least in the public sphere, until Sharonresurrected it during his India visit.

MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY

India’s historic links with the Middle East, especiallywith its Islamic countries, has been an impedimenttoward an improvement of Indo-Israeli relations.The prolonged Indian unfriendliness towardZionism and toward the demand for a Jewishnational home can be traced to its traditional pro-Arab orientation. Perceived negative reactions fromthe Arab and Islamic countries played a role in thedelayed Indian normalization of relations withIsrael. In the early 1990s, New Delhi adopted a cau-tious approach toward Israel and was more thanwilling to “balance” its ties with Israel with highprofile contacts with and visits by Palestinian leaderYasser Arafat.The outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifadain September 2000 reiterated the centrality of thePalestinian issue to peace and stability in the MiddleEast and thereby compelled even a pro-Israeli polit-ical partly like the ruling BJP to look for non-Israeliallies in the Middle East.As highlighted by a contro-

versial remark by then Foreign Minister JaswantSingh in Jerusalem in the summer of 2000, India’sdomestic Muslim population influences if notshapes the country’s policy toward the Middle East,especially Israel.

The decade-old relationship with Israel disclosesthat contrary to prolonged Indian apprehensions,the Middle East has been indifferent to Indo-Israelinormalization. Far from taking exception to it,important countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabiahave responded to the new Israel policy of India byactively engaging with New Delhi. Iran is moreeager to promote its energy exports to India and hasbeen indifferent to Indo-Israeli ties. Likewise,reports of growing Indo-Israeli military ties in theArab media have not slackened the Saudi desire topromote political ties with India. One can go to theextent of arguing that the Arab and Islamic coun-tries of the Middle East have desisted from linkingtheir bilateral ties with India to the larger Arab-Israeli conflict. Even the Palestinian leaders havecome around to recognizing the inevitability ofgreater Indo-Israeli ties.

INDIA’S TWIN TRACKS

For some time now, Israel has been troubled aboutgrowing political and economic ties between Indiaand Iran, and has periodically expressed this uneasein its bilateral exchanges with India.This reached itsclimax during Sharon’s visit, and at one point threat-ened to overshadow arms sales–related negotiations.In his talks with his Indian counterpart, Sharonexpressed apprehensions over possible diversion ofIsraeli military technology to a country it considers“the epicenter of terrorism.” Some of Sharon’sentourage publicly talked about the desire and abili-ty of Islamists to attack the United States, Israel andIndia, with Iran serving as the nerve centre of inter-national terrorism. Following the meeting, anunnamed Israeli official told reporters: “We gotanswers to the questions raised and we are satisfiedwith the answers.”4

Presentation of Iran as “epicenter of internationalterrorism” underscores the fundamental differencebetween India and Israel. Both in public and privateIndia feels that such an honor should go to itsneighbor Pakistan, a position Israel is not preparedto embrace. Because of strong political and econom-

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ic stakes in its ties with Iran, India is unlikely to heedIsraeli demands over Iran. Likewise, possible politicalties with Pakistan, a major Islamic country, wouldprevent Israel from making a common cause withIndia against Pakistan.

Israeli animosity toward Iran is rooted in the sup-port of the latter for militant anti-Israeli groups suchas Hezbollah and Hamas, but no such fears exist inIndia vis-à-vis Iranian motives in the subcontinent.Indeed, its disapproval of the extremism of theTaliban as anti-Islamic and its refusal to go alongwith Pakistan on the question of jihad in Kashmirmake the Islamic republic a political ally for India inthe Middle East. Sharon’s offensive against Iran inci-dentally coincided with renewed international con-cerns over Iranian nuclear ambitions. Pakistan andNorth Korea, rather than India, are the prime sus-pects behind the Iranian nuclear program.

India’s expanding political and economic rela-tions with Iran seemed to have dominated Sharon’spolitical agenda.The twin suicide bombings in Israelduring his stay in New Delhi appeared to havesharpened the focus on Iran. The Iranian angle isseen by some sections in India as a calculated ‘backpeddling’ on the part of Sharon and a warning forpotential disruption of military supplies.

Even though Iran did not go as far as Pakistanand perceive Indo-Israeli ties as an anti-Islamicmove, negative remarks against Iran during theSharon visit did not go unnoticed in Tehran. Thepublic focus on Iran toward the end of Sharon’s visitresulted in a minor diplomatic row, with the Iranianembassy depicting the Israeli leader as “the leader ofstate terrorism.” It criticized the Israeli prime minis-ter for “using hostile language against a third coun-try [and thereby violating] diplomatic norms andinternational law.”5

Israeli demands for Indian “reciprocity” in theinternational arena would run into trouble as thecountries do not see eye-to-eye on Iran. Observingthat there is no veto in bilateral relations, IndianForeign Minister Yashwant Sinha admitted thatIsraelis “may have security concerns but we haveexplained in some detail where Indo-Iranian rela-tionship stands and they should not have any con-cerns on that count.”6 In the unlikely event ofTehran turning hostile against New Delhi, India isunlikely to share let alone endorse Israeli positionson the Islamic republic.

The issue of Israeli military technology “return-ing” to the Middle East was valid even for Sino-Israeli military ties. On a few occasions, China func-tioned as a conduit for Israeli technology reachingArab countries. In the 1980s, the Middle East beingthe prime customer for Chinese weapons did notinhibit Israel from actively exporting military hard-ware to China. Until the Phalcon deal was throttledby the United States in 2000, Israel pursued its mili-tary ties with China without worrying about theboomerang effect. Hence, one could argue thatIndo-Israeli military ties should not be any differentfrom Sino-Israeli ties regarding “illegal” transfer ofIsraeli technology. Moreover, despite its long politicaland economic ties, India, unlike China, had neversupplied arms to the Middle East. Notwithstandingnascent military developments such as Indian navalvessels making port calls in Iran, larger strategic com-pulsions would preclude India from joining any anti-Israeli forces in the Middle East or elsewhere.

INDIA-ISRAEL-U.S.TRIANGLE

Commenting on the growing relations betweenIndia and Israel, U.S. State Department spokesper-son Richard Boucher observed, “We’re always gladwhen our friends make friends with each other andwork together.”7 Even though he sought to playdown the ties as “simply bilateral,” tacit Americanbackup for such a relationship did not go unnoticedin all three countries.

Since the Islamic revolution, Iran has been avociferous critic of Israel and has provided ideologi-cal as well as logistical support to militant groupssuch as Hamas and Hezbollah, which have beenconducting a violent campaign against Israel. BothIsrael and the United States accuse Iran of involve-ment in various terrorist attacks against the West.Israel shares President George W. Bush’s portrayal ofIran as a partner in the axis of evil.Therefore, thequestion of Iran places India at odds with Israel aswell as the United States. If economic interests pre-vent Europe from endorsing American movesagainst the Islamic republic, Indian interests in Iranare economic as well as political. Iranian importanceis enhanced by their shared distrust toward Pakistanand its Afghan policy.

As a result, it is possible to argue that India’s tieswith Iran, important due to political as well as eco-

29


nomic reasons, could be a major stumbling blocknot only in New Delhi’s relations with Israel butalso in its newly found friendship with the UnitedStates. Because India sees consolidation of its rela-tions with the Jewish state as a means of improvingits ties with Washington, the Iranian factor is boundto affect Indo-U.S. relations.

The Sino-Israeli Phalcon controversy under-scores the role of the United States in impedingIsrael’s strategic exports to countries thatWashington considers unfriendly.8 India appears tohave learned the importance of including theUnited States in any major strategic relationshipwith Israel. It is in this context that one should viewthe increasing speculations about an India-Israel-U.S. cooperation, if not a triangle. American clear-ance of the Phalcon deal to India is a clear manifes-tation of this convergence of interests. Simul-taneously, this underscores the need for an Indo-Israeli understanding vis-à-vis Iran. Otherwise, thetriangle, which became a hot topic of discussion fol-lowing a speech by Brajesh Mishra, Prime MinisterAtal Bihari Vajpayee’s national security adviser, tothe American Jewish Committee (AJC), would be anon-starter.9 Quite obviously, the Iran factor couldbe a major obstacle for the formulation of an India-Israel-U.S. triangular relationship.

NON-PARALLEL INTERESTS

It is important to note that Iran, known for its anti-Israeli rhetoric, has been extremely accommodativeand understanding of India’s new fondness for Israel.Indeed, when India normalized relations with Israelin January 1992, Iran was the only Middle Easterncountry to express its displeasure. Even Palestinianleader Yasser Arafat grudgingly accepted theinevitable. Since then, however, Israel has never beena factor in the Indo-Iranian relations.While Pakistanand occasionally Egypt have been critical of grow-ing Indo-Israeli relations, Tehran has consciouslyavoided making its ties with New Delhi a hostage tothe Israeli angle.

President Mohammed Khatami’s advocacy of adialogue among civilizations fits well with Indiansecularism and its desire for amicable coexistenceamong people of different religious faiths. But theprevailing political situation in the Middle East andthe strength of the conservatives within Iran prevent

Khatami from pursing a similar course towardsJudaism, Jews, and Israel.

Besides its regional influence in the Persian Gulfand Central Asia, Iran’s position on Afghanistan isnot different from India’s, as both have becomeweary of the prolonged involvement of Pakistan inthe Afghan quagmire. Given Indo-Pakistani ten-sions, India needs an Iranian land corridor for itssupplies to Afghanistan. Iran would be a strategicasset should India opt for a containment policy vis-à-vis Pakistan. At the regional level, Iran occupies apivotal role in the growing economic ties betweenIndia and Central Asia, and its role as an importantplayer in the Organization of Islamic Conference(OIC) gives additional leverage to Iran. Moreover,Iran is seen by many as the strategic supplier ofIndia’s energy needs, especially the growing demandfor natural gas. Long before India established diplo-matic relations with Israel, Pakistan has been warn-ing the Islamic world of an Indo-Israeli axis againstthe Islamic world; such rhetoric intensified follow-ing the establishment of Indo-Israeli relations. AnyIndian endorsement of the Israeli position vis-à-visIran would bring more troubles for India.

No other country in the world offers India thepolitical and economic assets Iran does.Therefore,even while articulating its genuine concerns vis-à-vis Iran over issues such as terrorism, nuclear ambi-tions or technology leakage, Israel will have to rec-ognize, accept and accommodate India’s interests incultivating friendly ties with Iran.

The Iranian angle also underscores the emergingnational consensus on India’s Middle East policy. Asection of Indian public opinion has been critical ofthe growing Indo-Israeli partnership and attributedit to the ideological leanings of the BJP-led govern-ment in New Delhi. Such criticisms intensified dur-ing the Sharon visit. Nevertheless, by distancingitself from the Israeli demands for isolating Iran, theVajpayee government has sought to fashion a non-partisan approach in its Middle East policy. A dayafter Sharon left Indian shores, the foreign ministryformally briefed all the Arab ambassadors in NewDelhi about the Sharon visit. Indeed, weeks later,Prime Minister Vajpayee made a state visit to Syria, acountry strongly despised by Israel and the UnitedStates.This once again underscores India’s regionalcompulsions and the need to court the Arab coun-tries and balance its perceived pro-Israeli leanings.

30


Ancient cultural roots, shared democratic values,cultural pluralism, the struggle against religiousextremism, violence and terrorism, and a newlyfound common approach to international issuesbind India and Israel. At the same time, the Iranianangle also underscores some of the non-parallelaspects of Indo-Israeli relations. In the past India hadto accept Israel’s military ties with China, its princi-pal rival, and likewise, that it would be unable toinfluence let alone impede Israeli-Pakistani normal-ization. Similarly, given the strong political and eco-nomic interests that India shares with Iran, Israel willbe unable to undermine Indo-Iranian relationship.While India might tolerate political relationsbetween Israel and Pakistan, any military-securityties between the two would be strongly resented inIndia. Similarly while Israel might not object topolitical and economic ties between India and Iran,any strategic component between the two, likenuclear cooperation, would mar Indo-Israeli ties.

Iran, however, is not the only cause of disagree-ment between India and Israel. Of late, an increasingrapprochement and possible normalization betweenIsrael and Pakistan is reflected in Israel distancingitself from New Delhi on the vexed Kashmir issue.10

From a staunch pro-India stance in early 1990s, ithas come around to advocating an amicable resolu-tion through dialogue. 11

One cannot rule out the possibility that shouldthere be a reappraisal of its Iran policy, Israel mightconsider India as a conduit to Tehran.As the Indianand Israeli militaries move toward cooperation inmore sensitive and highly competitive and restrictedareas, both sides are eager to work out a modusvivendi on the Iranian issue.

In short, while respecting each other’s redlines, attimes both India and Israel will have to cohabit withnon-parallel if not conflicting interests.

ENDNOTES

1. For a detailed but dated discussion on the mili-tary cooperation see P.R. Kumaraswamy, India andIsrael: Emerging Strategic Partnership (Ramat Gan: BESACentre for Strategic Studies, 1998).

2.The Times of India (New Delhi), September 11,2003.

3.“Indian official: Delhi ignored Iranian request fornuclear reactor,” Jerusalem Post, March 26, 1993.

4.The Times of India, September 11, 2003.5.The Hindu (Chennai), September 12, 2003.6. Sunday Hindustan Times, September 14, 2003.7. The Times of India, September 10, 2003.8. Following intense American pressure, in the sum-

mer of 2000 Israel cancelled its earlier agreement tosell Phalcon airborne early warning systems to China.

9. In May 2003, he told an AJC meeting,“India, theUnited States and Israel have some fundamental simi-larities. We are all democracies, sharing a commonvision of pluralism, tolerance and equal opportunity.Stronger India-U.S. relations and India-Israel relationshave a natural logic.”

10. P.R. Kumaraswamy, Beyond the Veil: Israel-Pakistan Relations (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for StrategicStudies, 2000).

11. Indeed, the September 2003 Delhi declarationcarefully omits any reference to Kashmir or thePalestine issue.

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