Behind the apparently sharp US response to the Soviet takeover in Afghanistan lies the search for a coherent and viable policy which can help it cope with the rapidly growing Soviet military power in a turbulent world with special emphasis on the oil-rich Gulf region. Such a policy does not exist and it is too early to say whether President Carter and his advisers will succeed in shaping one.
It is being said that the United States has finally overcome the trauma of defeat in Vietnam. It has yet to demonstrate that this is so. Only when it commits its soldiers in a conflict involving Soviet or Cuban troops on the other side will it have established that it has, indeed, put Vietnam behind it and is once again ready to defend its interests as it perceives them, rightly or wrongly.
Meanwhile, it cannot be in doubt that the American giant is furious with the Soviet Union as it has not been since the eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation over Cuba in 1962. While it took the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 relatively calmly – President Johnson did not even summon a meeting of the national security council to consider its implications – partly because it was too preoccupied with Vietnam and partly because it accepted Czechoslovakia to be within the Soviet sphere of influence, it is positively alarmed over the Russian action in Afghanistan. The reason is obvious. It has placed the Kremlin in a stronger position to influence the course of events in the Gulf region where America and its West European and Japanese allies have enormous stakes by virtue of their dependence on oil imports from there. The giant is now going to rearm itself in a big way. It will be sheer folly to doubt that it will overtake the Soviet Union.
More Acute
Military strength has, however, not been America’s main problem since 1975 when at Russia’s instance Cuban troops moved into Angola to initiate a new, aggressive phase in Soviet policy which had till then been generally defensive. For the United States has never lacked the necessary military muscle to respond effectively. What it has lacked is the political will. But that, too, has not been its sole handicap. While, for example, it is true that Congress overruled Mr. Kissinger’s efforts at covert intervention in Angola, circumstances were also highly adverse. The United States could not afford to fight with the help of South Africa’s racist regime and it had no other worthwhile ally there.
If anything, the problems confronting the United States in the Gulf region are far more acute. For all we know, Mr. Kissinger may well be right when he argues that the Shah of Iran would not have been overthrown if President Carter had not advised him to liberalise his regime when he did or if the Shah had not heeded the advice and had dealt with the initial hostile demonstrations with a heavy hand. It is also possible that the pro-West military leadership in Teheran would have seized power if the US administration had encouraged it. But the Shah fell a year ago and Iran has been in convulsion ever since with consequences that are still to reveal themselves. More important, the revivalist-fundamentalist sentiment has come to grip a sizeable section of the lower middle class youth in almost all Arab countries and to threaten pro-Western regimes. How is the military buildup and a stepped-up naval presence in the Indian Ocean, especially around the Gulf, going to help the United States stabilise these regimes?
Arabs friendly to the United States argue that it can turn Muslim sentiment against the Soviet Union if it can put pressure on Israel and produce worthwhile progress on the question of autonomy for the Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. This is by itself a tall order. Israel is not likely to relent quickly and easily under US pressure and President Carter cannot twist Israel’s arm too much in an election year. The Jewish lobby in the US would not permit that. But even if both these obstacles could be overcome, progress on the autonomy question will only increase the pressure for the next logical step – an independent Palestinian state, something the Israelis will not countenance.
Disruptive
But the Americans and their Arab friends are caught in another equally fundamental contradiction. If the oil wealth and the Western connection are to have any meaning for the Arabs, they must seek to build modern industry with all that it involves by way of not only the necessary infrastructure, but also modern education and the social mores that go with it. But to do so is to risk aggravating the problem of fundamentalist revivalism that is worrying Arab rulers and their Western supporters. Modernisation is unsettling in any circumstances. It is dangerously disruptive when it is accompanied by unprecedented wealth as in the case of the Arabs and the pace is hectic as it was in Iran under the Shah and as it threatens to be in Saudi Arabia.
It will, however, be rather naive to suggest that social tensions resulting from the modernisation of the economy, the aggravation of inequalities and the spread of corruption must explode in the manner they did in Iran in 1978. They can be held under control for a pretty long time if the regime in question is sufficiently efficient and ruthless. No one can say whether the Arab rulers, especially the Saudis, are capable of organising such a coercive machinery. But it can be taken for granted that the United States will do all in its power to enable them to set up such instruments.
Anyone who knows anything about the Americans will agree that they tend to swing from sentimental moralism to ruthless pragmatism, president Carter’s emphasis on human rights was an expression of the first, just as Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were embodiments of the second. In the next phase, US policy is likely to be characterised by cynicism. The CIA will get back its “freedom.”
Indeed, the US naval build-up around the Gulf makes sense only if behind it are to be raised ruthless dictatorships which will not allow the slightest form of dissent and which will be efficient enough to spot the smallest sign of it. This is almost a sure prescription for an uncontrollable explosion in the long run. But who bothers about the long-term consequences when the purpose is to assure the supply of oil from the Gulf for the next two decades? The Americans may not be able to buy that much time. But how can one be sure that they will fail?
The US administration has made great play of the possible danger to Pakistan as a result of the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan and has decided to extend military assistance to it. The implications of these decisions for both Pakistan and India have been discussed at length in these and adjoining columns. I am now referring to this subject in the larger context of the overall US policy towards the region mainly to make the additional point that the subcontinent is at best of secondary importance to Washington. The US administration wishes to use Pakistan to harass the Russians in Afghanistan and it will encourage Islamabad to provide military personnel to friendly governments like Oman’s, the UAE’s and Saudi Arabia’s. But the main American concern right now must be Iran. The outcome of the turbulence there will have a decisive impact on the course of events in the Gulf.
Anarchy
Apparently both the United States and the Soviet Union are assuming that the present anarchy which passes for the Islamic revolution under Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership cannot last for long. Both have placed themselves in positions from where they can influence the outcome of the succession struggle, the Soviets by establishing a strong military presence in and around Heart, and the Americans by sending two aircraft carriers and supporting warships into the Indian Ocean close to the Gulf. While the Russians have the advantage of having a friendly party in the Tudeh and other leftist groups, the Americans can fall back on the armed forces. The strength and viability of both the Tudeh and the armed forces is a matter of speculation. But armed intervention by America and Russia and consequent division of the country is not a possibility which can be ruled out.
Surprising though it may appear in view of the contrary propaganda that has been pouring out of the West, the Soviet Union in occupation of Afghanistan can have little interest in dividing up either Iran or Pakistan. If and when its hold is consolidated, in Afghanistan, it can hope to “Finlandise” the two countries, that is, ensure that the governments in Teheran and Islamabad are reasonably friendly towards it. That will suit it much better than occupation of oil-less northern and eastern Iran and the emergence of a pro-Soviet independent Baluchistan. The US calculations must be different unless, of course, it is able to prevent the consolidation of a pro-Soviet setup in Afghanistan and steadily raise the cost of occupying that country for the Soviet Union.
The Times of India, 23 January 1980