India needs USA for its defence against China. India needs Iran and Russia for its defence against Pakistan in Afghanistan. India can talk to Obama and try to explain quitely ( I hope MM Singh will do that in Moscow this week)about the dangerous snake Saudi Arabia, which will bite USA as well.
As an Indian-American with immense respect for Mr. Saeed Naqvi, a respect he earned over more than 20 years of reading and watching, wonder whether it is feasible to bridge the communication gap between his presupposition of what US stands for.
Admit that recent derailment of democracy in Egypt would have skewed US perception. But, like any democracy there are a vast array of contradictory forces within US. Question is whether the fundamentals are sound. Is USA really against Islam as he suggests? Has not this question being asked of India as well by Pakistani ideologues?
Whether Constitutional and social space provided in real terms within US to all religious thoughts is a verifiable proposition, but when it comes to external policies, where instruments and objectives are difficult to disentangle if context differ, perception alone matters.
Here the context is deterring future usage of WMDs. Whether deployment of chemical weapons be consider a war crime or not. The response of Russia, and the very long term player China has created an impasse in Security Council, which so far has precluded any purposeful action. Mr. Naqvi could have done better to deliberate within the context regarding roles and responsibilities. Instead he has opted to tar with a broad brush of past trend, when matters are probably at a point of inflection.
He is a wiser person with a bigger world view, may be his fears are justified, but this dissent is also sincerely felt.
