K C Singh
 

Elections, foreign policy to decide course of democracy.   Deal’s off: The Iran debacle will have repercussions on India too.

This column comes from New York, the global financial capital. The world from here appears at multiple inflexion points. For India the bell tolls to decide the nature of the republic, i.e. the model founding fathers envisioned in 1950 or a semi-theocratic majoritarian India based on Hindutva. Karnataka election could be an important milestone on this journey.

US television is fixated on two issues. One, the unending saga of President Trump’s alleged philandering and Mueller probe into Russian meddling in presidential election. The other of greater global concern is Trump announcing US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. It can complicate India-Iran bilateral trade, oil purchases from Iran, besides pushing up oil price.

But a certain parallelism exists today between politics of India and the US. For instance, polarisation between Trump’s followers and opponents is as stark and toxic as between those of Narendra Modi. Both leaders face crucial midterm elections. In the US, the entire Congress and one-third of the Senate go to the polls in November. The Republican senate majority is now 51-49 (two democrats being independent). A marginal loss can negatively change the political scenario for Trump. Senator John McCain, Republican Party’s moderating voice, is terminally ill with brain cancer. If he dies before June, his seat goes to election. If not, the Republican governor can nominate a successor. McCain reportedly has conveyed that Trump is unwelcome at his funeral, though Vice-President Mike Pence, a McCain friend, would attend. He wants funeral orations by former Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama. Even in his death, McCain seeks political unity to bridge the toxic divide on which Trump thrives. Can one imagine families of two surviving BJP icons sending a similar message?

In the US, altered congressional balance of power can have Trump face an impeachment motion if he ignores a subpoena or bungles his deposition or even worse decides to fire prosecutor Mueller. Mayor Rudy Giuliani, stepping up as new Trump attorney, controversially claimed Trump may take the Fifth Amendment or refuse to depose to avoid self-incrimination. Mueller is now examining a new link between a Russian oligarch and Trump attorney Michael Cohen about receiving half a million dollars.

In India, the focus is on impeachment motion against the Supreme Court Chief Justice, rejected by Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu. The Congress had moved the Supreme Court for judicial review. The CJI constituted a Bench, bypassing four senior-most collegium members, raising questions about conflict of interest. The ensuing logjam finds the government and the CJI in a mutually protective role. Thus Karnataka election outcome, like the midterm US congressional elections, can rebalance domestic political forces. In both nations, populist leaders are straining institutions on which rests democracy.

The US and Indian governments are showing similar contempt for media, without the independence of which democracy cannot survive. Minister Gen (retd) VK Singh’s tirade against “presstitutes” in 2014 began the onslaught. Trump has turned media-baiting into an art form by systematically debunking all criticism as “fake news”. Charges of sexual harassment or philandering are dismissed as fictional.

PM Modi, in turn, dodges media and Parliament — the recent Budget session mostly disrupted by ruling party’s supporters among the Opposition. Social media platforms are used to run down mainstream print and electronic media. Trump tried to browbeat Washington Post by threatening its owner Jeff Bezos with more tax on his company Amazon.

Against this scenario, Yascha Mounk asks in his book The People versus Democracy: “Might liberal democracies be less stable than we have assumed? And will the rise of populism lead to the decomposition of our political system?” The abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal is in keeping with populist promises made in the heat of electoral battle. The Iran deal, called Joint Comprehensive Programme of Action (JCPOA), is being abandoned by the US, not because Iran breached its commitments, but rather because it is allegedly inherently flawed and Iran continues to sponsor terror through surrogates like the Lebanese Hezbollah, besides developing missiles or potential delivery systems for nuclear weapons.

Trump naturally ignores that President Obama signed the deal as he determined that only Iran had the will and the resources to counter the IS, in combination with its Shia allies across West Asia. That task accomplished, the US now wants to constrain Iran to please its Sunni rivals led by Saudis and Emiratis. President Trump, relying on Israeli intelligence, claimed that the Iranian nuclear weapons programme was active and not shelved. This reminds one of the erroneous weapons of mass destruction charge against Saddam Hussein by the Bush administration, which became the justification for the 2003 attack on Iraq. Is the US at another such moment, driven by ideology rather than reliable intel? Moreover, with the US opening a dialogue with Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, how will reneging on the Iran agreement impact these negotiations? However, the US calculation may be to signal DPRK that the new benchmark is the total elimination of nuclear weapons and not a status quoist freeze and retention of the existing nuclear arsenal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, embarrassed by US withdrawal, has warned that they are preparing to restart enrichment after implications of the US move are assessed. E-3 group, consisting of France, Germany and UK, want to save the deal, as indeed would China and Russia, the other two members of the P5+1 group that signed the JCPOA. Iran will wait and see if the EU can keep trade and investment links open despite US sanctions. That seems difficult to envisage as European companies would hardly risk their US businesses for the small Iranian market. For India, it would be back to the post-2005 scenario, when India was forced to scale back commercial and investment links under US pressure. But the danger of war due to mixed signals looms over West Asia and the Gulf as Iranian hardliners will dig in for a fight.

Thus as democracies reel under the onslaught of populist leaders and anti-globalisation ayatollahs, the people must decide whether democracies, as evolved over the past two and a half centuries, can survive with institutional tweaking. Alternatively, are we on a glide path to illiberal democracies, under elected rabble-rousing autocrats detesting free media, independent judiciary and vibrant Parliament?

The writer is a former Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

Courtesy: Tribune : May 10, 2018