India faces the Iraq test
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The taking into custody of 40 Indians, drawn into the crossfire of a
bitter power struggle in Iraq between an assertive but marginalised
Sunni minority and the government led by President Nouri al-Maliki, has
brought into focus the Narendra Modi government’s crisis management
skills. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a jihadi
group, is apparently behind the detention and relocation of the workers,
who are from Punjab, into a cotton warehouse in the vicinity of Mosul —
Iraq’s second largest city that is an ethnically divided demographic
powder keg. Yet, there are indications that Sunni tribesmen, who may not
share the ISIS’s virulent extremist ideology but are in a tactical
embrace with it in order to counter the government of Mr. Nouri
al-Maliki, which has Shia overtones, are holding the victims. The
detentions, along with the entrapment of 46 nurses in a Tikrit hospital,
is cause for deep anxiety; the crisis has dwarfed the 2004 abduction
and release of three Indian truck drivers near Baghdad. Apart from
India, countries such as China and Turkey, whose nationals have been
detained in large numbers, are experiencing the pain. The blowback of
the incident has hit the government hard, persuading External Affairs
Minister Sushma Swaraj to meet the distraught families of the victims,
who have no option but to seek solace from the Central government.
The government is facing a complex crisis that has to be tackled at
multiple levels. In order to get the hostages released, New Delhi is
apparently using the channels of the Iraqi Red Crescent to communicate
with the militants. Its immediate worry is to ensure safe passage that
would allow the evacuation of the workers from their present locations
to the Kurdish-dominated Erbil airport, which is much safer,
geographically and otherwise, than the battle-hit route to Baghdad
heading towards the south. But the government has to worry beyond the
immediate, for a crisis of much larger proportions can emerge should
fighting spill into the oil-rich south, where a large proportion of the
20,000 Indians in Iraq live. The danger of an escalation of regional
upheavals is real if Iran, in supporting the Shia-dominated south, gets
embroiled in the crisis — possibly creating a spiral of tensions with
rival Saudi Arabia. Finally, New Delhi has also to be prepared for the
internationalisation of the events in Iraq, as well as a sharp and
painful spurt in oil prices, especially if the United States chooses to
launch air strikes against opposition strongholds. For this could raise
concerns in Russia and China that have been reacting vigorously to
events in West Asia, especially Syria, in the aftermath of the 2011 fall
of Qadhafi in Libya.
Keywords: Iraq unrest, Islamic State of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, Shia-Sunni clashes, Iraq sectarian clashes
end quote from:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/india-faces-the-iraq-test/article6134195.ece
end quote from:
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/india-faces-the-iraq-test/article6134195.ece
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