What does Obama hold for South Asia

What does Obama hold for South Asia
By Susenjit Guha

If Obama can rub some of his charm on Iran's president Ahmadenijad and in the neighbourhood and utilize what the Hamas chief said in a recent interview about an air of expectancy about the new US President---he obviously thought of Obama---he can expect to effect some changes in their perception of the US.

Not many US presidents in the recent past have had close relations with South Asians from their college days as Barack Obama seems to have had. Despite Hillary Clinton's active fund-raising Indian Punjabi lobby in the US, neither she nor John McCain had any links with Indians or Pakistanis during their formative years or shared their anxieties and concerns of funding as graduate students. And one wonders if George W Bush could have located South Asia on the map when he took over.

Barack Obama's room mates at Columbia and Yale were from the Indian sub-continent. During his campaign he said differences between Shias and Sunnis were not unbeknownst to him before he joined the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

According to Pakistan's Friday Times, Obama was a guest of his college friend, later care-taker Prime Minister, Mian Muhammad Somroo, in 1981. He stayed as his guest in Karachi and Hyderabad, Sind for three weeks after visiting his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia.
Does it mean an Obama presidency will prefer Pakistan to India? Not likely, since Obama had to shoot off mails and respond to concerns by Indian Americans who too had been with him in college, to allay their apprehensions when Hillary was branded a Democrat from Punjab during his campaign.

Recently, he called India a natural partner of the United States.

But going by Obama's campaign strategy which had its share of 'wink wink' on NAFTA which irked Canadians, both the straight talk of going up the hills of Pakistan's North West where Al Qaeda seems to be holed up and stopping outsourcing of jobs to India, is aimed at the electorate. Didn't he grovel before the Judeo-Christian lobby to allay their fears of going out of the way to meet President Ahmadenijad?

He has now resigned himself to the fact that US jobs may move to Bangalore or elsewhere in Asia in a competitive world.

Going by his networking skills which halted and trounced the formidable Billary election machine, Obama may---he has the best chance at a very opportune moment in US history---engage with arch adversaries of the US like Iran. And if one goes by the latest Gallup Poll in the US, 6 out of 10 Americans favour an out of the box approach to foreign policy to mend the tarnished image of their nation.

If Obama can rub some of his charm on Iran's president Ahmadenijad and in the neighbourhood and utilize what the Hamas chief said in a recent interview about an air of expectancy about the new US President---he obviously thought of Obama---he can expect to effect some changes in their perception of the US.

If Obama makes it to the White House, USA will stand re-defined in the eyes of the world.
If tension gets toned down in and about Tehran, entire South Asia will be saved from a catastrophic spill out and may discourage other branded rogue nations from acquiring nuclear weapons to deter an interventionist US.

Expecting the Hussein, middle name of Barack Obama to mollify the ensconced cavemen in Pakistan's north-west who would stop at nothing short of annihilation of the west, is asking for the moon. Barack, even- though-Hussein, Obama, does not fit their bill to deliver.

Obama may have to do another round of 'wink wink' about Musharraf like his predecessor did till democracy strengthens in Pakistan to literally unseat him. Obama cannot send wrong signals readily to US allies who have risked their skin, sorry uniform, and allow the strongest Pakistani institution, the armed forces and the ISI to careen towards China.

Wouldn't he need them and the always accommodating gate-keeper Musharraf, if US forces, hopefully on the basis of some credible information, need to go for the hills?
And it was not for nothing that money was pumped in by Musharraf's extended family for the Obama campaign. It's all wink wink in real politick.

Obama may have fund-raisers among the people of Indian origin in the US, but Mian Muhammad Somroo, the caretaker Prime minister of Pakistan in 2007-2008 is a personal friend with whom he presumably is still in touch. So if the core issue between India and Pakistan gets ratcheted up, there is enough likelihood of a more than patient hearing of the Pakistani side of the story.