Congress short of ideas

It is the only party which has been able to reorient its policies in sync with the changing times.

Amulya Ganguli

Absence of charismatic leaders and a lack of vision for the country have allowed groupism to proliferate in India's oldest political party. Blaming factionalism for the Congress party's recent electoral setbacks, as Sonia Gandhi has done, can be regarded as a somewhat facile explanation. Internal rifts are in the party's genes and date back a century to the clashes between Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, between Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose and between Indira Gandhi and the so-called 'syndicate', represented by the Congress old guard.
Besides these confrontations between the heavyweights at the national level, there were also innumerable relatively minor tiffs between people such as A.K. Antony and K. Karunakaran in Kerala.
But it is necessary to remember that none of these seriously undermined the Congress. On the contrary, it became an overpowering political presence at the time of independence and for at least two decades afterwards, and also in the 1970s and 1980s.
There were two reasons for this remarkable achievement. One was the presence of charismatic leaders at the top, whose popular appeal swept away the cobwebs of groupism, and the other was the articulation of the Big Idea, which represented the party's vision.
Arguably, it is the absence of these two factors which has led to the party's present plight and, consequently, allowed the petty groupies to proliferate. It cannot be gainsaid that unless the Congress finds a sense of direction in terms of an idealistic outlook, it will continue to flounder.
However, the Congress' travails are all the more surprising because it is the only party which has been able to reorient its policies in sync with the changing times.
Neither the Left nor the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), its two main opponents, have been able to do so. The comrades, for instance, remain stuck in the days of Soviet hegemony. They seem to take no cognisance of communism's terminal decline.
The BJP is unable to break free of its pro-Hindu Jana Sangh past or of its servile relationship with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Hindu supremacist brotherhood. As a result, it is virtually an untrustworthy alien entity so far as the country's minorities - Muslims and Christians - are concerned and also for liberal-minded Hindus.
Policy paralysis
In contrast, the Congress has undertaken major ideological changes. For a start, it is gingerly sidestepping the Nehruvian concept of socialism even if this Fabian ideal is associated with one of the party's greatest leaders.
Along with socialism, another Nehruvian policy initiative of the 1950s - non-alignment - has been discarded. The Congress has chosen market-driven economic policies and tilted towards America, the socialists' bugbear.
However, it is the continuing half-heartedness about these initiatives which is responsible for the Congress giving the impression of being unsure about its future course of action or being able to convince the people of whatever it has achieved. It is the sense of being stuck in a limbo, as it were, which is hurting the party.
Nothing showed the effect of this purposelessness than the recent Delhi municipal election results where the BJP succeeded in retaining its hold despite the achievements of the city's Congress government in making the national capital one of the country's most liveable cities.
Yet although the Congress raised its tally of seats from 67 in 2007 to 78 this time, the electorate was unwilling to repose full faith in it apparently because of its perceived governance deficit at the centre and entanglement in numerous scams that have been played up in the media.
It was the same in Uttar Pradesh where the Congress gained the most in terms of a rise in vote share, but still remains very much a marginal player.
The surge in the Congress' popularity in 2009, which took the party's Lok Sabha seats to above 200, was the result of the belief that the party was about to implement the Big Idea of economic reforms. Instead, not only is the party dithering, it is even turning to state paternalism redolent of a controlled economy by favouring dole-oriented programmes such as the rural employment scheme and the proposed hugely expensive food security bill, which will make a mockery of fiscal discipline. These are ideas which will not impress the new generation.

- Indo-Asian News Service
Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst.

   Has Obama changed anything?

The new president would get the US out of Iraq and use the freed-up resources to fix Afghanistan. And he would dramatically improve relations with Russia and China. 

Gideon Rachman

US president is not a weak leader, but he over-promised and under-delivered in matters of foreign policy. Weak. Apologist. Those two words are repeated endlessly in the Republican party's attack on Barack Obama, as it tries to persuade voters that the US president is not worthy of another term as commander-in-chief.
The charge of weakness will be difficult to make stick. As the president's team will endlessly remind Americans, he is the man who sent in a combat team to kill Osama Bin Laden - against the advice of some of his aides - and who has ruthlessly pounded Al Qaida camps in Pakistan with drone strikes.
The irony is that there are really serious criticisms that can be made of Obama's handling of foreign affairs. But the real problem is not that he is weak or apologises for the US. It is that he has over-promised and under-delivered. Fortunately for the president, this is a relatively complicated idea that relies on some knowledge of world affairs. Therefore it is not a critique that the Republicans are likely to attempt.
Nonetheless, it is sobering to measure Obama against the goals he set himself. His international priorities in 2008 were clear and ambitious. He intended to solve the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy. He wanted to make peace between Israel and Palestine. He would transform America's image in the Muslim world. The Guantanamo Bay prison camp would close and suspected terrorists would be tried in US courts.
The new president would get the US out of Iraq and use the freed-up resources to fix Afghanistan. And he would dramatically improve relations with Russia and China.
Iran issue
Go down this checklist and you will notice far more failures than successes. The rapprochement with Iran never happened. Instead, as Obama nears the end of his first term, the US and Iran are dangerously close to armed conflict. His efforts to revive the Middle East peace process have got nowhere. Guantanamo has not closed and the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad is taking place there.
After some agonising, the president ordered a George W. Bush-like troop "surge" into Afghanistan. This policy also looks likely to end in failure. The use of drone strikes has increased dramatically in Pakistan and leaves behind a dangerous legacy of a rotten relationship with a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people.
After the early ecstatic reaction to Obama's Cairo speech of 2009, in which the president called for a "new beginning" between the US and Muslims, America's popularity has slumped again in the Islamic world.
Intent on according the Muslim world more respect, the president was also initially blindsided by the Iranian uprising of 2009 and the Arab Spring of 2011 - both of which were events that fitted more easily into a neoconservative narrative, about the universal yearning for democracy.
Arab Spring
Obama must surely regret his lukewarm support for the Iranian uprising. When it came to the Arab Spring, he struck a necessarily uneasy compromise between supporting US ideals and protecting US interests. The idealistic president called for Hosni Mubarak to go and supported the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi. The pragmatist has hung back over Syria. It is hard to argue that he has made any big mistakes. But the big picture is of declining American influence in the region.
Obama's policies towards Russia and China have also not worked out as planned. He came to power at a time when relations between the US and Russia were at a dangerous low, after the Russian war with Georgia. The Obama team proclaimed its desire to press the 'reset' button - and for a while this policy paid dividends. But the 'reset' was built around President Dmitry Medvedev. The return of Vladimir Putin has brought a fresh chill to relations.
The US and China have clashed over trade, climate change and human rights. And military tensions are rising in the Pacific.
The UN remains a tetchy and dysfunctional forum. The G20 - while it played an important role in stabilising the world economy in 2009 - is now something of a disappointment. There have been no big new deals on climate or trade.
If the newly elected president in 2008 had been told this would be his list of global achievements he would surely have been disappointed. Obama ran as the anti-Bush candidate. So it is ironic that his signature achievement overseas - the killing of Bin Laden - is one Bush would have been proud of.

- Financial Times

   Gulf unity plan in doubt

As an initial step, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had signalled a readiness to announce a bilateral union, but even that limited move failed to materialise.

Ian Black

Saudi-led plans for deeper Gulf Arab regional integration to challenge Iran are in doubt after the failure to announce an expected unity deal between Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Bahrain.
Expectations had been running high ahead of a special summit of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, but a decision was put off until the GCC next meets, in December. Iranian MPs warned that the plans were likely to increase insecurity in the Gulf.
As an initial step, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had signalled a readiness to announce a bilateral union, but even that limited move failed to materialise.
Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, criticised Iranian "provocations" over three occupied Gulf islands that are claimed by the United Arab Emirates. Threats from Tehran were unacceptable, he warned. Iran is also routinely accused of backing the Shia-dominated opposition in Bahrain.
The GCC secretary-general, Abdullateef al-Zayani, said all six member countries would sign up to a common defence policy when they meet in Manama in December. But the UAE and Oman, whose leaders did not attend the Riyadh summit, appeared to have reservations. Qatar and Kuwait were said to have objections too.
Plans for a Saudi-Bahrain union have been talked up by both governments since last year, when a 1,500-strong Saudi-led GCC force intervened in Bahrain to help crush the pro-democracy protests.
King Hamad of Bahrain said the proposed Gulf union was a "response to changes and challenges that face us on international and regional fronts". The nature of this union remains unclear but a Bahraini minister said it could follow the European Union model.
The GCC has achieved very little in terms of regional integration in 30 years. Worries about Saudi dominance have already frozen plans for a single Gulf currency. Abdulkhaliq Abdullah, an Emirati analyst, said the six GCC members were "not all enthusiastic" about a union.
Prince Saud told reporters after the summit: "There was no step to have a special relation between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia at this stage, although both countries would welcome a closer association. There is no problem between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that would prevent closer cooperation. I am hoping that the six countries will unite at the next meeting. The issue will take time."
The Gulf leaders also discussed the crisis in Syria, where the Saudis and Qataris are leading the anti-Assad camp and have supported arming anti-regime rebels.
The Saudi-Bahrain unity proposal had been angrily denounced by the Bahraini opposition. Sheikh Ali Salman, leader of al-Wefaq, warned that any such move should be subjected to a referendum in all GCC states. Bahraini protesters interpret it as a way to unite the two western-backed Sunni monarchies to work together to crush Shia dissent and confront Iran.
In Tehran, MPs attacked the unity plan. "Bahraini and Saudi rulers must understand that this unwise decision will only strengthen the Bahraini people's resolve against the forces of occupation," they said. The letter was signed by 190 of 290 MPs, and warned that "the crisis in Bahrain will be transferred to Saudi Arabia and will push the region towards insecurity".
Zayani said the GCC had agreed financial support over five years for Jordan and Morocco, the two relatively poor Arab monarchies that are seeking to respond with limited reforms to defuse the tensions and expectations stirred up in the Arab spring.

- The Guardian, London