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INDIA IS wisely buying time to decide whether or not to send troops to Iraq. The issue certainly needs to be approached with the greatest caution. Finding itself in a mess in the country which it has annexed under false pretences, the US is understandably keen to muster the support of a political heavyweight like India to lend a degree of credibility to its presence. The first question, therefore, that India should ask of itself is about the advisability of collaborating with a superpower which is hell-bent on thrusting its self-serving policies unilaterally on other nations in contemptuous disregard of norms of international relations and brushing aside the UN. In particular, by acting on America's proposition, India would seem to be willing to concede its right to continue with the obnoxious policies of "regime change" and "pre-emptive strike" whenever it thinks its own security is at stake.

Both in the US and the UK a storm is brewing on the deception resorted to by both Governments to justify the attack on Iraq, and some prominent public figures have even begun talking of subjecting those who tricked the people to investigation leading to impeachment and proceedings for breach of privilege, as the case may be. This is what makes the US to cast about for countries to be on its side and let it off the hook for its original sin. This is precisely the reason why Russia, Canada, Germany and many other countries of the European Union are also staying clear of any involvement in Iraq. Having opposed the war from the start, India will lose its standing before the saner sections of the world community were it now to provide legitimacy to the happenings in Iraq.

It is not just a matter of legitimising what the two aggressors had done by manipulating intelligence reports to promote their plans. India will be forced to share the blame for whatever goes wrong in Iraq, without being able to regulate and restrain the US in the implementation of policies and measures suited to its political, hegemonical and commercial interests. Already, the ham-handed and bumbling style of the American satraps is giving rise to widespread discontent and violent opposition. If these were to provoke bloody riots at some stage, and Indian troops are used to quell them, India will incur the odium of abetting the interlopers and, in the process, antagonising a people who had been friendly to it.

There is also the vital question of command and control of the troops. To some in India's governing class, sending the troops seems acceptable if they function under the authority of the UN. The situation in Iraq is pregnant with ugly possibilities and merely the fact of Indian troops functioning under the UN, even in the unlikely event of the US being agreeable to it, will not absolve India from the charge of playing foul. The best course is to let the US stew in its own juice. Of course, India should be unstinting in participating in any humanitarian mission.

B. S. Raghavan

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