One relevant example of urging an ally to acquire the leadership role was Washington’s advocacy that Japan should emerge as a “normal” military power.  That was a euphemism for the remilitarization of Japan, at least as envisaged by the PRC and South Korea, two countries that still nurture horrible memories of Japan’s “rape” of their polities when it occupied them.  One wonders how much thought the United States gave to the Chinese and South Korean reactions to a potential emergence of a militarized Japan.  Alternatively, the U.S. suggestion might also be part of its strategic maneuvers to put pressure on China in the same manner in which Richard M. Nixon decided to develop a strategic nexus with the PRC in 1972, to put pressure on the Soviet Union.  Another example of such an advocacy was the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s advocacy during her latest visit to that country that it is time for India to act as a leader in South Asia and in the Asia Pacific.   That advocacy, though genuine, is highly controversial and may not be welcomed among the countries of South Asia.

The fact that the United States will be lowering its military profile in Afghanistan in the near future has become a major source of apprehension for India.  It knows that the immediate outcome of that development will result in an instant heightened presence of Pakistan in Afghanistan.  And India is as opposed to an increased presence and influence of Pakistan in Afghanistan as Pakistan is about a similar development involving India in that country.  Even if one were to temporarily ignore the Indo-Pak loathing of each other’s increased role in Afghanistan in the future, an important question is what exactly does the United States want India to do in Afghanistan?  Should it become an occupying force in a manner similar to that of the United States or should it become a peacekeeper?  Both of these alternatives are highly untenable.  Keeping these facts in mind, one wonders how much time the United States has really spent in thinking about the issue of India’s leadership in Afghanistan.

A possible alternative for India to consider in Afghanistan is to establish some sort of a nexus with Iran and Russia to minimize the chances of the emergence of al-Qaida as a major force.  Even on this issue, a lot depends on what kind of a compromise the United States would be able to reach with the Taliban of Afghanistan before pulling out of that country.  If there is even a remote possibility of the Taliban’s emergence as co-rulers of Afghanistan, any emergence of an India-Iran-Russia nexus influencing the internal power dynamics of Afghanistan is entirely out of the question. Moreover, given the intense antipathy that Iran and the United Sates hold toward each, it is highly unlikely that Washington would endorse any political compromise that would enable Iran to escalate its power and influence in Afghanistan.

In the Asia-Pacific region, on the contrary, India has a good chance of exercising its leadership.  The ASEAN countries have been quite receptive, indeed some of them have been eager about, India’s increased leadership role in their region as a balance against the PRC’s rising influence.  India has been quite successful in building on that support by becoming a member of the East Asia Summit in December 2005 and by signing free trade deals with the ASEAN countries in 2009.

India as a naval power (it has world’s fifth largest navy) also has a great potential in cooperating with Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore in conducting joint patrolling of the Strait of Malacca, through which more than 80 percent of China’s oil supplies from the Middle East and Africa passes.  Indeed, India has been involved with the U.S., Japanese and Australian navy in conducting joint naval exercises in that region, much to the chagrin of the PRC.  India has also been conducting joint naval
exercises with Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia.  India’s Andaman and Nicobar tri-services Command has a potential of playing a major role in India’s naval maneuverings in Southeast Asia.

One Indian maneuver vis-à-vis China in the South China that is worth making a mention is the evolving Indo-Vietnamese strategic ties.  Operating on the axiom that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, India has been seeking increased strategic cooperation with Vietnam, which also includes gaining access to the Cam Ranh Bay naval and air base. Even though Vietnam has been reluctant about granting India access to that facility, the Vietnamese-Indian strategic partnership remains a work in progress.  The worsening of Vietnam-China ties in the future would make rulers in Hanoi reconsider India’s sustained interests in the Cam Ranh Bay base.

Even though India’s immediate neighborhood in South Asia does not appear promising about its emergence as an effective leader, leaders of that country can still work on most challenging aspects of creating a rapprochement with its arch adversary, Pakistan.  Such a development—even though it remains hard to develop—would open up considerable opportunities for India’s exercise of leadership in South Asia.  In the meantime, Asia-Pacific holds enormous opportunities for India.  It should work on equally proactively to foster them.  It behooves India to remember that its greatest challenge in the Asia-Pacific is coming from China, which regards that region as its area of special (if not “core”) interests.

The Arab awakening is about self-reliance in ousting the scourge of dictatorship.  It is about telling the great powers to keep their phony sympathies for the plight of the Arabs in their respective pockets and stay the hell out.  They can pass U.N. resolutions condemning the Libyan crazed dictator and make flowery speeches for their domestic audiences, who are virtually ignorant of their respective policies, which are largely responsible for sustaining those the dictators in power.  But, please, no military intervention is required.  Because such a measure might become a pretext for Washington to place a Western stooge in power to run Libya.  He is likely to be a lot more pliable than Qaddafi in fulfilling the West’s wishes, but he will certainly not be a man of the people.  In that sense, any involvement of an outside power will kill the dream of the emergence of governmental legitimacy in Libya.

The Arab awakening is fresh and pure in that it is not imposed from the outside; it is not entering the borders of any Arab state riding in the tanks of Western forces, as was the case in Iraq in 2003.  It is about the exercise of people power through democracy.  People have initiated it, and people will bring it to a peaceful close when their representatives are elected.  While no specific modalities of democracy have yet been instituted even in Tunisia and Egypt, all signs are there for such a development.  The Islamists are staying on the sidelines, and even when they are showing their faces – as in the case of Rachid Ghannushi of the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – they are very much in support of democracy.  However, the West should not hold its breath for the emergence of a secular democracy anywhere.  In all likelihood, the emerging system of government in the Arab world will be democratic, but one in which Islamic parties will also have a role.

During the colonial era, the aspirations of the people in the enslaved Arab countries were repeatedly undermined by the Western occupiers.  When they left, their appointed autocrats continued that process even more brutally than the Western colonialists.  In the Cold War years, the enslavement of the Arab masses continued because it was deemed by the United States as well as the Soviet Union as totally irrelevant to their respective agendas of achieving victory over the other.  In other words, the powers-that-be of the Cold War era trumped the Arabs’ chances of breaking out from the harness of slavery and subservience.

The current outbursts of people power in the Arab world surprised—or even shocked—the great powers of the post-Cold War era.  What a magnificent sight it was to see leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and other major capitals stumble over each other while attempting to develop their respective responses to the Arab uprising.  Even the Chinese leaders were visibly shaken when the phrase “Jasmine Revolution” popped up on that country’s social networks.  The successors of Mao Zedong, the quintessential “revolutionary” of a bygone era, were visibly shaken by the mere mention of the word revolution.  The fact that the Jasmine revolution brought about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt—and might create similar results in China—was proving to be the beginning of a nightmare for the leaders in Beijing.  Those leaders have not only abandoned their Maoist revolutionary perspectives, but, along with it, they have also shed the famous Mao jacket, which symbolized an era when leaders not only emerged from the masses, but also proudly harped on their proletarian background.

But the Arab awakening’s worst potential enemy is not China, which is scared of any change that rides on the shoulders of the people – even though the great people’s revolution rode into China on the shoulders of the masses.  The potential worst enemies of the Arab awakening are the Western democratic nations that had supported the tyrannical rulers for decades, and that could use the pretext of intervening in Libya or other tactics to forestall the ouster of Qaddafi and the remaining dictators from Arab countries.  A number of them took billions of dollars as “blood money” from Qaddafi and “legitimized” his regime by removing Libya from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.  Then they started selling arms to Libya, which the crazed dictator is now using against his own people. Who could forget George W. Bush’s “poodle,” Tony Blair’s infamous handshake with Muammar Qaddafi in Libya?

Denouncing the Western response to the Arab awakening, the Guardian’s Seumas Milne was spot-on when he wrote, “The reality is that the western powers which have backed authoritarian kleptocrats across the Middle East for decades now face a loss of power in the most strategically sensitive region of the world as a result of the Arab uprisings and the prospect of representative governments. They are evidently determined to appropriate the revolutionary process wherever possible, limiting it to cosmetic change that allows continued control of the region.”

It appears that Libya is viewed by the governments in Washington, London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere as “low hanging fruit” for “easy picking.”  It has a lot of high quality oil and low indigenous talent, which will prove to be a cheap source of sustaining the high standard of living in the West through an influx of Western expatriates.  And the best way to get an “inside track” is to oust the dictator and establish a system of sycophant rulers in Libya who will continue to do the West’s bidding.  But such an act will prove to be a death-knell for the great democratic promise of the Arab awakening.

Before anyone gets carried away about any Western participation in enforcing no-fly zones on Libya, it should be understood that one very important pre-requisite of such an action is the bombing of Libyan air defenses.  Imagine the political fallout – especially if there were any civilian loss of life – of such a move so soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was quite mindful of that reality when he said, “A no-fly zone would first require taking out Libyan air defenses, an act of war. It would be expensive and difficult to maintain. It would drain resources from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it would put the U.S. at war in a third Muslim country.”  And, I must conclude by quoting another of Milne’s observations about the Arab awakening.  He said, “The Arab revolution will be made by Arabs, or it won’t be a revolution at all.” 

The natural American interventionist impulse is surging once again.  This time the pretext is to save the Libyans from Muammar Qaddafi.  The United States and the U.K. are reportedly positioning their military assets to impose no-fly zones in Libya.  At least superficially, that sounds like a good measure, which would scare Qaddafi into submission.  But one has to be apprehensive about such “good measures.”  Past American interventionism in the Muslim world has established that there is no such thing as intervention to improve the lot of the populace.  That did not happen in 1953, when the CIA and the British intelligence service colluded to bring Mohammad Reza Pahlevi to power.  The post-Saddam Iraq is tenuous at best.  Afghanistan continues to teeter at the brink of disaster.  The CIA-backed intervention that ousted Sukarno of Indonesia in 1965 brought to power a military dictator, Suharto, who ruled that country with an iron fist for several decades. 

The Arab awakening is about self-reliance in ousting the scourge of dictatorship.  It is about telling the great powers to keep their phony sympathies for the plight of the Arabs in their respective pockets and stay the hell out.  They can pass U.N. resolutions condemning the Libyan crazed dictator and make flowery speeches for their domestic audiences, who are virtually ignorant of their respective policies, which are largely responsible for sustaining those the dictators in power.  But, please, no military intervention is required.  Because such a measure might become a pretext for Washington to place a Western stooge in power to run Libya.  He is likely to be a lot more pliable than Qaddafi in fulfilling the West’s wishes, but he will certainly not be a man of the people.  In that sense, any involvement of an outside power will kill the dream of the emergence of governmental legitimacy in Libya.

The Arab awakening is fresh and pure in that it is not imposed from the outside; it is not entering the borders of any Arab state riding in the tanks of Western forces, as was the case in Iraq in 2003.  It is about the exercise of people power through democracy.  People have initiated it, and people will bring it to a peaceful close when their representatives are elected.  While no specific modalities of democracy have yet been instituted even in Tunisia and Egypt, all signs are there for such a development.  The Islamists are staying on the sidelines, and even when they are showing their faces – as in the case of Rachid Ghannushi of the al-Nahda Party in Tunisia, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – they are very much in support of democracy.  However, the West should not hold its breath for the emergence of a secular democracy anywhere.  In all likelihood, the emerging system of government in the Arab world will be democratic, but one in which Islamic parties will also have a role.

During the colonial era, the aspirations of the people in the enslaved Arab countries were repeatedly undermined by the Western occupiers.  When they left, their appointed autocrats continued that process even more brutally than the Western colonialists.  In the Cold War years, the enslavement of the Arab masses continued because it was deemed by the United States as well as the Soviet Union as totally irrelevant to their respective agendas of achieving victory over the other.  In other words, the powers-that-be of the Cold War era trumped the Arabs’ chances of breaking out from the harness of slavery and subservience.

The current outbursts of people power in the Arab world surprised—or even shocked—the great powers of the post-Cold War era.  What a magnificent sight it was to see leaders in Washington, London, Paris, and other major capitals stumble over each other while attempting to develop their respective responses to the Arab uprising.  Even the Chinese leaders were visibly shaken when the phrase “Jasmine Revolution” popped up on that country’s social networks.  The successors of Mao Zedong, the quintessential “revolutionary” of a bygone era, were visibly shaken by the mere mention of the word revolution.  The fact that the Jasmine revolution brought about regime change in Tunisia and Egypt—and might create similar results in China—was proving to be the beginning of a nightmare for the leaders in Beijing.  Those leaders have not only abandoned their Maoist revolutionary perspectives, but, along with it, they have also shed the famous Mao jacket, which symbolized an era when leaders not only emerged from the masses, but also proudly harped on their proletarian background.

But the Arab awakening’s worst potential enemy is not China, which is scared of any change that rides on the shoulders of the people – even though the great people’s revolution rode into China on the shoulders of the masses.  The potential worst enemies of the Arab awakening are the Western democratic nations that had supported the tyrannical rulers for decades, and that could use the pretext of intervening in Libya or other tactics to forestall the ouster of Qaddafi and the remaining dictators from Arab countries.  A number of them took billions of dollars as “blood money” from Qaddafi and “legitimized” his regime by removing Libya from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism.  Then they started selling arms to Libya, which the crazed dictator is now using against his own people. Who could forget George W. Bush’s “poodle,” Tony Blair’s infamous handshake with Muammar Qaddafi in Libya?

Denouncing the Western response to the Arab awakening, the Guardian’s Seumas Milne was spot-on when he wrote, “The reality is that the western powers which have backed authoritarian kleptocrats across the Middle East for decades now face a loss of power in the most strategically sensitive region of the world as a result of the Arab uprisings and the prospect of representative governments. They are evidently determined to appropriate the revolutionary process wherever possible, limiting it to cosmetic change that allows continued control of the region.”

It appears that Libya is viewed by the governments in Washington, London, Paris, Rome, and elsewhere as “low hanging fruit” for “easy picking.”  It has a lot of high quality oil and low indigenous talent, which will prove to be a cheap source of sustaining the high standard of living in the West through an influx of Western expatriates.  And the best way to get an “inside track” is to oust the dictator and establish a system of sycophant rulers in Libya who will continue to do the West’s bidding.  But such an act will prove to be a death-knell for the great democratic promise of the Arab awakening.

Before anyone gets carried away about any Western participation in enforcing no-fly zones on Libya, it should be understood that one very important pre-requisite of such an action is the bombing of Libyan air defenses.  Imagine the political fallout – especially if there were any civilian loss of life – of such a move so soon after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.  The U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, was quite mindful of that reality when he said, “A no-fly zone would first require taking out Libyan air defenses, an act of war. It would be expensive and difficult to maintain. It would drain resources from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it would put the U.S. at war in a third Muslim country.”  And, I must conclude by quoting another of Milne’s observations about the Arab awakening.  He said, “The Arab revolution will be made by Arabs, or it won’t be a revolution at all.”

In the post-9/11 era, America’s war against terrorism was interpreted as a war against Islam. Usama Bin Laden harped on that issue quite consistently and effectively, and a large number of Muslims believed him.

President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan to retaliate against al-Qaida and its chief sponsors, the Taliban regime.  It was expected that he would focus on constructing that country after ousting the Taliban.  But Bush went after Saddam Hussein’s regime, something he wanted to do soon after he entered the White House. His determination to invade Iraq went blind against all sings of protests and disagreements to the contrary.  Perhaps it was his slowly burning, but intense, rage to eliminate the man who wanted to “kill my Dad”—as he frequently stated—that led him to ignore what was in America’s best interests.

The blood and gore, and enormous instability and turbulence, that stemmed from Bush’s revenge against Saddam created a deeply-rooted and an equally intense hostility and hatred toward the United States.  One has to examine the Pew public opinion polls to get a real sense of how much America was despised in the world of Islam, from Indonesia to Morocco, while Bush sat in the White House.

Bush might have been sincere in insisting that his country has no quarrel with Islam.  But one has to examine the daily flow of briefings that Donald Rumsfeld sent for the President’s reading that were peppered with Biblical quotes.  A contemporary reader of those briefings is left with little doubt that a self-styled born-again Christian president was really on a crusade against the terrorists.

That type of retrospective debate aside, what was working against America during the Bush presidency was that the United States was occupying two lands of Islam:  Iraq and Afghanistan.  Iraq became a hellish place between 2003 and the early part of 2007.  In 2006, there were several powerful voices inside the U.S. urging Bush to “declare victory and get out of Iraq.”

Then came the Sunni protest movement against al-Qaida in Mesopotamia (AQIM) and the introduction of the “Surge” by the U.S. force commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus.  Aside from inserting more troops in Iraq, the United States also introduced a new counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine.  That doctrine became a success, largely because it was supported by the Sunni insurgents—also known as the Sahwa or the “Sons of Iraq” movement.

That reality also improved the security situation inside that country.  Still, the hatred of Bush and antipathy toward the United States remained pervasive all over the Muslim world.  It was clear that, even if Bush were to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq, the hatred of Bush and America was not about to dissipate.  A clean break from his administration was necessary before Muslims were to be persuaded that the lone superpower was not fighting a war against their religion.

President Barack Obama has fulfilled that requirement.  The son of a Muslim father, and a person who spent four years of his life in Indonesia—despite the fact that he is a Christian—he has brought an enormous amount of credibility to his office.  Even though, under Obama, the United States is still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, he is believed when he says that his country has no fight with Islam.

President Obama is not part of the white American elites, who read Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis’s contentious books on Muslim and Arab countries and became instant “experts” on Islam and Muslims.  Obama understands the intricacies and multi-dimensionalities related to Islam and the Muslim world, and is not ready to formulate instant judgment. On the contrary, Bush saw the world of Islam through his highly partisan lens of a “born-again” Christian faith.

Obama, also a Christian, does not have the Manichean perspectives related to the Christian evangelical world.  Muslims sense his sophisticated and respectful view of the world when they hear him speak.  Bush could never convey that sense.  Even when he might have been sincere when he said that his administration is not fighting Islam, his policies conveyed a contrary perspective to most Muslims all over the world.  Obama does not carry that baggage when he speaks to Muslims.  He is much more believable than Bush ever was for the Muslim masses.

Muslims also know that Obama is no Bush.  He is very sincere in his resolve to arrive at a rapprochement with their world.  Obama sent his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to the largest Muslim country, Indonesia.  He declared the resolve to arrive at political understanding with Iran.  He went to Turkey and delivered a major speech in his message of peace and respect toward the Muslim world.  Obama told Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during their first meeting, that he supports a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and he also told him that Israel must stop building settlements in order to reach a peace with the Palestinians.  Obama’s speech in Cairo was yet another historical step in his desire to reach a grand bargain with Muslims.

By speaking candidly to the Muslim world, President Obama has taken a major step in nullifying Bin Laden’s recurring diatribe that portrays a negative image of the United States.  Muslims of the world at large are likely to give enormous credence to Obama and his respectful message of peace and harmony.

The Bin Laden camp understood how potentially powerful Obama’s message from Cairo was likely to be.  Bin Laden decided to issue his own video, in an attempt to preempt the American president.  But Obama’s message had the power of a tidal wave, while Usama’s message barely had the influence of a “storm in a teapot.”

The Muslim world and the United States under Obama are entering a new phase.  The post-Cairo speech period has to be followed up by specific maneuvers toward a number of major Muslim issues where America’s presence and influence are enormous. They include creating new momentums in the peace process in the Palestine, nation-building in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and pushing India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir conflict.   

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It is a sign of the times that the U.S. media still sets the agenda and the tone for different regions of the globe.  Since terrorism has been very high on the U.S. agenda of “hot button” issues, that topic gets enormous coverage, as if other issues matter very little.  Even those who are critical of the U.S. “obsession” with terrorism wait with baited breath to hear and read about the dynamics of activities of terrorist groups. 

I hope I am not exaggerating the description of this trend, but the coverage of terrorism is “sexier” than the arcane discussions of economic turbulence, especially when those downturns cannot be explained with any amount of cogency and coherence.  Neither can terrorism.  But that has not stopped the so-called experts to pontificate about it.  In any event, my thinking was colored by these thoughts when I arrived in Indonesia in October 2008.

What I saw was remarkably different.  Here is a country that is bustling with optimism, even when the daily rat race of getting ahead promises to get more intense than it currently is because of the prevalence of the global economic crisis.  Here is a country that is most relaxed about and is equally proud of its Islamic heritage as well as about its religious pluralism.  Here is a country whose educators are exceedingly preoccupied with the modalities of elevating the standard and capabilities of modern education of their institutions. 

Here is a country whose foreign policy—even though it is not yet driven by the desire to be seen and heard globally—is becoming progressively visible.  Here is a country where the desire to build its armed forces (TNI) is becoming a source of controversy and debate.  However, that debate has not yet caught the intensity that it deserves.  Strangely enough, Indonesians view the TNI as some sort of a rogue element, perhaps because of its highly controversial record in the independence of Timor Leste. 

Still, Indonesia signed a defense deal for the purchase of $1 billion worth of military equipment (including tanks, helicopters, and submarines) from Russia during the September 2007 visit of the then President Vladimir Putin.  The United States watched that development with a mixture of rapt attention and concern.  As much as Washington wants Indonesia on its side, it has shown little evidence of giving that Southeast Asian country the significance that it deserves.  Besides, American arms purchases are heavily embroiled in a political tug-and-pull from the U.S. Congress, which consistently demands that the purchasing countries toe the American line regarding major foreign policy issues.  This reality is not popular inside any Asian country that wishes to remain on the U.S. list of friends.

But the modalities of Indonesia’s foreign policy are not adequately covered in the global media.  At the same time, visiting that country, I felt that Indonesia’s foreign policy specialists whom I encountered are not driven by a sense of self importance that has emerged among the strategic thinkers of India in the past eight or ten years.  Of course, Indonesia, unlike India, is not a possessor of nuclear weapons.  It, unlike India, has yet to emerge as another “rising power” of Asia.  Consequently, it has not yet attracted the kind of attention that is currently showered on India by the world media.  However, a country like Indonesia does not have to acquire nuclear weapons to enhance its regional significance.  It is the largest member of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and a country with the largest Muslim population.  In those capacities, it is likely to enjoy considerable sway in global affairs in the coming years.

In the post-9/11 era—when the United States is having so much trouble in the realm of winning the hearts and minds of Muslims—Indonesia can deftly position itself as a friend of the U.S.  There have to be sizeable side benefits for such a role for that country, especially in the form of economic and military assistance.  However, for some reason, Indonesia has not yet decided to play that role.

From extensive contacts with its young community of strategic thinkers that a short visit can provide, I was not persuaded that Indonesians are paying much attention to have their country become an important actor in the regional politics of Southeast Asia.  Perhaps its newness to democracy is the reason why that country’s strategic thinkers are waiting for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to set an ambitious foreign policy agenda.  One option for them is to start that debate and let the foreign ministry of Indonesia catch up with them.  However, such is not yet the case.

I came away with a sense that Indonesia is at the cusp of making up its mind to assert its significance as a major nation-state of Southeast Asia.  It has already begun to make some strides in the world of Islam, including its offer to participate in the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and Iran.  Considering the fact that Iran has attached ample significance to ties with Indonesia, it has the potential of serving as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran.  If it were to become such an intermediary, that will be a major development in Indonesia’s importance for the U.S. as well as in the world of Islam.