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Don’t tell the Iran hawks in D.C., isolating Iran won’t work. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi this week and the two signed a multitude of agreements.
The most important of which is India’s leasing of part of the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman. This deal further strengthens India’s ability to access central Asian markets while bypassing the Pakistani port at Gwadar, now under renovation by China as part of CPEC – China Pakistan Economic Corridor.
CPEC is part of China’s far bigger One Belt, One Road Initiative (OBOR), its ambitious plan to link the Far East with Western Europe and everyone else in between. OBOR has dozens of moving parts with its current focus on upgrading the transport infrastructure of India’s rival Pakistan while Russia works with Iran on upgrading its rail lines across its vast central plateaus as well as those moving south into Iran.
India is investing in Iran’s rails starting at Chabahar and moving north.
Just Part of the Much-Needed Rail Upgrade Iran Needs to Connect it to India
Chabahar has long been a development goal for Russia, Iran and India. The North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) was put on paper way back when Putin first took office (2002). And various parts of it have been completed. The full rail route linking Chabahar into the rest of Iran’s rail network, however, has not been completed.
The first leg, to the eastern city of Zahedan is complete and the next leg will take it to Mashhad, near the Turkmenistan border. These two cities are crucial to India finding ways into Central Asia while not looking like they are partaking in OBOR.
Also, from Zahedan, work can now start on the 160+ mile line to Zaranj, Afghanistan.
The recent deal between Iran and India for engines and railcars to run on this line underscores these developments. So, today’s announcements are the next logical step.
The U.S. Spectre
As these rail projects get completed the geopolitical imperatives for the U.S. and it’s anti-Iranian echo chamber become more actute. India, especially under Modi, has been trying to walk a fine line between doing what is obviously in its long-term best interest, deepening its ties with Iran, while doing so without incurring the wrath of Washington D.C.
India is trapped between Iran to the west and China to the east when it comes to the U.S.’s central Asian policy of sowing chaos to keep everyone down, otherwise known as the Brzezinski Doctrine.
India has to choose its own path towards central Asian integration while nominally rejecting OBOR. It was one of the few countries to not send a high-ranking government official to last year’s massive OBOR Conference along with the U.S.
So, it virtue signals that it won’t work with China and Pakistan. It’s easy to do since these are both open wounds on a number of fronts. While at the same time making multi-billion investments into Iran’s infrastructure to open up freight trade and energy supply for itself.
All of which, by the way, materially helps both China’s and Pakistan’s ambitions int the region.
So much of the NTSC’s slow development can be traced to the patchwork of economic sanctions placed on both Russia and Iran by the U.S. over the past ten years. These have forced countries and companies to invest capital inefficiently to avoid running afoul of the U.S.
The current deals signed by Rouhani and Modi will be paid for directly in Indian rupees. This is to ensure that the money can actually be used in case President Trump decertifies the JCPOA and slaps new sanctions on Iran, kicking it, again, out of the SWIFT international payment system.
Given the currency instability in Iran, getting hold of rupees is a win. But, looking at the rupee as a relatively ‘hard’ currency should tell you just how difficult it was for Iran to function without access to SWIFT from 2012 to 2015.
Remember, that without India paying for Iranian oil in everything from washing machines to gold (laundered through Turkish banks), Iran would not have survived that period.
Don’t kid yourself. The U.S. doesn’t want to see these projects move forward. Any completed infrastructure linking Iran more fully into the fabric of central Asia is another step towards an economy independent of Western banking influences.
This is the real reason that Israel and Trump want to decertify the Iran nuclear deal. An economically untethered Iran is something no one in Washington and Tel Aviv wants.
The Fallacy of Control
The reason(s) for this stem from the mistaken belief that the way to ensure Iran’s society evolves the right way, i.e. how we want them to, is to destabilize the theocracy and allow a new government which we have more control over to flourish.
It doesn’t matter that this never works. Punishment of enemies is a dominant neoconservative trait.
When the truth is that the opposite approach is far more likely to produce an Iran less hostile to both Israel and the U.S. Rouhani is the closest thing to a free-market reformer Iran has produced since the 1979 revolution. Putting the country on a stronger economic footing is what will loosen the strings of the theocracy.
We’re already seeing that. Rouhani’s re-election came against record voter turnout and gave him a 57% mandate over a candidate explicitly backed by the mullahs.
That said, there is no magic bullet for solving Iran’s economic problems, which are legion, after years of war both physical and economic. Inflation is down to just 10%, but unemployment is at depression levels. It will simply take time.
The recent protests started as purely economic in nature as the people’s patience with Rouhani’s reforms are wearing thin, not because they aren’t for the most part moving things in the right direction, but because they aren’t happening fast enough.
And you can thank U.S. and Israeli policy for that. Trump’s ‘will-he/won’t-he’ approach to the JCPOA, the open hostility of his administration has the intended effect of retarding investment.
The country’s current economic problems come from a woeful lack of infrastructure thanks to the U.S.’s starving it of outside investment capital for the past seven years alongside a currency collapse.
With the JCPOA in place the investment capital is now just beginning to make its way into the country. It’s taken nearly three years for the fear of U.S. reprisal to wear off sufficiently to allow significant deals to be reached, like these.
Last summer President Trump began making noise over the JCPOA and John McCain pushed through the sanctions bill that nominally targeted Russia, but actually targeted impending European investment into Iran’s oil and gas sectors.
It didn’t and France’s Total still signed a $4+ billion exploration deal with Iran. European majors are lined up to do business with Iran but the sanctions bill is stopping them. And Trump is too much of a mercantilist to see the effects. Iran is evil and blocking them is good for our oil companies.
Full Stop.
Don’t forget last year’s announcement of a new Iran to India gas pipeline, in a deal facilitated by Russia’s Gazprom to ensure a part of India’s future energy needs. This was a pipeline project delayed for nearly two decades as the U.S. (and Hillary Clinton) tried to bring gas down from Turkmenistan, the TAPI pipeline, and cut Iran out of the picture.
Both countries have not benefitted from this mutually-beneficial energy trade for more than fifteen years because of U.S. meddling.
India’s Future Is Iran’s
What this summit between Modi and Rouhani ultimately means is that despite all attempts at intimidation and control, self-interest always wins. There are too many good reasons for India and Iran to be allies economically.
And despite our increased military presence in both Afghanistan and Syria beyond all rationality, designed to surround and pressure Iran into submission, in the end it won’t work. India imports 60% of its energy needs.
And while the two countries have been sparring over particulars in developing the important Farzad-B gas field in the Persian Gulf, Rouhani and Modi seem to have created a framework where the two can get a deal done.
On Farzad-B, [Indian Oil Minister] Pradhan said both sides agreed to reove “all the bottlenecks on capex, return (on indina investments) and timeline. We have decided today to reopen and re-engage on all three issues again.”
The oil deal appears to be the most crucial breakthrough since India had reduced Iranian crude imports by a quarter in retaliation for, what officials described as, Iran’s flip-flop over sealing a deal over Farzad-B.
Those words came after Iran cut a better deal for oil exports to India, up to 500,000 more barrels per day, more than doubling 2017’s 370,000 barrels per day.
If Rouhani’s visit can nail down these deals and build further trust between the two countries, he will have moved the ball way down the field for Iran as it pertains to its improving regional relationships with Russia, Turkey and even China.
Because, by getting India to help stabilize Iran’s energy industry and build its transport infrastructure in the east it’s assisting Russia and China’s goals of opening up the former Soviet ‘Stans as well as give them more leverage to craft a security deal in Afghanistan between the Kabul government and the amenable parts of the Taliban.
After India became independence in 1947, the country was mainly regarded as pacifist, because of the Mahatma Gandhi strategy toward the British colonialists. A non-resistance to evil with violence was popular in the various anti-war movements in Western Europe and particularly in the USA during the Vietnam War. However, Gandhi used the concept of Satyagraha (insistence on truth) as an instrument of political struggle that was not based on national and popular Hindu tradition, but on the eclectic mixture of reformist Hinduism, the Upanishads and Jainism philosophy, promoting prohibition of the living creature’s murder, including harmful insects. The post-colonial heritage is important too. In the 1980s, А. К. Коul of the University of Delhi said that the whole concept of international law was based on the rationale and justification of the lawfulness of the Third World enslavement and plunder, which has been declared uncivilized.
Throughout the independent state’s history, within Indian political circles, the fluctuation from secularism to traditionalism was also noticeable. Despite this fact, as Stephen Cohen noted, since Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi’s term and then under the Vajpayee’s Indian People's Party there was antagonism in local cultural issues (the previous ruling Congress was secular, whilst Vajpayee’s Party was culturally nationalistic – Hindutva), the international and defense policy remained the same strategic policy
So, you can extract some conclusions which are quite clear: the Indian hyperrealists can use external forces to justify the escalation of a conflict, while the Nehruvianists would try to reach a consensus, and the neoliberals would resolve issues from the pragmatic (economic) point of view. Russia has a significant advantage. It doesn’t have common borders with India, it has quite a good attitude toward it, that is based on historical experience. India, along with Russia, is part of BRICS, and is ready to participate in the development of new international rules. Russia can interact wisely with the representatives of all three branches of India's strategic culture. The hyperrealists will be extremely interested in Russian weapons, modernization programs and, generally, a wide range of military cooperation. In some cases, Russia can use smart power and send certain signals to countries like Pakistan and China, through the Indian hyperrealists. Parenthetically, Bangladesh and Nepal should not be taken into account, as they don’t have any effect on the regional balance of power. The neoliberal approach can be used from a purely pragmatic point of view: trade, economic, and industrial cooperation. Nuclear energy, as well as research and high-tech, including the aerospace industry, may be quite promising to Russia, and these interests are included in the Nehruvianists’ agenda.
Il ne faut pas sous-estimer les points sur lesquels les deux économies pourraient dès maintenant coopérer, si les circonstances politiques le permettaient. La Russie représente un vaste marché de consommation, que les industries russes peineront à satisfaire, faute de financements et de produits adaptés. Son vaste continent, notamment au delà du cercle polaire, est assez grand pour accueillir des investisseurs japonais. Ceux-ci diminueraient la dépendance actuelle à l'égard de la Chine. En contrepartie, la Russie pourrait fournir des matières premières et de l'énergie dont le Japon manque cruellement. Ses industries militaires qui sont extrêmement compétitives et modernes, pourraient intéresser Tokyo au cas où celui-ci déciderait de se constituer une défense indépendante des forces américaines et de leurs matériels.
Ceci bien évidemment s'est fait sans demander l'accord des Etats-Unis qui expriment actuellement leur fort mécontentement. Nul ne sait si les deux pays réussiront à s'entendre, ni sur quelles bases ceci se ferait. Mais beaucoup d'hypothèses très positives circulent en ce moment.
Era il 5 giugno del 1894 quando un bimbo dagli occhi curiosi e le mani sempre pronte ad afferrare ciò che incontrava sul suo cammino nasceva in un confortevole appartamento di Macerata. Oggi la targa che ricorda la sua persona si trova in corso Cavour ed è facilmente visibile, tuttavia sono in molti ad avere ricordi di un adolescente di via Crispi originale, poco avvezzo a far amicizia, sempre immerso in letture e passeggiate tra le rovine storiche, che aveva attirato l'attenzione su di sé poiché spesso, durante il freddo inverno dell'entroterra marchigiano, usciva in balcone a dorso nudo e si cimentava in difficilissimi esercizi di yoga. Nessuno poteva immaginare che la città di Macerata sarebbe arrivata in un futuro non troppo lontano a dedicargli persino una via e una sede didattica a 
Giuseppe strinse la cinghia che teneva incollati tra loro gli antichi libri e sorrise compiaciuto. Era giunto il momento di lasciare Lhasa dopo che, non molto tempo prima, era davvero riuscito a farsi ammettere – unico uomo di tutta la spedizione – sfruttando una motivazione assai semplice: era buddista. Lo era diventato, in effetti, durante la precedente visita al Tibet nel 1935 grazie all'iniziazione dell'abate di Sakya Ngawang Thutob Wangdrag. Lo raccontò lui stesso nel libro Santi e briganti nel Tibet ignoto, esplicitando anche la convinzione di essere stato un tibetano e di essersi reincarnato nei panni di un esploratore per dare voce e lustro alla cultura di un popolo in continuo pericolo, ancora troppo ignoto al resto dell'umanità. Ed era proprio per questo motivo che Tucci, in quella soleggiata giornata dall'aria frizzantina proveniente dalle vette che si estendevano intorno a lui in lontananza, non aveva nessuna intenzione di restituire l'opera costituita da ben 108 volumi preziosi e di inestimabile valore che il Dalai Lama 
Sebbene Giuseppe Tucci sia oggi considerato unanimamente il più importante tibetologo del mondo e un esploratore, orientalista, professore e storico delle religioni di livello internazionale – contando le numerose università straniere e italiane in cui insegnò, o le prestigiose onorificenze ricevute – la sua figura resta tuttora avvolta nel mistero e nella discrezione. Acclamato nonché profondamente stimato all'estero, Tucci seppe sfruttare anche nel suo paese i legami politici e istituzionali che la sua immensa cultura gli aveva procurato; tuttavia, mai si piegò ai lustri del successo, ai salotti letterari e alla sete di visibilità, restando così un personaggio ben poco noto se si pensa all'estremo carisma che seppe emanare in vita, ma soprattutto alle incredibili missioni che svolse, degne di un'incomparabile genialità.
Le terme « bushidô », utilisé en ce sens serait apparue pour la première fois dans le koyo gunkan, la chronique militaire de la province du Kai dirigée par le célèbre clan des Takeda (la chronique a été compilée par Kagenori Obata (1572-1663), le fils d’un imminent stratège du clan à partir de 1615. L’historien japonais Yamamoto Hirofumi (Yamamoto Hirofumi, Nihonjin no kokoro : bushidô nyûmon, Chûkei éditions, Tôkyô, 2006), constata au cours de ses recherches l’absence, à l’époque moderne, de textes formulant une éthique des guerriers qui auraient pu être accessibles et respectées par le plus grand nombre des samouraïs. Mieux, les rares textes, formulant et dégageant une éthique propre aux samouraïs (le Hagakure de Yamamoto Tsunetomo et les écrits de Yamaga Sôkô) tous deux intégrés dans le canon des textes de l’idéologie du bushidô, n’ont eu aucune influence avant le XXe siècle.
Seen from these vantage points, I have a lot in common with immigrants coming to Germany. Like me, they’re looking for a better life. In contrast to me, however, they believe they can find that better life in Germany.
