Why India's Chabahar Sanction by US Days After Saudi-Pak Talks Can be a Crucial Blow for its Geopolitics| OPINION

Despite birthday wishes pouring in from all corners of the world on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 75th birthday recently, India seems to fining itself increasingly isolated in the world, especially in the wake of US President Donald Trump's tariff tantrums.And now, it seems Trump may be keen on waging geopolitical battles as well. A day after Pakistan signed a mutual defence treaty with Saudi Arabia, Trump played a move on the regional chessboard. The US government removed the exemptions or waivers from American sanctions that were given to India to manage the geopolitically significant Chabahar Port in Iran.India had received the waiver in 2018 and its ostensible purpose was for it to sidestep Pakistan and send critical supplies to Afghanistan, where US defense forces were located to chasten the Taliban.In one fell blow, India’s ambitions to become an influential regional player from South Asia to Central Asia has begun to look bleak. Chabahar port was the gateway to that aspiration as well as a pathway to explore a world severed by the bloody partition that divvied up the subcontinent into India and Pakistan. Saudi–Pakistan's NATO-Style Defence Pact Raises New Nuclear Concerns for IndiaInterestingly, Chabahar was excluded earlier from sanctions, at a time when Trump was first unveiling his politics on US and the world.This writer was the first journalist to visit Chabahar after the trilateral arrangement of Iran with India and Afghanistan in 2018. Then, too, Iranian authorities had major misgivings about the pace at which India was involving itself in the project. Though they were excited by the possibility of two old civilisations coming together in Chabahar, the Iranians were troubled by the slow pace of progress and Indian apprehensions about US intentions. It seems that the Indians were right in not trusting the Americans, given the manner in which the deep sea port in the sea of Oman was excluded from American sanctions. Nevertheless, I found the people, and the Iranian media, to have great excitement for President Trump. There was relief that Hillary Clinton had lost the elections because, in their reckoning, she was openly backing Israel. This display of effervescence was short-lived, though, as the US overturned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran's nuclear deal with the P5 Plus One nations, once again turning the West Asian nation into a pariah state.India got exemptions from US for the Chabahar port sanctions, ostensibly to keep supply lines open from Iran to Afghanistan and avoid violence-wrecked Pakistan. India was also disallowed by US to buy Iranian oil. These were not UN-mandated sanctions, but bilateral ones. In deference to its relationship with US, India stopped lifting crude from the West Asian nation. This became the reason why India remained oil-dependent on US allies and chose to buy crude from Russia when sanctions were imposed on it after its war against Ukraine. Israel and the US May Have Accelerated Iran’s Nuclear AmbitionsThough India is not likely to explore ways to protect its investment in Chabahar, Iran, there is great merit in persisting on keeping its ties with this region alive. Though as a people, Indians are not so geography-minded, a visit to Chabahar can be an eye opener. My driver was bubbling with excitement when he learnt that I could speak in his language, which he called “Urdu”. He drove me from a Second World War vintage airfield at Konark to Chabahar and merrily chatted in Hindustani - thus avoiding any Iranian from comprehending what we were conversing. Apart from the language affinity in this Sistan-Baluchistaan region, the management of Chabahar allowed India to get a legitimate toehold in Iran to reach out to most of the countries that were part of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).Further, it allowed India to make its investment in Chabahar viable by also joining the International North South Corridor (INSTC), which was conceived in 2000 and wove Iran, India and Russia to work towards a corridor that cuts down the travel time taken to ferry cargo to less than what an Indian ship would spend while going through Suez canal. India would like to use this corridor, through Bandar Abbs, while hoping its actions will not attract US sanctions, which are unlikely as Russia ad Iran, both are in the arc of sanctions. India’s Iran Dilemma: Chabahar Port in Crosshairs of a West Asian RealignmentWhat is particularly galling for India is the timing of the withdrawal of Chabahar exemptions: they came a day after Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a defence pact, where they committed that an attack on one would be considered an attack on the other. This was a cruel blow to India, which has tried to woo the Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Sultan for more than 10 years.Saudi Arabia will give $6 billion to Islamabad plus approximately Rs 1 lakh to each of the 35,000 Pakistan army soldiers that guard the Saudi border. Riyadh, it seems, expects a military invasion either by Israel or Iran.The defence pact threw India in a serious conundrum - what to do with its growing ties with Saudi, with whom it is in agreement to build the connectivity corridor, IMEC, and also buys 18-20 percent of all its oil needs.The questions that were traded in Indian think tank circles was this: in the event of an attack by India against Pakistan like it happened earlier in May this year, will Saudi attack New Delhi or supply its weapons and military fighters to Pakistan? No ready answers were available.This pact, which has the approval of US, which seemingly did not want to be a protector of the Gulf countries any more, has diminished India substantially. There are rumours that more OIC countries will have Pakistan as a protector now, which will diminish India’s status and restore Islamabad’s post-partition profile as a country tasked to police the gulf countries. Olaf Caroe’s book, 'Wells of Fire’ makes it clear what British colonialists expected from partition and its offspring, Pakistan. A day later, US withdrew the privileges that Trump had extended to India on Chabahar as it was supplying goods to Afghanistan where US troops were stationed. This exemption allowed many things, including sidestepping Pakistan and shrinking its profile, and restoring India’s ambitions to to go beyond Pakistan to Central Asia severed due to partition. These two steps firmly indicate that Trump is backing Pakistan against India. Much to India’s chagrin, Prime Minister Modi’s hopes that his meeting with Chinese President XI Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tianjin would have chastened Trump pursuit to target India, were severely dented. Trump will meet Xi Jinping soon, but no luck for us. India is learning what it's like to live in a friendless world of US sanctions.(Sanjay Kapoor is a veteran journalist and founder of Hardnews Magazine. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India and its neighbours, and West Asia. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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India’s West Asia Dream Meets Harsh Reality in Chabahar Amid US Sanctions

Coming after the Pak-Saudi treaty, the move firmly indicates Trump is backing Pakistan against India.

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