President Donald Trump’s decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announce the plan of shifting the US embassy from Tel Aviv to this new destination, highlights the change in the profile of West Asia because of the environ of disruption prevailing in the wider Muslim world. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted a judicious foreign policy in the unipolar world order, wound down the ideological baggage of the era of non-alignment and focused on building relations with different countries on the basis of mutual economic benefit and convergence on security matters. India’s response to the Jerusalem issue in the UN General Assembly is meant to reiterate our stand that while Jerusalem’s status should be linked to the final settlement of the West Asian peace process this would not come in the way of India developing the best possible relations with Israel as a special friend.

The world community is finally seeing the damage caused to the global peace by the rise of Islamic militancy, which is now a long-range threat to all those who believed in democracy, since it legitimises terrorist violence for settling political issues. Islamic terror uses faith-based motivation that accounts for the fanatic do or die type of commitment to the ‘cause’, displayed by the Jehadis. It is true that during the Cold War the West encouraged the militants of Hasan al-Banna's Ikhwanul Musalmeen (Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt and Syria and its ideological successor, Jamaat-e-Islami of Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi in South and South East Asia to oppose the pro-Left leaders like Nasser, Hafiz Assad and Sukarno. The culmination of this saw the US-led West collaborating with Islamic militant outfits like LeT and HuM operating under the foster care of Pak army-ISI establishment, in conducting the anti-Soviet armed campaign in Afghanistan. This was the first war in the modern times that was allowed to be run on the slogan of Jehad. The radical Al Qaeda-Taliban combine also joined in to push that combat ahead and later made their way to power in Afghanistan through the post-Soviet turmoil-ridden phase with the active support of Pakistan.

It is from there on that Islam-based terror developed in two different streams - one of the radicals of Al Qaeda-Taliban and later of ISIS umbrella who considered the US as their prime enemy and wanted the Muslim world to revive the Caliphate and the other including militants of the outfits like LeT and HuM who were mentored by Pakistan-Saudi Arabia group and who advocated an Islamic rule that considered ‘Quran as the best constitution’ but did not want to antagonise the West. Ouster of Taliban from Kabul, the cataclysmic incident of 9/11, launch of ‘war on terror’, attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq and the outbreak of pitched battles between Al Qaeda-Taliban and NATO and between IS and US in these two respective zones - all created a new global scene of conflict. However, while the ‘war on terror’ was on, the LeT and HuM as also the JeM were left to be pressed into action by the Pak army-ISI to replicate the Afghan Jehad in Kashmir and settle scores with India.

The scene in West Asia is currently marked by three major internecine confrontations within the umbrella of Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), all in the atmospherics of religion-based militancy that has impacted the Muslim world at large. First, Islamic radicals of Al Qaeda-Taliban, ISIS and their affiliates - who carry the Wahabi legacy, are battling the West and also taking it out on the Shiites for ideological and historical reasons. They also target the Muslim regimes that collaborated with the US such as Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf. The Saudis, meanwhile, tried to compete with the ‘revivalist’ Wahabis by showing off their Salafi fundamentalism to the Muslim world but it is the political contradiction between them and the Islamic radicals on the approach to the US, that keeps up the internal battle lines in the Arab world. The conflict of Saudi Arabia with Yemen represents this.

Secondly, the anger of Saudis with Qatar is traceable to the former’s distrust of Muslim Brotherhood that was sheltered by the latter. Muslim Brotherhood as mentioned earlier is a forum of Islamists that presses for an Islamic rule based on Sharia and has a history of being on the right side of the US, in phases. It is hostile to any ‘dictatorial’ or autocratic dispensation in the Muslim and Arab world. It is significant that the first response of Obama administration to the dethroning of President Husne Mubarak of Egypt by the Brotherhood in 2011 was one of approval. The Saudi-Qatar conflict basically is the outcome of a determined bid of Saudi Arabia to dominate the OIC on its own terms. The religious overlordship of Saudi Arabia on the plea of custodianship of Mecca and Madina does not endear it to all in the Muslim world.

The third dimension of internal conflict in the Muslim world is linked to the Israel factor. Both Sunni extremists of Fatah and Hamas and the Shiite fundamentalists ruling Iran, are inimical to Israel even as they both are daggers drawn between them. India has done well to approach Israel and Palestine in a bilateral spirit. It would suit India to have the Palestine issue settled in a manner that does not let it come in the way of India-Israel friendship.

West Asia today is torn apart by contradictions precipitated by the rise of Islamic radicals that represented the forces of ‘revivalism’ in the Muslim world. They despise the US and want the Muslims to go back to the fundamentals of Islam of the early Caliphs. It is farsighted of India to deal with individual Muslim countries and not view them as a block. Our main challenge is to find a way of affectively dealing with a hostile Pakistan, which had enjoyed a prime position in OIC and successfully used Saudi Arabia as a shield to continue pretending to be a US ally in spite of the exposure of its duplicitous role in the ‘war on terror’. President Trump’s disapproval of the Pak regime for not closing down the safe havens of terrorists on its soil and not taking action against Hafiz Sayeed - a UN-designated terrorist carrying a $10m award on him - had apparently gone unheeded. To India’s great satisfaction the US President has begun the new year by terminating further financial aid to Pakistan for the latter’s failure to deliver on countering terror. India has to monitor the situation on the subcontinent very closely after this development. Pakistan army-ISI combine is becoming recalcitrant towards US responses and evidently flaunting its collaboration with China on Afghanistan to show off its geo-political strength.

For India it is a matter of concern that Pakistan’s deep state is likely to keep up its cross border terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere using LeT - known to be a creation of Saudi Arabia funded Dawa wal Irshad of Lahore - and JeM besides HuM, as its instrument. Pak ISI is also using the opportunities it can see for generating Islamic militancy in states like Assam, West Bengal and Kerala by playing the communal card. India’s treatment of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran must rest on the principle of bilateralism. Our foreign policy on Pakistan should be strong and nuanced enough to convince the world that India was having to deal with a rogue state in the neighbourhood.

(The writer is former director of Intelligence Bureau)