Madam Secretary and India

This past week, President-elect Obama introduced Hillary Clinton as the top diplomat in the country as his nominee for the Secretary of State position.  Hillary’s first looming task as State Secretary is the crisis in South Asia. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday said that instability in that region poses "the single most important threat against the American people."  Terrorists killed six Americans in Mumbai during the attacks, and Obama’s team’s job is to investigate and make sure the finger pointing does not go out of control over the next few weeks. They need to be unbiased and not blame Islam or Pakistan straight off the bat. What really complicates the whole situation now is Defense Secretary Hillary Clinton’s ties with the Indian community abroad and in the United States. During her eight years as a senator and during her run as a presidential candidate, Clinton toured India, met with officials and talked with Indian businessmen. Her campaigns for both the Senate and the Presidency were profited by the donations of Indians both here and there. As a senator, Hillary Clinton was a co-chair of the Senate India Caucus in Congress. Many of the Indian businessmen who donated to the Clinton Senate campaign also donated to hubby Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation. Many Pakistanis feel this gives them a clear disadvantage against their nuclear rival to the east when it comes to U.S. foreign relations under Obama. The Indian-American community in the U.S. was thrilled by her nomination from the President-Elect, “Senator Clinton will continue the close relationship between the United States and India that started with the Clinton administration and has progressed in the Bush years…we're very lucky that we have in Senator Clinton someone who is already well-versed on one of the more important countries and emerging economies in the world" said Varun Nikore, founder of the Indian-American Leadership Initiative. Indo-American relations were strengthened under the forty-second president, the Clinton administration embraced India as a major power and market during the 90’s. Clinton’s preferential treatment of India over Pakistan is still fresh in the eyes of many Pakistani officials. It’s evident from President Clinton’s 2000 Asian trip, when he spent five days in India and seven hours in Pakistan. Obama and Clinton must not take sides and should examine the attack with patience and impartiality. If the regime looks to work with this highly volatile area of the world and win the War on Terror they must not jump to conclusions, because simply jumping the gun and playing the blame game would be repeating our past administrations’ mistakes.