Iran–India Relations: The Unfulfilled Strategic Partnership

Introduction

India is one of the emerging world powers and has been at the centre of Iran’s attention in the years since the Iranian revolution. The country has been moving from the sidelines of world affairs to the core using its enormous human resources, vast geography and high economic growth rate. These provide adequate reasons for Iran to look at India not only as an actual trade partner but also as a potential political resort. However, India’s place in the constellation of Iran’s international interlocutors has not been stable and expectations for expansion of cooperation between the two sides have always exceeded the real extent of relations. This situation is better understandable if Indo-Iranian ties are compared with the relations Iran has maintained with other emerging world powers, such as China and Russia. ¹ While these two great Eastern powers have established durable partnerships with Iran and occupied significant places in Iran’s external relations, India has remained at the outer circle of Iranian foreign policy priorities.

This situation is best reflected in the hopes harboured during the second term of Mohammad Khatami’s presidency for establishment of strategic relations between Iran and India and their gradual vanishing. Although the bilateral interest to expand relations had made many to see a strategic partnership or an ‘axis’ on the horizon, the prospects for fulfilment of such a scenario dimmed towards the end of the reformist president’s tenure. This raises the following questions: Why have the efforts to establish a durable partnership between Iran and India failed? Why have Indo-Iranian relations never elevated to something more than ‘cordial and friendly’? The central argument in response is that differences in the direction and objectives of the relations between Iran and India, that is, balancing the United States for the former and cooperation with Iran besides the United States for the latter, have led to failure of the efforts to establish a strategic partnership. The theory of soft-balancing is used to make sense of the complex realities surrounding Iran–India relations. This theory that is a way of interpreting the behaviour of second-tier and regional powers vis-à-vis the United States has abundant explanatory power concerning Iran’s international behaviours, particularly its efforts to reach out to other regional powers. I attribute Iran’s coalescing behaviours vis-à-vis India to its bids to defuse or at least minimise the effects of the US measures to curb Iranian influence. Contrary to Iran, I discuss India’s actions in the international arena including its desire to cooperate with Iran is not meant to affect America’s policies or shrink its global manoeuvrability, but rather driven by its economic, security and domestic political interests.

Conceptual Framework: Soft-balancing and Its Critiques

In the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse, the bulk of the literature in international relations tended to see the United States as the sole international superpower that could advance its interests around the world without significant resistance from other countries. In parallel to this mainstream interpretation of world politics, there existed an alternative theoretical line that predicted formation of coalitions against the United States. Beginning from the very early years after the Cold War, the supporters of this idea called into question the durability of a unilateral world order and argued that as history has proven, this time again coalitions will rise against the superpower and balance of power will be restored within a bilateral or multilateral system. However, one decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this promise was yet to be fulfilled and the United States remained the sole superpower at the beginning of the new millennium. This entrenched further the position of those who had insisted that balancing against the United States is impossible and the unique superpower is so powerful that its superiority cannot be challenged (Pape, 2005, pp. 8–9).

The idea of a continued unilateral world order, however, trembled when a number of second-tier world powers showed resistance against the US decision to invade Iraq in 2003. In theoretical terms, the new rise against the sole superpower was called ‘soft-balancing’ (Pape, 2005). This notion was a reflection of what the second-rated world powers did to dissuade the United States from attacking Iraq and the opposition they showed during the early times of Iraqi occupation. As Paul (2005) argues, besides bandwagoning the United States, buck-passing the burden of the wars and free-riding, the second-ranking world powers also opted for soft-balancing America using soft measures including forming limited diplomatic coalitions and acting in unison in international organisations, particularly the United Nations. Soft-balancing is in fact a response to the status of the United States in the international system after the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the second-tier states have abandoned the policy of hard- balancing against the superior power. This, however, does not mean that they just desperately observe the superpower’s position and have no reaction. The second-tier states have instead gone for non-military options to control the superpower. They have left the hard-balancing aside because they do not have a perception of existential threat from the actions of the world hegemon (p. 47).

Soft-balancing has been the subject of significant debates. The proponents of the notion have presented different definitions that include almost all the measures that a weaker state adopts to influence the actions of the greater one. Some have defined soft-balancing in a way that includes all coordinated actions of the weaker states vis-à-vis the superpower. Robert Pape (2005, p. 10) the most outstanding theorist of soft-balancing defines it as ‘actions that do not directly challenge U.S. military preponderance but that use military tools to delay, frustrate and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies’. Therefore, what distinguishes soft-balancing from hard-balancing is the non-military nature of the coordinated actions to curb and contain the superpower. Apart from that, soft-balancing is built upon the same presumptions that hard-balancing is. All in all, as the realists argue, like hard-balancing, soft- balancing is the joining of a state to a coalition of states to mitigate the adverse or unfavourable policies of the world greatest power.

Soft-balancing has been in most cases used to explain the foreign policy of the great powers of Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany vis-à-vis the United States after the 9/11 incidents. ‘Joseph Joffe explains these powers’ objection of the United States invasion of Iraq as “What was their purpose? To save Saddam Hussein? No, of course not. It was to contain and constrain American power, now liberated from the ropes of bipolarity”’ (Brooks & Wohlforth, 2005, p. 73). In addition, there have been other cases of regional powers’ cooperation, described as soft-balancing. The most important are the Chinese–Russian nexus, Iran–Russia political cooperation and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union.

As Whitaker (2010) discusses, one of the most important shortcomings of the soft-balancing theory is that it is reduced to explanation of the behaviours of only second-tier states of China, Russia and the European powers towards the United States. Therefore, in its orthodox form, the theory has little to say about the smaller and weaker states’ reaction to superpower. The theory then presumes that these small or regional powers just helplessly follow the line of the superpower, seeking the political and economic gains of such obedience. This logic sounds insufficient to explain the way the regional powers react to the superpower in practice, because the very idea of resorting to non-military means to deal with a greater power applies the best to the small or regional powers that can barely think of having any influence on the superpower’s policies using their inferior military might. They instead are very likely to opt for other softer means at hand. In practice, we have observed application of these non-military means by the African states of Libya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Mali, Namibia and Niger. These countries in a certain period of time formed an informal coalition against what they saw as unfavourable in the US policies concerning Africa and briefly presented themselves as a pact of like-minded states. They changed their objecting stance against the United States only when the superpower changed the very policies that they had found destructive to their national interests (pp. 1109–1110).

In fact after 9/11 attacks, many of the regional or small powers became increasingly cautious about the American-forged policies of preventive and pre-emptive wars. Although such policies were directed towards the so-called ‘rogue states’, they were similarly threatening to the general principles of respecting the countries’ territorial integrity and sovereignty. Yeşiltaş (2009) has also used the notion of soft-balancing to explain the Turkish refusal to cooperate with the United States to open a northern front against Iraq in 2003. From his perspective, Turkish policy of soft-balancing is a strategic and structural endeavour to increase the influence of Turkey over the United States using non-military tools. The tree levels of Turkish soft-balancing in his view are diplomatic soft-balancing at the regional level, institutional soft-balancing at the international level and refusal to give access to Turkey’s soil at the national level.

Soft-balancing as a theory of explaining the secondary powers’ reaction to the world superpower has its own critiques. Besides those who reject the possibility of balancing against the United States in a unipolar world in its totality, there are also those who tend to interpret the objections of the regional and global second-hand powers as not a means of balancing against the United States and minimising its manoeuvrability but as reactions driven by other motivations. From their point of view, the second-tier powers’ resistance towards the United States should not be necessarily seen as concerted actions to curb the United States.

In this respect, Brooks and Wohlforth (2005) present four alternative explanations to soft-balancing: economic interests, regional security concerns, policy disputes and bargaining and domestic political incentives. The first motivation of second-tier states refers to their measures that disrupt US policies not out of their will to contain the United States but as usual actions to serve their economic interests. The states’ interests of advancing their economic plans and increasing their national revenue can determine their foreign policy directions regardless of where the superpower stands and what it thinks. Similarly, as the second alternative to soft-balancing, states take measures to boost their security in their surrounding regions. Such policies have little to do with the US hegemony. The great regional powers usually decide to cooperate with each other in response to common threats. Undermining US policies may be a side effect and an unintended consequence of such cooperation. As the third alternative, states may stand in the way of the United States not to weaken it but as a way of showing their opposition to some specific policies that they see as destructive or unfavourable. Their opposition to the United States, then, is not general and in all fields but is over a certain issue and for a limited period of time. At last, standing against some US policies can serve domestic interests of governments. This is particularly relevant when the people of a given country are opposed to some US policies or have a general negative attitude to America (pp. 79–80).

Iran and India: The Unfulfilled Strategic Partnership

The cultural and economic ties between Iran and India have a history of five millennia. Throughout this history, population mobility as well as economic and cultural exchanges have been the hallmark of Indo-Iranian relations. The presence of a Parsi community of more than 70,000 people today in India is a contemporary demonstration of the historical realities. What links Iran and India further is the presence of the second largest Shia community of the world in India with a population of around 25 million people, only second to Iran (Twinning, 2008, p. 3). The commercial, linguistic and artistic exchanges were mainly conducted through the Silk Road that connected the west of Asia to the east of this continent. The socio-cultural links had also transcended to political ties occasionally in a way that Persian was the official language of the Mughals of India. ² Although in some periods of time, like during the British rule, the relations between the two countries plummeted—best manifested in change of the formal language of India from Persian to English—there remained a continued pattern of socio-cultural interconnectedness between the two nations. Such interconnectedness paved the grounds for socio-cultural and religious mutual understanding throughout history.

Today, both countries are great powers in their own regions. Iran is adjacent to five geographical regions of Eurasia, Central, South and West Asia as well as Afghanistan as a buffer zone. Two important world energy hubs of the Persian Gulf and the Caspian basin also neighbour Iran. The fact that Iran is home to the largest Shia population in the world also adds to the geopolitical significance of the country. Similarly, India is also the greatest political, economic and geographic power in South Asia and shares border with almost all countries of the region. Moreover, India’s capacity and potentials to become a great world power have also enabled it to see the Persian Gulf and the Hormoz Strait in its ‘extended neighbourhood’ (Scott, 2009, p. 108).

From the time of India’s independence in 1947, the Indo-Iranian relations have passed through three phases: the first, from India’s independence to the collapse of the Soviet Union; second, from the end of the Cold War to the incidents of 9/11; and third from 2001 until the present time. In the initial years after independence, India found plenty of common grounds for expansion of ties with Iran. However, the pressures of the international system did not give room for much cooperation between the two countries. The bipolar system separated Iran and India from each other and designated each its own role in the emerging world order. Iran joined the Western bloc as a member of the Baghdad Pact, while India inclined East to the Soviet camp. This, however, did not put the two countries against each other and even alleviation of the East–West rivalries in 1960s and 1970s gave an opportunity to Iran and India to embark on some cooperation. Even the Indo-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir did not impact much Iran’s cooperation with India; Iran refused to resort to reciprocal measures against India as Pakistan demanded, and in response benefited from India’s involvement in its development projects (Hathaway, 2004, pp. 8–12).

After the Iranian revolution of 1979 and Iran’s departure from the Western bloc, there grew expectations that Iran and India would usher in a new era of close cooperation. Some even saw it as a triangular pact against the United States with joining of the Soviet Union. However, two factors disrupted such aspirations: Iran’s ‘no East, no West’ slogans and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the occupied Afghanistan, Iran supported the Northern Alliance, while India took the side of the Soviet-installed regime in Kabul. However, the difference did not last long and the two countries grew closer after the soviet drew back from Afghanistan. As Iran continued to support the anti-Taliban alliance of Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, India also turned against the Pakistan-linked Taliban. The two countries’ stances once again converged over an important security matter.

In the 1990s, some other factors added to the Afghanistan security and led to closer Indo-Iranian cooperation. With participation of Russia, the two countries initiated new plans for transit of goods from India to Russia via Iran and Afghanistan. India also provided a reliable export market for Iranian energy and a new way for Iran to circumvent the US sanctions. Until mid-1990s, there occurred important visit exchanges between officials (Pant, 2004, p. 371), legal documents for revitalisation of economic, trade and even security ties were signed and the two countries laid the groundwork for an unprecedented boom in expansion of mutual interactions, particularly after the incidents of 9/11, centred on the new concept of ‘strategic cooperation’. In 2003, during the historic visit of Iranian reformist President Mohammad Khatami to India and his participation in India’s Independence Day as the special guest, the Delhi Declaration as well as the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Strategic Cooperation Roadmap were adopted. ³ According to the latter documents, the two countries had to make necessary preparations to embark on a strategic partnership within a period of 5 years. Even before that, India and Iran had signed an MoU on defence cooperation in 2001. The defence cooperation was inclusive of a range of military cooperation from joint naval exercises and arms trade to India’s participation in installation of warship-repairing facilities in the Iranian port of Chabahar and fixing warplanes and battle tanks (Chansoria, 2012). Such extensive legal, political and technological cooperation was seen, at the time, as an approach towards a strategic coalition between Iran and India in a way that the Rand institute called it ‘Tehran–New Delhi axis’ and included it in the list of top 10 international developments in 2003 (The Atlantic, 2003). Long story short, for a rather short period of time and before heightening of the dispute over the Iranian nuclear issue, Iran–India relations were so constructive and positive that the term ‘alliance’ could be used to describe them.

The zenith of the mutual cooperation, however, did not last much long and despite all diplomatic, political, economic and technical developments, a stable and long-lasting strategic cooperation could not come into being in real terms. As the most important factor affecting the whole Iranian foreign relations for more than a decade, the nuclear issue disrupted the ascending trend of cooperation from mid-2000s. With the change in Iran’s position on the nuclear issue from cooperation to confrontation with the United States and Europe from 2005 onwards, there occurred significant changes in Iran–India relations too. India voted against Iran two times in the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in September 2005 and February 2006. In response, Iran warned to reconsider economic cooperation with India (BBC, 2005). Furthermore, the negotiations over the project for transit of Iranian liquid natural gas (LNG) to India through Pakistan known as ‘the Peace Pipeline’ stalled. In Afghanistan as well, India showed less interest to continue cooperation with Iran and acted more in coordination with the United States. All in all, although India and Iran continued to cooperate in economic and trade realms, due to the nuclear dispute and the rise in the level of tensions between Iran and the West, what could be a strategic partnership never materialised. Until 2011, the amount of Iran’s oil exports to India dropped to only 8 per cent of Indian total oil imports and the contract to export LNG to India with a value of $22 billion was never implemented. Moreover, the Peace Pipeline was impacted by the new deteriorating conditions surrounding Iran’s foreign relations and was finally given a cold shoulder by India (Pant, 2011, p. 63).

Iranian Perception: Soft-balancing against the United States

It was not a coincidence that the talk about Iran–India strategic partnership occurred in a time of mounting US pressures on Iran after the American neoconservatives’ rise to power. Although Iran was subject to the American policy of containment from the very first years after the Iranian revolution, the country was only stigmatised after the Bush administration included it, together with Iraq and North Korea, into the ‘axis of evil’ and introduced it as a threat to the international peace and security. The US invasion of Iraq was alarming for Iran. The rise of Iran’s nuclear programme to the top of the US security agenda led Tehran to suspect that the next target of the US military actions could be Iran. As a countermeasure, Iran adopted policies such as defusing the US containment and based them on boosting its bilateral ties with second-tier great powers. Mitigating the impacts of the US policy of containment and minimising its effects, then, was a policy applied by both Iranian reformist and conservative presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In spite of this, the policy was implemented in two different ways. Khatami tried to balance the United States using the balancing power of the European great powers. On the contrary, Ahmadinejad departed from cooperation with Western countries and, ignoring the possibility of creating and/or maintaining rifts between the United States and the EU, strived to lean Iran towards the Eastern powers. Within the strategy that was later termed ‘look to the East’ and pursued from 2006, towards the end of Ahmadinejad’s tenure, China, Russia and the Southeast Asian countries gradually took the place of the European powers for Iran to balance against the United States. India was the only power that was given similar importance by both Khatami and Ahmadinejad.

During Khatami, Iran tried to de-securitise its nuclear issue by winning the support of the European countries, namely, Britain, France and Germany, while maintaining constructive relations with the Eastern powers. The Tehran declaration ⁴ issued jointly by Iran and the European troika is then the Western version of the New Delhi Declaration and the MOU on Iran–India strategic cooperation as the Eastern mechanisms of confronting US hostile policies. With the rise of the conservatives in Iranian political spectrum from 2006 to 2013, this balanced approach was tilted much towards the East, away from the West. The policy of ‘look to the East’ was designed to grant Iran the opportunity to strengthen its ties with the Eastern states in a way that they act as a balancing tip against the Western powers. The ultimate aim was to enable Iran to survive the pressures applied by the United States to make Iran change its nuclear policy.

Although the look to East policy was historically and geographically justified (Adami, 2010), it was never documented and formalised and contradictory interpretations of its true meaning were presented. Despite this, the founding logic was quite clear: Iran needed to align with the Eastern powers for it to work as leverage against the Western economic sanctions and political pressures. As Akbarzadeh (2014, p. 97) argues, although the idea in general was nothing new in Iranian foreign policy and the country had time and again used its ties with the Eastern powers to cope with the West, look to the East was this time different as it was a bid to expand relations with the East, without opting for détente with the West. This would come as a contradiction to the way Iran strengthened its relations with the Eastern powers as the country was trying to gain the Western attention and confidence during the reform era of Mohammad Khatami. In other words, in the policy of look to the East, it was expected that Iran would relieve itself from détente with the European countries using its expanded ties with China, Russia and the Southeast Asian countries. The policy of look to the East, in fact, used economy as an instrument to advance political objectives (Shafie & Sadeghi, 2010, p. 311).

Like Iran’s policy of détente with the West during which Iran simultaneously laid the foundations of a strong partnership with India, the policy of look to the East similarly placed considerable efforts on having India as a close trade and economic partner besides China and Russia. The continuous significance of India for Iran is, for instance, reflected in the two marine military exercises Iran and India held jointly, one in March 2003 when Iranian government was still run by the reformist Khatami and the other in March 2006 under the conservative government of Ahmadinejad. The latter’s importance is best understandable when seen against the backdrop of growing US hostility against Iran and its concurrence with George Bush’s visit to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. ⁵

This Iranian policy of having India by its side through considerable economic, trade and military cooperation showed signs of success at the initial phases of Iran–US collision over the nuclear issue. At these early stages, India did not support the US initiatives to isolate Iran and make it abandon its nuclear programme. There were even discussions within India’s policy-making circles about the degree to which India should listen to the United States about regional and global matters including Iran’s nuclear programme.

On October 2012, speaking about the oil embargo on Iran, the Indian oil minister, Jaipal Reddy, said that ‘the country will neither reduce nor increase crude imports from Iran’ (Orujova, 2012). Earlier, he had said that despite respecting United Nations sanctions ‘We have cordial relations with Iran and we continue to import oil from them’ (Lamont & Dyer, 2012). Furthermore, in the time of growing sanctions on Iran, India found ways to continue importing oil from Iran. For instance, when the European companies stopped providing insurance to the oil tankers carrying Iranian oil, ‘India offered state-backed insurance to the tankers to resume cargoes from the Persian Gulf nation hit by international trade sanctions’ (Narayanan & Sundaram, 2012).

The overall cooperative reactions of India to Iran’s bids to deepen ties, to the dismay of the United States, mean that Iran could use its relations with India to loosen the ties of containment and relieve itself from some Western pressures. In fact, Iran could make use of its expanded relations with India—together with some other Eastern countries—to advance its nuclear programme despite all US pressures, beginning from George Bush’s attempts to tighten the noose on Iran in early 2000s until the advanced levels of sanctioning Iran by sending the dossier to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Reading the story through the lens of the policy of look to the East, Iran’s endeavour to establish a durable partnership with India is in fact a soft-balancing act against the United States, by which Iran mitigated the consequences of the adverse policies of the world superpower by resorting to non-military tools, including coalescing with an emerging second-tier power.

Indian Perception: Working with Iran beside the United States

In contrast to Iran, India’s welcome of close ties with Iran from early 2000s until the advanced phases of the US efforts to send Iran’s dossier to the UNSC was driven by motivations other than soft-balancing the United States and containing its global influence. Despite initially supporting Iran’s rights to use peaceful nuclear energy, in more advanced phases, India shifted stance and endorsed two times the resolutions against Iran in the IAEA, once the resolution that condemned Iran for breaching its nuclear safeguards commitments in 2005 and the other the resolution that sent Iran’s dossier to the UNSC in 2006. This simply is indicative of the fact that India expanded economic, trade, political and defence relations with Iran for reasons other than balancing the United States. Then, in the analysis of India’s cooperation with Iran, one should observe the fact that such cooperation never took place in a way that implies political confrontation with the United States, particularly in cases that could have challenged the American global status as the world hegemon. The United States sees itself as a protector of the international non-proliferation regime and if a country wants to challenge US hegemony, one way is to question its definition of the threats to that regime. India, however, after going nuclear and being gradually accepted as a legitimate nuclear state, has rarely opposed the United States over the global nuclear and proliferation issues.

When it comes to the issues pertaining to international peace and security, India has little motivation to disagree with the United States, particularly in very sensitive cases like those related to nuclear non-proliferation. Once a revisionist nuclear aspirant, India is now a member of the atomic states club and supports the regime it is a part of. The realities surrounding Indo-US nuclear cooperation also make India act in accordance with the American demands. The United States is controlling India’s nuclear programme through the Hyde Act signed into law in 2006. This gives India limited room to be independent in international nuclear-related matters. The Hyde Act assesses ‘whether India is fully and actively participating in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran’ (Hyde Act, 2006).

The United States was seeing Iran as a test of loyalty in the form of India’s adherence to the nuclear mutual agreements and so expected its complete cooperation against Iran’s bid to acquire advanced nuclear technology. After Indian foreign minister’s visit to Tehran in September 2005, ‘U.S. administration officials warned India that if it fails to cooperate on Iran, the civilian nuclear energy agreement negotiated could be rejected by Congress’ (Weisman, 2005). An American congressman, Thomas Lantos, even threatened India of paying heavy costs in case the country neglects US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme:

We expect of India, which has not been forthcoming…we agree to undertake a tremendous range of path- breaking measures to accommodate India, while India blithely pursues what it sees should be its goal and policy vis-à-vis Iran. There is a quid pro quo in international relations. And if our Indian friends are interested in receiving all of the benefits of U. S. support…we have every right to expect that India will reciprocate in taking into account our concerns…and without reciprocity, India will get very little help from the Congress (Ramachandran, 2005).

Even after India voted yes to the IAEA’s February 2006 resolution, many in the US congress still pressured India to abandon all its military cooperation with Iran. Under such US pressures, India implemented the sanctions imposed on Iran. In May 2012, the Indian oil minister R.P.N. Singh declared that his country will reduce 11 per cent of its oil imports from Iran a week after the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged New Delhi to reduce its engagement with Tehran (Lakshmi, 2012). According to The Wall Street Journal, compared with 2011, India reduced its oil imports from Iran by 12 per cent in 2012 (The Wall Street Journal, 2012). Furthermore, in 2013, India decided to lessen its oil imports from Iran by 15 per cent on an annual basis. In this year, the place of Iran among the countries India imported oil from dropped to the seventh position. In 2012, Iran had been the fourth largest oil exporter to India (Verma, 2014).

All these facts make it clear that India’s intentions of having a strategic partnership with Iran do not imply containing the US power projection, like what the other great powers did in the case of US invasion of Iraq. In fact, India tried to pursue a balanced policy with respect to Iran and the United States, a policy of cooperation with Iran without antagonising the United States. This was understood by some experts of Indian foreign policy as ‘ambiguous in that it appears to cooperate with the United States while searching for legal means to support Iran’ (Alam, 2011, p. 141). Therefore, to have a better understanding of India’s cooperation with Iran to the dismay of the United States, other motivations of its behaviour should be explored. Here, I recall Brooks and Wohlforth’s discussions about the reasons behind the second powers resistance to the actions and decisions of the world superpower. These reasons, as discussed, could be economic interests, regional security concerns, policy disputes and bargaining and domestic political incentives. From these four reasons, at least three of them can help explain India’s behaviour vis-à-vis Iran and the United States.

The first motivation, that is, economic interests, is best applicable when India’s need for energy resources is taken into account. Iran has the second largest natural gas reserves and can provide India with its energy needs. One case under consideration is the Peace Pipeline with a value of $22 billion. Even if this project does not finalise due to the Indo-Pakistani uneasy relations, there are many other descent ways to be considered for transit of Iran’s oil to India. The seabed pipeline is one example. Furthermore, Iran is a natural gateway for India to access Central Asian, Russian and East European markets. Iran is a secure country and has solid infrastructure and therefore is the best channel for India to connect to these regions. The second motivation of India is strategic. Iran has a special place in India’s strategic environment expanding over the Indian Ocean with the Hormoz Strait as its western border. The fact that the US strategy in Afghanistan is more about cooperation with Pakistan—as an actor of significant influence over Taliban—paves some grounds for further Indo-Iranian cooperation (Pant, 2011, p. 65). In South and Central Asia, Iran and India are concerned about expansion of Salafi influence. In 2003, the two countries formed ‘joint working groups on counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics’ (Pradhan, 2011). This demonstrates further how Iran and India have common concerns about the security situation in their surrounding regions.

At the end, it is also important to see India’s moves to have a strategic partnership with Iran and continue cooperation despite US concerns, against the backdrop of domestic Indian politics. For India, close cooperation with Iran is a proof for its independence from the United States. India regards itself a growing regional power with a desire to live in a multipolar world order. Apart from its global geostrategic significance, projecting an independent picture serves India’s domestic interests. In this respect, supporting Iran’s right to have peaceful nuclear technology demonstrates that India does not follow the US line and is adherent to its own principles. This is best seen in the Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs visit of Iran in the midst of US–India negotiations over the terms of the nuclear agreement in February 2007 that would prove that India’s engagement with the United States is taking place based on India’s own interests and concerns (Shukla, 2007). This could be all in response to the objections the Indian government was facing from internal political factions that had seen India’s vote in support of the IAEA resolutions against Iran ‘evidence of the Manmohan Singh Government’s shameful willingness to abandon the independence of Indian foreign policy for the sake of strengthening its “strategic partnership” with the United States’ (The Hindu, 2005).

Conclusion

India is among the emerging world powers with which Iran has established expanded relations. Iran’s bid to engage with India and try to build a strategic partnership has been politically motivated by its interests in defusing the US policy of isolating and containing Iran. In theoretical terms, this can be interpreted as a soft-balancing act. Iran sought deep economic and defensive relations with India from the time the United States included Iran into the ‘axis of evil’ in 2001 and started securitising its nuclear programme. Such efforts were heightened by the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, as a result the bilateral relations improved a lot and the two countries moved towards a strategic partnership. The New Delhi Declaration and the Strategic Cooperation Roadmap were issued and the two countries reached important agreements on energy and mutual defence. Indo-Iranian joint military exercises as well as Iran’s natural gas export contracts were signs of success for Iran’s policy of engagement with India with the aim of alleviating US pressures. The two countries’ interests were so woven together that India resisted against the initial US initiatives to sanction Iran. India continued importing oil and took a number of measures to remove obstacles before trade with Iran. This, however, could not sustain as US pressures on India to implement Iran sanctions mounted.

Observing the trend of the two countries’ relations from early 2000s demonstrates that there is a difference in perceptions from the concept of strategic cooperation between Iran and India. For Iran, strategic partnership was meant to secure India’s cooperative stance in the course of confrontation with the United States. For India, the strategic partnership was to serve its economic interests, cope with regional security challenges and meet some domestic political needs. India’s limited resistance towards the US pressures to sanction Iran indicated that its cooperation with Iran—that at times came as dismay to the United States—was not an act of soft-balancing aimed at containing the United States and affecting its global agenda. On the contrary, as the opponents of the theory of sot-balancing argue, India cooperated with Iran to simply serve its economic interests, improve its regional security and assuage the discomfort of its domestic opposition which was critical of close Indo-US relations.