157parts of them. Territorial expansion at the cost of their neighbours has
been a mainstream political discourse in many Arab and non-Arab coun-
tries and some of them even sought to alter the status quo through wars
or unilateral actions.
Seen in this context, one could identify four significant issues which
have dominated the Middle Eastern landscape in the 2000s and have
partly contributed to or enhanced Modi’s engagement strategy.
Diminishing Influence of the US The most profound development of the
early twenty-first century has been gradual and, one might say, an unstop-
pable decline of the American economic and hence strategic power. Only
a decade earlier, the US influence was seen unquestionable and enduring
to the point that some even depicted it as the ushering in of an ‘American
century,’ and a ‘unipolar world’ was a foregone conclusion. The disinte-
gration of the USSR and the ‘demise’ of the state-controlled socialist eco-
nomic model led to the chorus of ‘end of history’ and the heralding of the
unquestionable ascendance of the free market economy under democratic
liberalism. All these hopes and dreams were buried with the destruction of
the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001.
If the largest terror attack in history not only jolted the domestic con-
fidence, the reaction of the Bush Administration precipitated the down-
ward sliding of the American power, preponderance and international
influence. The two ill-planned military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq
proved to be costly both in human and in material terms and exposed the
hollowness of the strategic thinking in Washington. Far from enhancing
the American power, these interventions eroded its strategic influence and
raised doubts over its decision-making process. The accusations of weap-
ons of mass destructions levelled against Iraq in the United Nations proved
to be false as intelligence assessments were tailored to the political demands
of the Bush Administration.
The September 11 attacks also exposed the prolonged benign American
approach towards religious extremism supported and propagated by its
friends and allies. Under the ambit of energy security for itself and its
European allies, various US administrations have adopted Nelson’s Eye
policy towards the negative impact of Wahhabi Islam. The Afghan Arabs
returning to their home countries in the early 1990s was not a wakeup
call. At the same time, the American economy was jolted by the crisis in the
aviation industry and the subprime mortgage crisis, eventually resulting in
TRANSFORMATION