159It is, however, premature to write off the US domination in the Middle
East, especially in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. Though Russia and
China have made forays, their role and influence are limited. Their influ-
ence is more visible in the Syrian crisis and less over Iran. Despite its bon-
homie with both these countries especially over the nuclear controversy,
Iran does not visualize any role for these or other extra- regional players in
the Gulf region, which it considers to be its exclusive sphere of influence.
Thus, diminishing American influence in the Gulf is accompanied by the
inability of any other country or constellation of powers to replace
Washington.
It is under such challenging times, India has been increasing its political
engagements with the Middle East and Gulf region. The emergence of
Indo-US strategic partnership consecrated in the nuclear deal in 2005
came in parallel to lessening American interest and influence in the Middle
East. Russia is seeking to expand its influence through its traditional arms
sales diplomacy as manifested in its agreements with pro-Western coun-
tries like Egypt and Turkey while China is trying to consolidate its eco-
nomic ties through the One-Belt-One-Road initiative. For its part,
Pakistan is trying to flag its Islamic brotherhood as its time-tested approach
towards the region.
Thus, without being able to piggyback on the American influence,
India will have to navigate competition from other powers, especially
Russia, China and Pakistan in forging closer ties with the region. This
would be extremely difficult and challenging vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia as
other players are equally attractive for Riyadh and competitive for India.
New Delhi would have to compete with Russia’s energy capabilities,
China’s economic strength and Pakistan’s Islamic credentials as it tries to
woo the al-Saud.
Iranian Nuclear Deal The decade-long controversy over the Iranian
nuclear programme led to the political settlement in the form of the nuclear
agreement finalized in June 2015 (Kumaraswamy 2016 ). Concluded
between Iran and the P5+1 powers the JCOPA placed restrictions upon
Iran’s nuclear installations and brought them under the IAEA inspection.
The deal was approved by the UNSC in January 2016 and paved the way
for the removal of multilateral sanctions and the dilution of some of the
unilateral Western sanctions (Shank 2015 ; Perkovich 2016 ).
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