now visible and effective players in US politics and in the making
of US foreign policy.
Since1975, the State Department has been reorganized in ways
that take into account the increased significance of India and the
South Asia region in US foreign policy concerns. The 1975 report
to the National Commission on the Organization of the
Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy recommended
separating South Asia from the Near East and locating the region
in a separate South Asia Bureau. On August 24, 1992 a Bureau of
South Asia Affairs was created as a result of Congressional
legislation.
We note too that the South Asian Affairs Bureau as
well as the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau have created an Office of
Regional Affairs that, hopefully, tries to promote intra-regional
coordination.
Another arena of change has been America’s relation with
South Asian states since the 9/11, 2001, attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon. As we have noted, during the Cold
War US administrations pursued a global policy of containment.
responsible for the deaths of as many as 2000 Muslims in 2002 following
the event at Godhra waged an email and lobbying campaign against his visit
that eventuated in the United States Government denying him a visa under
US Immigration and Nationality Act. The Act prohibits anybody who was
“responsible for, or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe
violations of religious freedom from entering the US.”
6
.
The “country desk” Offices in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs as
of August 2005 were: Afghansitan; India, Nepal and Sri Lanka; and Pakistan
and Bangladesh. In addition to the Office of Regional Affairs there is also a
fifth Office of Public Diplomacy.
4
Convention