Biden’s nominee for envoy checks all of India’s boxes
United States (US) President Joe Biden’s nominee for envoy to New Delhi should be on his way soon now that he has finally had his confirmation hearing, this Tuesday, more than three months after his nomination was announced. Eric Garcetti, the nominee, is currently mayor of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States (US). But this office does not capture his clout in the Democratic Party and Biden’s world.
Fifty-year-old Garcetti checks every box on an apocryphal scoresheet that India has long used to evaluate men and women sent as US ambassadors. The top box on the scoresheet is “proximity to the White House” — someone who can call up the White House and speak to the President or a senior aide and not have to go through the state department bureaucracy. It has gone unchecked mostly, to rolling grief in New Delhi.
US ambassadors are either officers of the foreign service or political appointees drawn from the serving President’s circle of donors, allies and fallen allies (allies who lost in a palace dust-up). Foreign service members are professional diplomats, political appointees can be lawmakers from the US House of Representatives or the Senate, businesspersons, campaign workers and supporters.
Garcetti belongs to the latter, of political appointees. But he is not just any appointee. He served as one of four co-chairs of Biden’s presidential campaign committee, which among other things was tasked with picking a running mate for Biden. After Biden’s election, he was one of the five co-chairs of the inauguration committee, usually composed of people in the president-elect’s inner orbit.
Garcetti was widely expected to land a cabinet berth, possibly transportation or housing and urban development. But he came under intense criticism from within the Democratic Party for his handling of sexual harassment allegations against a top aide. He missed the cabinet, but his name continued to be bandied about for high-profile positions.
Garcetti picked India. He is expected to be confirmed and will be on his way shortly if and when, however, Republican senator Ted Cruz lifts his blockade of Biden’s ambassadorial nominees. He is agitating for sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe.
While Garcetti has vowed to “doubledown on our efforts to strengthen India’s capacity to secure its borders, defend its sovereignty, and deter aggression” — music to ears on Raisina Hill — he also plans to raise thorny issues such as the Indian purchase of the Russian S-400 air defence missile system, human rights and democratic values, as he said at his confirmation hearing.
Comparisons are odious, but Garcetti’s political clout and proximity to the White House put him ahead of most of his recent predecessors. Also, he is widely expected to run for White House, given his credentials: Hispanic descent, top Democratic operative, a top operative in a presidential campaign, Rhodes scholar at Oxford and alumnus of London School of Economics.
India might be on to something here, long-term.