Should it support a "pre-emptive" attack against Iraq as part of U.S President George W Bush's 'global war against terrorism', which it zealously and unconditionally welcomed a year ago? Or should it maintain a distance from anti-Iraq military and diplomatic moves and pursue a relatively independent course?

On the one hand, New Delhi has good relations with Baghdad. Traditionally, it has been one of the biggest buyers of Iraqi oil. On the other, it also fervently seeks a "strategic partnership" with the United States, one that it sees as crucial to advancing its interests in South Asia that include isolating its rival Pakistan.

Complicating the choice are two other factors. Iraq is one of the few countries of the world to support India's stand on Kashmir.

But Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is also under pressure from domestic right-wing lobbies to overcome what they describe as "stagnation" in Indo-U.S. relations, by enthusiastically supporting America's new strategic doctrine of "pre-emption".

How the government resolves the dilemma remains clouded in confusion.

But it is abundantly clear that its dilemma will become increasingly acute if the United States moves toward extending the "anti-terror" war to Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein.

Dealing with the "threat" posed by Iraq is the only foreign or strategic policy issue on which the Vajpayee government and the U.S. Republican administration -- both conservative in orientation -- have differed significantly ever since Bush came to power.

Otherwise, New Delhi has strongly supported some of Bush's most aggressively unilateralist moves, especially those targeting arms control agreements on weapons of mass destruction. Such support militates against India's own long-standing positions.

For instance, India was the first state in the world, not excluding America's most loyal European allies, to welcome Bush's May 2001 speech announcing 'Star Wars' or ballistic missile defence (BMD) plans -- which New Delhi had opposed for a quarter-century.

Once a non-aligned country, India also found itself on the same side as the United States in opposing the landmines ban treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which the United States signed, unlike India, but has refused to ratify). Both governments oppose tooth and nail the creation of the International Criminal Court.

India's policy shift away from non-alignment into the U.S. camp is explained by four factors.

These are the policy disorientation after the Soviet Union's collapse, rightward shifts in Indian society and politics with the rise to power of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India's attempt to "normalise" itself after the opprobrium it attracted with the May 1998 nuclear tests, and the BJP's very special pro-American orientation.

This leaning has been reinforced by the party's uncritical support for corporate globalisation abroad and for neoliberal policies domestically.

Indian leaders had hoped that the new "strategic partnership" between the New Delhi and Washington -- two "natural allies" and great "democracies" -- would politically marginalise Pakistan. After the May 1998 nuclear tests, Islamabad faced aid withdrawal, capital flight and economic near-collapse.

This would greatly help India end "cross-border terrorism" -- violence by militant groups, supported and armed by Islamabad, especially in disputed Kashmir.

Then came Sep. 11. Pakistan under President Gen Pervez Musharraf made a quick U-turn on its Afghanistan policy, ditched its creation, the Taliban, and became the U.S. critical ally in the war to dislodge the al-Qaeda-Taliban regime.

This caused much heartburn in New Delhi, which instead advocated an "alliance between democracies" to combat "terrorism".

It has since made the most of being the biggest victim of "terrorism" and tried to win U.S. support in fighting Pakistan. In December, it launched a huge mobilisation at the Pakistan border with 700,000 troops -- in Rambo-style retaliation for an attack on its Parliament that it blamed on Islamabad.

The United States has expressed verbal sympathy for India's position. It did not ask Delhi to withdraw troops. It has counselled restraint -- pulling India and Pakistan back from the brink of a war that has a distinct potential for nuclear escalation.

The resentment caused in New Delhi by lack of full-throated U.S. support is compounded by Washington's reluctance to approve the sale of critical Israeli weapons to India in spite of its tacit support for Ariel Sharon's aggressive anti-Palestinian policies, and departure from its traditional stance.

The crisis over Iraq amid this situation has to an extent polarised Indian policy-makers and shapers.

On one side are those who would like to return to India's "traditional" positions on international relations, with an emphasis on multilateralism and the primacy of the U.N. Security Council, and opposition to the use of force as the preferred method of resolving conflict. They would like New Delhi to distance itself from outright war on Iraq, or at least be "non-committal" on it.

On the other side is the obsequiously pro-U.S. lobby, which wants India to become America's pro-active ally in anti-Iraq operations.

This lobby argues that the "realities of power" dictate that India should abandon multilateralism and fall in line with the United States. This lobby is not unanimous in buying the U.S. argument that Iraq already possesses weapons of mass destruction or is about to get them. But it is united in asking that New Delhi declare its support to the "pre-emption" doctrine.

This is the first time that such views have been openly aired, for example, in the Indian media -- an sign of how the environment has changed since 1991 when it was hard to find any commentator even vaguely sympathetic to the U.S. official viewpoint.

The "multilateralist" view, opposing an attack on Iraq, may well prevail over the pro-America lobby in the short run at the level of proclaimed positions in multilateral forums. But if the United States moves into full-fledged war, then what India does, or is asked to do, will matter more.

In 1991, India cautioned against the Gulf War and then temporarily maintained relative neutrality. But within a few months, it was prevailed upon to indicate its support for the war by refuelling U.S. warplanes. The refuelling was not a strategic necessity, but a political move.

It seems unlikely that a much more compromised India will be able to withstand U.S. pressure this time around.