India is now evacuating U.S. citizens from Yemen. Yes, Yemen, a country overrun by an Iranian-backed militia, or as U.S. President Barack Obama likes to call it, "a counterterrorism success story."
In a statement issued on April 9, 2015, the U.S. State Department asked the remaining U.S. citizens in Yemen to contact the Indian Embassy in Sana'a or approach the Indian Navy ship in the port of Aden. According to latest figures, India helped 1,000 foreign nationals from 41 countries to escape from Yemen.
Two weeks ago, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi left the country on a boat from Aden, as the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi militia consolidated their control of the country, bringing a fourth Arab capital under the direct influence of Iran.
If India's rescue operation is a testament to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's success in turning India around, it is also an indictment of President Obama's foreign policy.
Less than a year ago, Prime Minister Modi was elected to lead the country after a decade of a stagnant economy and rising lawlessness. Under Modi's leadership, India has seen a rise in foreign investment; in 2014, the country's economic growth was 7.5%, higher than that of China.
The mainstream media now begrudgingly acknowledges Modi's success -- the same media that tried to smear his candidacy during the 2014 elections and, when everything else failed, dubbed him "anti-Muslim."
Prime Minister Modi is rebuilding the Indian economy by reducing government spending, deregulating industry, easing labour laws, and cutting taxes on the middle-class and businesses -- quintessential American values.
President Obama on the other hand inherited a country built on values in which he doesn't believe. Only a "fundamental transformation" could reconcile him with his country.
The geopolitical vacuum that President Obama is leaving behind has emboldened expansionist regimes and destructive ideologies -- from the Mediterranean to the South China Sea.
Indians of my father's generation still fondly remember that President Kennedy had come to India's aid to end the Chinese war of aggression in 1962. In order to deter China from escalating the conflict, he dispatched a U.S. aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal, in an apparent plan to deploy U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines.
As a result, China halted the offensive and apologized for the "misunderstanding."
But those were different times and those were different presidents -- presidents who would not have idly watched their envoy slaughtered, traded the enemy's top brass for runaway soldiers, or outsourced the safety of U.S. citizens in war-ravaged foreign lands.
That the Obama Administration was not going to rescue stranded U.S. citizens in Yemen should not come as a surprise. The Administration watched as Iranian-backed militias disarmed U.S. Marines and seized embassy vehicles, before the diplomatic staff was let out of the country in early February.
However, the Indian government and defense forces deserve due credit for conducting a well-organized rescue operation.
Prime Minister Modi faces daunting challenges as he sets about modernizing India. The economic success of his political agenda once again proves that good old capitalism and industrialization are still the only way to lift millions of people out of poverty.
As President Obama refuses to lead the Free World, other world leaders are rising up to speak for it -- Canada's Stephen Harper, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and now India's Narendra Modi.
