Observers and several officials within the government are against India's criticism of the United Nations Security Council over the Iraq crisis.

"The criticism should have been directed at America and its allies, not at the UN Security Council," a senior official said, expressing his dissent with the external affairs ministry's statement on Tuesday.

The statement had said that India was "deeply disappointed by the inability of the Security Council to act collectively, specially the failure of the permanent members to harmonise their positions on Iraq."

In fact, many feel that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's statement on Tuesday was "more in tune with India's traditional stance".

During the Gandhi Peace Prize distribution in Delhi, the prime minister had criticised the US' ultimatum. "When we are talking about the Gandhi peace prize, elsewhere in the world ultimatums are being given and people are being thrown out," he said.

Retired diplomat K P Fabian said India must stand by international institutions because "law and order are required not for the strong”, but for the weak.

He said India would "have been able to clearly speak out on an anti-war platform without being seen as anti-American and offending the only superpower, especially President Bush who can easily be offended given his black and white world view".

Fabian argued that to blame the Security Council for the war that is "about to break out is hardly logical. The Security Council is not an independent actor; it is only a field where actors of varying independence act".

"The 'middle path' should not take us straight from Race Course Road in New Delhi to join the Pennsylvania Avenue leading in the direction of White House Rose Garden, or to a minor drawing room," Fabian said.

Fabian had been an ambassador to several countries and was India's point man as joint secretary (Gulf) in the MEA during the 1991 Gulf War. India had then undertaken history's biggest ever air evacuation by airlifting some 175,000 people.

Fabian said India has to seriously think "what sort of world order is created if UN is enfeebled, if international law is emasculated, if arbitrary regime change is decreed". The resultant world would be "rather uncomfortable to live in", he warned.

India needs to seriously think of the outcome of the war, he said. "If the Middle-East region is going to experience a long spell of chaos and instability with a strong American military presence constantly clashing with a rebellion here and a rebellion there... it will not be in India's interest..." he told rediff.com

Besides some 3.5 million Indians in the Gulf, India's vital energy interests are in the region.

According to Fabian, the military aspect of the US operation would be "easiest part of what President Bush has taken on. The occupation of Iraq is easier said than done".

M P M Menon, a former Indian ambassador to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, said the war would lead to uncertainty and "some people will definitely leave" for India.

"India has to take into account interest of its people there," Menon told rediff.com