[The following comments, particularly the one immediately following, go to show that there remains still a considerable gap between the cup and the lip. And that's precisely the remaining ray of hope.
The Indian, sub-continental and global peace movements must engage with all the strength at their command to scuttle closing of this gap. The, yet to be clinched, 'deal' is just not yet another instance of gross and brazen unilateralism on the part of the neo-con rulers of the US, it's also a grave assault on the NPT, the lynchpin of the current non-proliferation order and the only international commitment to global nuclear disarmament. The quasi-legitimisation of India's emergence as a nuclear weapons state, blatantly flouting the provisions of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty currently enjoying the endorsement by 187 of the total 191 members of the UN, that too on extremely favourable terms at the behest of the global hyperpower, would only tend to make the world even more dangerous than it is today.] I. http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=print&id=18082 Nuclear Cave In By Joseph Cirincione Buffeted by political turmoil at home, President Bush sought a foreign affairs victory in India. To clinch a nuclear weapons deal, the president had to give in to demands from the Indian nuclear lobby to exempt large portions of the country's nuclear infrastructure from international inspection. With details of the deal still under wraps, it appears that at least one-third of current and planned Indian reactors would be exempt from IAEA inspections and that the president gave into Indian demands for "Indian-specific" inspections that would fall far short of the normal, full-scope inspections originally sought. Worse, Indian officials have made clear that India alone will decide which future reactors will be kept in the military category and exempt from any safeguards. The deal endorses and assists India's nuclear weapons program. US-supplied uranium fuel would free up India's limited uranium reserves for fuel that would be burned in these reactors to make nuclear weapons. This would allow India to increase its production from the estimated 6 to 10 additional nuclear bombs per year to several dozen per year. India today has enough separated plutonium for 75 to 110 nuclear weapons, though it is not known how many it has actually produced. The Indian leaders and press are crowing about their victory over America. For good reason: President Bush has done what Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and his own father refused to do--break U.S. and international law to aid India's nuclear weapons program. In 1974, India cheated on its agreements with the United States and other nations to do what Iran is accused of doing now: using a peaceful nuclear energy program to build a nuclear bomb. India used plutonium produced in a Canadian-supplied reactor to detonate a bomb it then called a "peaceful nuclear device." In response, President Richard Nixon and Congress stiffened U.S. laws and Nixon organized the Nuclear Suppliers Group to prevent any other nation from following India's example. President Bush has now unilaterally shattered those guidelines and his action would violate the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty proscription against aiding another nation's nuclear weapons program. It would require the repeal or revision of several major U.S. laws, including the U.S. Nonproliferation Act. Nor has he won any significant concessions from India. India refuses to agree to end its production of nuclear weapons material, something the U.S., the UK, France, Russia and China have already done. This is where the president is likely to run into trouble. Republicans and Democrats in Congress are deeply concerned about the deal and the way it was crafted. Keeping with the administration's penchant for secrecy, the deal was cooked by a handful of senior officials (one of whom is now a lobbyist for the Indian government) and never reviewed by the Departments of State, Defense or Energy before it was announced with a champagne toast by President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Congress was never consulted. Republican committee staff say the first members heard about it was when the fax announcing the deal came into their offices. Worse, for the president, this appears to be another give away to a foreign government at the expense of U.S. national security interests. Bad Example In addition to breaking U.S. law and shattering long-standing barriers to proliferation, lawmakers are concerned about the example the nuclear weapons deal sets for other nations. The lesson Iran is likely to draw is simple: if you hold out long enough, the Americans will cave. All this talk about violating treaties, they will reason, is just smoke. When the Americans think you are important enough, they will break the rules to accommodate you. Pakistani officials have already said they expect Pakistan to receive a similar deal, and Israel is surely waiting in the wings. Other nations may decide that they can break the rules, too, to grant special deals to their friends. China is already rumored to be seeking a deal to provide open nuclear assistance to Pakistan—a practice it stopped in the early 1990s after a successful diplomatic campaign by the United States to bring China into conformity with the Non-Proliferation Treaty restrictions. Will Russia decide that it can make an exception for Iran? Lawmakers loyal to President Bush are already signaling tough times ahead for this deal. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation offered the following statement after the deal was announced: "There is enthusiastic support on Capitol Hill for growing U.S.-India ties. However, the U.S.-India agreement on civil nuclear cooperation has implications beyond U.S.-India relations. In this process, the goal of curbing nuclear proliferation should be paramount. Congress will continue its careful consideration of this far reaching agreement." His subcommittee has oversight and legislative responsibilities over nonproliferation matters. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has made no secret of his concerns, as has Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), Chairman of the House International Relations Committee. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) says, "America cannot credibly preach nuclear temperance from a barstool. We can't tell Iran, a country that has signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, that they can't have [uranium] enrichment technologies while simultaneously carving out a special exemption from nuclear proliferation laws for India, a nation that has refused to sign the treaty." This looming Congressional battle will pit the proliferation fighters against the nuclear lobby and the increasingly powerful India lobby. Companies and countries (including France, Canada and Russia) are lining up to sell fuel and reactors to India. They will be joined by the neoconservatives who seek to construct an anti-China alliance. For them, as one architect of the India deal reportedly said, "The problem is not that India has too many nuclear weapons, it is that they do not have enough." If President Bush was riding high in the polls and had a string of national security victories behind him, this David and Goliath battle would be won by the nuclear giants. But with sagging popularity, deep concern over his leadership, and anger at the administration's disregard for laws and consultation, lawmakers more concerned about proliferation than profits could block or amend this deal. The president may have made a fatal error in putting nuclear weapons at the heart of improved U.S.-India relations. Lawmakers want the latter, but not at the price of the former. II. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106D.shtml Bush Visit Brings South Asia a New Nuclear Threat By J. Sri Raman t r u t h o u t | Perspective Wednesday 01 March 2006 George W. Bush arrives in India late Wednesday evening, but much has preceded him. Like the media hype over the "historic visit," for example. And the whole retinue of US officials, including Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, all at pains to prepare the ground for a safe and successful state visit. More notable than this advance party, however, is the shadow of a nuclear militarism preceding the presidential visit. The Bush mission, it is already and abundantly clear, bodes ill indeed for South Asia, besides the entire neighborhood. Finalization of a US-India nuclear deal, proposed during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Washington last July, has figured most prominently in the preparations on both sides for the visit. The purported deal for unprecedented US-India cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear energy "for peaceful nuclear purposes" is serving precisely the opposite result. Discussions on the deal have drawn out the most unambiguous and unabashed official statement thus far on New Delhi's determination to carry forward its nuclear development program. The Prime Minister himself has spelled out his government's resolve to persist in the perilous course on which its far-right predecessors had set the country. Speaking in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India's Parliament) on Monday, Singh declared that the deal would impose "no cap" at all on India's nuclear weapons program. He added for emphasis that his government would accept no compromise on the country's "strategic interests," a euphemism for a military or even militarist agenda. He had earlier made repeatedly clear that New Delhi looked upon the deal as part of an India-US "strategic partnership." The far-right Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), the main opposition in Parliament, had earlier raised apprehensions that the deal would entail a "cap" on plans to augment the country's nuclear arsenal. BJP veteran and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, architect of India's nukes program as also of the "India-US strategic partnership," had been quick to react to the July accord with questions on this count. Singh has not really cared to answer the critique from the left about the satellite-like role assigned for India in the strategic partnership, but he has hastened to reassure the far right on its only reservation about the deal. Closely and crucially related to India's strategic military nuclear program is the issue of the separation of the country's civilian and nuclear facilities. It is on this issue that the talks preparatory to the Bush visit have remained inconclusive until the time of writing. Indications are, however, that Washington may eventually let New Delhi have its way on this aspect of the deal. Few will believe that Singh would have made so bold a statement in Parliament without an unofficial green signal from the Bush regime. These developments have had a predictable consequence: the demand from Pakistan for a similar deal. Some perceptive US congressmen have already voiced fears that Washington may find it hard to say no to the demand from what it still considers its "frontline state." The US president, in fact, is credited in some reports with seeing the deal with India as part of a series of similar packages with other countries. For South Asia, such a sequel to the deal will spell a disastrous spiral in a nuclear arms race. In the summer of 2002, the sub-continent came to the brink of a nuclear war, with the armies of India and Pakistan facing each other across the entire border while the leaders of the two countries lobbed nuclear threats at each other. If the deal goes through, or if the deals do, and if the nightmare repeats itself two years down the line, it will have a far more frightening nuclear dimension. Another predictable consequence of the deal will be a closer India-US partnership on the Iran question. Two days after Bush leaves India for Pakistan, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will meet again on the issue in Geneva. Thus, March 6 may well mark the indirect proclamation of a strategic India-US partnership in the Middle East, with all its imponderable consequences. The dear hope of the hawks here is that the already infamous deal, legitimizing India's nuclear-weapons program, will turn India into a South Asian Israel. They could not care less, of course, what this will mean for the impoverished millions of the region. But the people do care. Which is why Bush will be greeted, all along his Indian route, with black flags and placards asking him to go back home. A freelance journalist and a peace activist of India, J. Sri Raman is the author of Flashpoint (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to t r u t h o u t. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala run by Global Alternate Information Applications (GAIA) To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
