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Opinion
India-US Nuclear Deal - Time for a Pause
by Rajiv Sikri
The India-US
nuclear deal is in trouble - serious trouble. Contrary to Indian
expectations, the NSG did not give it clearance at last week's meeting
in Vienna. A large number of NSG members, many of them close allies of
the United States, tabled amendments that would have the effect of
bringing India into the NPT and the CTBT regimes through the back door.
The US is reworking the draft in preparation for another meeting of the
NSG next week, but the draft has not yet been shared with India. Instead
of personally reporting back to the political leadership, the Foreign
Secretary was rushed to Washington after the NSG fiasco. He is camping
in Washington for the last week, while Richard Boucher tries to soothe
ruffled feathers in India.
Why did this happen? Even the most ardent drumbeaters of the government
have been forced to admit that the US hasn't kept its end of the July
18, 2005 bargain. India is seen as having been led down the garden path
or as having been double-crossed. So what's new? This happens all the
time in relations between states.
Why blame the US if you are naïve enough to swallow US administration
statements made to you in private while ignoring what they say to their
own Congress and public? The prime minister has indeed been led up the
garden path, not just by the Americans but also by his own coterie of
advisers who have been putting a gloss on all the systematic deviations
by the American side from the fine balance of the July 18, 2005
understanding. Even as the Americans shifted the goalposts, we pretended
that in fact they had not - be it the Hyde Act, the 123 Agreement or the
IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Why didn't the US exert sufficient effort to get the NSG (Nuclear
Suppliers Group) members on board? Was the US taken by surprise at the
NSG meeting? Or was this an act of deliberate sabotage by the US that
put up smaller NSG members to do its dirty work? What was the US hoping
to achieve? One possibility is that the US thought that it could achieve
its optimal non-proliferation agenda through the NSG since it had to
compromise on some aspects in the 123 Agreement. In this way, the 123
Agreement stood a better chance of being passed by the US Congress.
Another possibility is that the Bush administration realizes that it
cannot get the 123 Agreement through the US Congress next month. Gary
Ackerman has said that there's not enough time. If the US Congress is to
waive the mandatory 30-day period for which the bill has to lie in
Congress before it is taken up for consideration then it is no longer
going to be an up-or-down vote.
In such a situation it will be open to the US Congress to introduce
amendments. That would effectively kill the 123 Agreement. The United
States would also be concerned that an NSG exemption for India without a
123 Agreement cleared by the US Congress would leave the field free for
other nuclear suppliers, notably the French and the Russians, to snap up
contracts while the US makes up its mind.
This is a case of brinksmanship by the US administration, which seems to
have concluded that, having gone out on a limb on the India-US nuclear
deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cannot now step back and will have
no option but to swallow all the new conditions being added on to the
NSG exemption. Alternatively, the US administration is convinced that it
just cannot get the deal through the present US Congress and therefore
it is best to break it at the NSG stage, where the opprobrium would be
borne by India, rather than in the US Congress, which would put the Bush
administration in an embarrassing position.
It is a bit like the WTO talks collapsing on the relatively minor issue
of the Special Safeguards Mechanism (SSM), where the spin given out is
that India was the deal-breaker. The truth in this case is that had
there been agreement on the SSM, the US would have had to tackle the
more difficult issue, from its point of view, of cotton subsidies.
It is time that the prime minister reflects over the present situation
from a political perspective, forgetting for a moment about his ego and
the legacy he will leave behind as prime minister. It is clear that he
won't be able to present this deal as a personal triumph. On the
contrary, he could end up being regarded as the prime minister who sold
the country's interests. Now is not the time for bravado.
It is time to eat humble pie. Perhaps then he and the government can
salvage some of their tattered self-respect. Otherwise, a flawed deal
will only generate feelings of betrayal and mistrust that will undo all
the good work done in the last few years to bring India and the US
closer.
It is time we told the Americans that we are not ready to sign the deal
at this time. There is no need for the second NSG meeting next week. The
country needs to reflect over and digest what is being offered. Let
there not be a repeat of July 18, 2005 when the scientists were hustled
into agreeing to something they hadn't fully considered. Let us wait for
new governments in both the US and India. Let us press the pause button.
(Rajiv Sikri is a former secretary in India's Ministry of External
Affairs. He can be contacted rajivsikri@gmail.com)
August 28, 2008
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