MOsanthrope

Posted by Chris on March 2, 2006 at 1:34 pm.

Many bloggers and politicians have criticized the administration’s proposed nucular [sic] cooperation agreement with India, announced by the President during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi earlier today. I think the deal may represent the first sign of foreign policy aptitude we’ve seen from this administration in quite some time in a very, very long time, well, ever.

NEW DELHI, March 2 - President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India announced here today that they had reached agreement on putting into effect what Mr. Bush called a “historic” nuclear pact that would help India satisfy its enormous civilian energy needs while allowing it to continue to develop nuclear weapons.

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In the plan announced today, India agreed to permanently classify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities, meaning those reactors will be subject for the first time to international inspections.

The other reactors, as well as a prototype fast-breeder reactor in the early stages of development, will remain as military facilities, and not be subject to inspections. India also retained the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors for its military program, a provision certain to upset critics of the deal. In addition, India said it was guaranteed a permanent supply of nuclear fuel.

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Democratic and Republican opponents of the deal say that India’s willingness to subject some of its nuclear program to inspections is meaningless when the country has a military nuclear program right alongside it. Critics also say that keeping the fast-breeder reactors under military control, without inspections, would allow India to develop far more nuclear arms, and more quickly, than it has in the past. Fast-breeder reactors are highly efficient producers of the plutonium needed for nuclear weapons.

In addition, critics of the deal say that it sets a double standard in allowing India access to nuclear technology and will make it harder for the United States and its allies to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

My thoughtful analysis of the foregoing paragraph is as follows: Screw Iran. As far as I’m concerned, Iran may eat at the nuclear table with the grown-ups when it starts behaving like one. Until that time, we should use virtually any means at our disposal to prevent Tehran from becoming a nuclear power. The extent to which the administration’s foolhardy Iraq strategy has undermined our ability to deal effectively with the Iranian nuclear threat cannot be overstated, and for that the President and his advisors deserve a huge heap of unending criticism; but strengthening our relationship with the non-wackos in the the largest democracy on the planet can only improve the situation.

Indians are among the few people in the world who adore the U.S., nearly as much as the Americans themselves, according to a poll last year. Yet nearly three-fourths think of the U.S. as “a bully,” and do not want India to roll over just because Bush comes bearing gifts, as if to make up for past estrangement.

During the Cold War, India and the U.S. were like oil and water. When they began sizing each other up in the post-Soviet era, India’s 1998 nuclear explosion, which prompted Pakistan’s, led to American sanctions on both.

However, with China rising, Washington was back wooing democratic India as a counter-weight. Two other factors were at work, which have become more important since.

India’s middle class has grown to 300 million, the size of the population of the United States.

India’s Muslim minority is now as big as, if not bigger than, Pakistan’s 145 million, with no known Al Qaeda members among them.

Arguably, the proposed deal would undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which prohibits the U.S. and other treaty nations from assisting non-treaty nations in developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. India initially developed its nuclear program in secrecy and has refused to sign the NPT; however, unlike neighboring Pakistan, India is widely-recognized as having a good record on nuclear proliferation and has voluntarily imposed safeguards to secure its nuclear program:

Lest we forget, India actually has the potential to be a nuclear supplier to other countries. Thankfully, until now, it has not realized this potential. Most of its nuclear exports have been either under IAEA technical cooperation programs or to NSG states. Its domestic export control system is more comprehensive than many NSG members, and its actual record of voluntary restraint on nuclear exports is certainly better than even some nuclear weapons states that are in the NSG. When the deal was announced last summer, India voluntarily and completely harmonized its domestic control list with those of the NSG.

Moreover, the continuing effectiveness of the NPT is questionable at best: The treaty clearly presented no deterrent to North Korea’s flamboyant withdrawal in 2003 and has so far failed to moderate Iran’s boisterous defiance. Given its record, India is a far better candidate for membership in the “responsible nuclear powers club” than either of those knavish states.

In any event, the announcement was only symbolic. To become effective the deal requires approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (which, ironically, was founded in response to India’s 1974 nuclear test) and India’s Parliament, as well as action by Congress to change U.S. law.

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