I was feeling quite ambivalent about the India-US nuclear deal. While a part of me was proud at America's recognition of India's unique position in the world, and the generally acceptable way in which we've conducted our foreign affairs, the other part of me wondered if encouraging India to make more use of nuclear energy was the right way to go about doing this. Rep Ed Markey's (D- MA) entry on Huffington Post has convinced me of the folly of the deal. The two most pertinent points of his article are that -
a. India does not need nuclear energy as a reward for good behaviour:
"There is absolutely no need for us to start exempting India from nuclear nonproliferation controls - and sell them nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel that can be made into bombs - under the guise of reducing their energy shortfalls when there are much better alternatives available."
I would agree with this, creating the nuclear option for energy production in India may not be the best way to meet our rising energy needs, especially since there has been so little debate and investigation about the feasibility of safe widespread nuclear power in India, and the efficiency of the production methods available to us.
b. While it may be tempting to reward India with this, violating the internationally recognised goal of non-proliferation, though in an ostensible good cause, may lead to far more chaotic results:
"We cannot expect countries like Iran and North Korea to comply with the rules when we help India break them. If we adopt special rules for our friends, we can expect Russia and China to adopt special rules for their friends. "Bilateral Special Exemptions" will replace the standards of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and a nuclear chaos of no rules at all will be the end result."
This too is true. The reason why we have certain international rules (and non-proliferation is not just a treaty-based rule, but also a customary norm in international law) is that a certain order be maintained. Violating these rules, even for a good cause, would lead to unintended disorder (Iraq, anyone?)
Go read it here.
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3 comments:
Don't you think its a bit idiotic of you to compare the disorder in Iraq with the supposed "disorder" caused by the Indo-US nuclear deal. You should try reading a little more widely than Markey who has an axe to grind against the Bush administration. Think, read and understand before you blog.
I doubt you can term the Iraq comment in my post a "comparison". I'm not arguing that the nuclear deal will lead to civil war (or something like it, depending on who you're listening to), but that the consequences of violating international rules are clear to see. Iraq is one violation of rules, which led to chaos, and granting India a nuclear status is another such violation, which may lead to a different sort of chaos.
Perhaps you ought to "think, read and understand" before you comment?
A PROPER RIPOSTE REQUIRES A BACKGROUNDER.
Politics is the art of the possible. There is nothing absolute in this game. Even though we all know that the pawn and the King go back into the same box after the game of chess is over, yet when the play is on, they have their separate roles to play. It is puerile to think that Iran and N. Korea or for that matter Pakistan and China are bothered about the niceties of various treaties. They had decided and had gone ahead with their activities in this field long ago irrespective of world opinion even as the US had been firmly on Pakistan's side and against India. Remember Z.A. Bhutto's boast of the Islamic Bomb? The brash Americans are tactical as opposed to being strategic. They are like those MBA guys who cannot see beyond the current year's bottom line. Tomorrow they will switch jobs after they have sucked the present potential of the industry dry. For the first time the US, driven by business compulsions, has decided to upscale its relations with India as a check against the ever expansionist China (Tibet, Indian Gilgit, Hong Kong, possibly Taiwan and some parts of Japan and Russian territory in the near future). China has virtually flooded the American market with their substandard goods which they have reverse engineered from their American collaborators’ products under a different name. To cap it all, China has very little use for international laws on any subject including handing over nuclear technology to rogue states like N. Korea and Pakistan or the flavour of the season- Human Rights. The US cannot take on China directly so it needs India as a cat's paw, as it had used Pakistan earlier against the former USSR and India in Kashmir. It suits India to have the world's sole super power on its side for checking the ambitions of its land grabbing neighbour which has expressed designs on Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh after gratefully having gobbled up the real estate Pakistan had gifted it from Indian Kashmir. The cardinal rule in politics is this: There are no permanent friends in this game; only permanent interests. That is why it pays to be a patriot first before one can attempt to become a statesman of world stature. Somewhat like charity beginning at home. Indira Gandhi acquired world stature after she broke up Pakistan, despite Nixon calling her a bitch. All American Presidents, irrespective of Republican or Democrat, have a single common agenda though their approach may be quite different or even erroneous-and that is "The US Comes First", above every other consideration. Just because the stupid Indians cannot show this streak for their own interests doesn't mean that the US should be abused. It is each nation for itself, Boss, and the Devil take the hindmost. No country has studied the implications of political Islam, masquerading as a religion. Any doctrine that does not have spiritualism as its quintessence cannot rightly be called a religion. What ever Saddam Hussain was he was not a Muslim fanatic. His Baa'th Party was overtly left leaning and pro-Russian. He was the sole exception in this volatile zone. Bush created the present monster in Iraq which was not there. By this single act he has drawn away the focus from the real villain- a mullah ruled Shia Iran, which was perennially at loggerheads with Saddam, a secular Sunni who was lording it over Iraq's Shia majority. Bush invaded Iraq not because he wanted to free the Iraqis from a despot but because of oil. But what was the reason he gave for the invasion? Iraq has WMD! How did he know? Because that cretin Saddam himself was boasting that he had them when he actually hadn't. That and later that juvenile refrain, "He threatened my Dad." If the US think tanks had studied Iraq and Islam diligently, the misadventure in Iraq and 9/11 would not have happened. If Gandhi and the Indian Congress had analyzed Islam and the Muslim psyche correctly the Partition of India would have not taken place. Except for a few from the Indian Right and Israel, the world has yet to wake up to the danger that is Islam now. In most of the troubled spots in the world today, Islamism is inevitably involved on one side. It is futile to coin phrases like moderate Taliban or secular Islam which are oxymoron. Boss, ALL Muslims-whether they are Talibans, Jihadis, moderates, Shias or Sunnis believe in one Holy Book, one Shariat, one and last Prophet. Anyone who tries to add or improvise on the literal imports frozen 1400 years ago is an apostate and needs to be dispatched forthright to the infernal regions. Ask the Bahais and the Ahmedias for starters. So how do we distinguish between who is a moderate and who is a jihadi? For every reasonable line or verse in the Koran there are three that command the violently opposite which the jehadis swear by. So who is going to reproach these violence junkies for "distorting" Islam? Will any moderate Muslim stand up and tell us that the holy verses quoted by the terrorists are not there in the Word of God? Rather than ingesting Liberal and apologist fibs on the subject, one should read this Holy Writ for drawing a first hand education. If Saddam had been the fundamentalist villain Bush and his ilk are trying to portray, he would have been Osama bin Laden's darling. Is he? Would he have invaded Kuwait or gone to war with Iran, both Muslim countries? By this single act of political blunder, Bush has united all the disparate elements in the Muslim world against the West in a clash of civilizations. As I said at the begining, politics is a unbounded and fascinating subject of study provided one sees the larger and uncluttered picture without regurgitating the garbage Fifth Columnists or established hacks of dubious credentials have made a lucrative career out of. Adieu mon ami.
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