On the US-India Nuclear Deal
While it has become almost fashionable to pile on President Bush lately, I think the US-India deal is in the long term interests of both US and India. A quick summary: this deal provides American technology for India’s civilian nuclear power program, in exchange for safeguards against military use, and some inspections. Effectively, it recognizes that India is a nuclear power. There is considerable opposition in both countries to this deal, for entirely different reasons.
The Indian critics of the deal are mostly leftists and those instinctively distrustful of the US. Then there are nationalists in India who don’t want any kind of inspections on India’s military program - by the way America or China or UK or France or Russia don’t accept any inspections either. Thankfully the deal opponents constitute a minority in India, so the deal will most likely win approval.
The US critics of the deal are a combination of leftish non-proliferators, and conservative critics of India, and the main grievance is that the deal recognizes a nuclear India. I think both sets of people need to understand that the genie is out of the bottle. India is a nuclear power. The only way India will give up nuclear weapons is if there is a global deal to abolish all such weapons. Fat chance that Americans will approve of that!
Americans may not appreciate it, but we Indians live in a pretty dangerous neighborhood. As our President Kalam (who himself played a vital scientific role in India’s nuclear program) has said, India has been invaded, plundered and colonized again and again in our history, going over thousands of years, and nuclear weapons are our insurance policy that it will never happen again. India has never invaded or colonized anyone, so the weapons are safe with us, as safe as any of those other recognized nuclear powers. The vast majority of Indians will not grant America or the world a veto on this issue. That is why India never signed the Non-Profileration Treaty, with its discriminatory provisions of nuclear haves and have-nots. India never signed that treaty, so it never violated international law in producing its nuclear weapons.
The US Congress may well vote this deal down. It would be a short term set back to India’s civilian nuclear power program. In the long run, that won’t matter, because India is perfectly capable of doing its own nuclear research. Indian scientists are probably secretly hoping the US Congress will vote this deal down, so they can prove themselves by producing the technology. America needs friends like India, and by voting down this deal, it will lose the good-will of the vast majority of Indians who admire it.