(Bush and Singh at the G-8 Meeting this week in Tokyo)
The biggest headline emanating from this week's G-8 summit in Tokyo had nothing to do with poverty alleviation, or climate change. Rather it had to do with negotiations between President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about a nuclear deal three years in the making.
Referred to as the 123 Agreement, the deal would allow the US to sell atomic fuel and technology to India provided that India open its civilian reactors to international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA).
Proponents of this deal say it is a great business opportunity for the US, and would supply India with the equipment it needs to build more nuclear power stations. President Bush has also argued that the deal would have more intangible effect of empowering a friendly democracy (which borders US rival China) that has demonstrated what he sees as nuclear responsibility.
Opponents say: “It rewards India with civil nuclear help even though Delhi, which has refused to sign the (Nuclear Non-Proliferation) treaty, acquired nuclear weapons. In doing so, it weakens the treaty's central bargain: that the original five nuclear powers (the US, UK, France, China and Russia) would help non-nuclear weapons states with civil power provided their ambitions stopped there.”
Critics are skeptical that India's nuclear ambitions, will, in fact stop there–especially since India has already acquired nuclear weapons. Some critics even say that the deal could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia, or at the very least weaken campaigns to halt other nations’ (on the axis of evil, who shall remain nameless) nuclear enrichment programs.
After Bush and Singh's discussions at the G-8 summit, Prime Minister Singh announced that it will hold up his end of the bargain and comply with IAEA inspections, thereby declaring India's intention to move forward with the deal.
The US Ambassador to India, David Mulford, saidin a reactionary statement: “The US welcomes the government of India's initiative to move forward with the US-India civil nuclear deal by seeking the IAEA approval for its safeguards agreement,” and said the US government will work closely with New Delhi, the IAEA, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group and the US Congress to implement it “as quickly as possible.”
But there have been two major factors working against the deal and particularly come to a head now that signing the deal into law is in sight. First, domestic opposition within India may shut down not only the deal, but kick PM Siingh out of office altogether. This week the left-wing parties in the Indian parliament quit the Prime Minister's coalition over fears that the deal would “give Washington too much influence over Indian foreign policy.” Hereis the text of the left parties’ grievances in regards to the deal. It states:
“The UPA Government came into existence in 2004 with the support of the Left parties on the basis of its Common Minimum Programme. The aim was to fight the communal forces and undo the damage they had done to the secular polity of India in their years in office. This required a set of interlinked policies to bring relief to the people, to protect India's integrity and to pursue an independent foreign policy. By going ahead with the deal at a time when there is the crushing burden of price-rise and galloping inflation, the Manmohan Singh Government has clearly shown that it is more concerned about fulfilling its commitment to the Bush administration rather than meeting its commitment to the people of India.”
Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (and a Senior Advisor to the State Department on, among other things, the India-US nuclear deal) talked to NPR last week about how Indian concerns for maintaining independence, or rather its sovereignty, from other nations has created a stiff opposition to the deal within India. He gives some other interesting insights into the deal as well.
Yesterday the Prime Minister set the date of a vote of confidence in the Parliament, which, if lost, could force his government into early elections after four years in power, and scuttle the nuclear deal entirely.
The second, considerably formidable obstacle to sealing the India-UN nuclear deal is time and the US Congress (not a good mix). The BBC reports that the IAEA and the NSG may not bless the deal with enough time for Congress to pass the legislation required to make the deal US law before Congress closes the 2008 session in November.
After that point, it's hard to tell whether the incoming Presidential administration will share President Bush's support for the nuclear pact. The AP reports, for example, “Christine Fair, a South Asia specialist at the RAND Corp., said that “the underbelly of this deal, as Bush envisioned it, was that, with our help, India was going to become a global power, and that meant becoming a global nuclear power. I just don't know if McCain or Obama are going to embrace that.”
So far Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has come out in supportof it. McCain's position is unknown to me. Either way, according to Strobe Talbott of the Brookings Institution argues that either candidate, once President, may throw in some extra challenges to the Indian side of the deal.
It will be a race to confidence if this deal is to go through. I, personally, will root for sovereignty and time to come out on top.
