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Wednesday, Feb 15, 2006

Opinion

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Washington's ever-shifting goalpost

Brahma Chellaney

With the U.S. moving the nuclear goalpost, the breeder programme is only the first of a series of nuclear energy disputes with India to hit the public eye.

WITH THE United States anxious to hold on to a nuclear deal that is beginning to slip out of its control, there is an air of exasperation among its friends, reflected in mounting attacks on the Indian nuclear establishment. The deal has become critical to U.S. interests in India, promising multiple benefits — leverage in nuclear deterrent and foreign policy fields and billions of dollars in arms contracts and reactor sales. Because the deal at every point can move forward only on U.S. benevolence, even after it comes into effect, it is designed to ensure that India stays indefinitely close to America. The most forceful pitch for the deal has been made by U.S. Ambassador David Mulford, who has described it as "an absolutely fantastic opportunity for India ... historic in every sense of that word ... [and the] most important diplomatic initiative of the last 50 years." Mr. Mulford contends the deal is an answer to India's "long-term energy problems," although high-priced imported reactors dependent on imported fuel make little economic or strategic sense.

Indian protagonists of the deal, echoing largely the same arguments, underscore Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's advice that India face up to and "make some difficult choices." Yet the national debate on the deal is no ordinary one. Never before has the Indian atomic establishment been the target of a scripted campaign waged through the media. Such systematic attacks raise questions whether the Government is discharging its responsibility in an open, free system, or allowing disinformation to obfuscate key issues and constrict its manoeuvring room. More broadly, the high-pitched campaign seeks to paint India and its nuclear scientists as obstructionists by hiding the way the U.S. has methodically moved one goalpost after another since signing the nuclear deal with India in July 2005. Indeed, by not speaking up on Washington's negation of the core principles enshrined in that accord, New Delhi has allowed itself to be put on the defensive.

It is not any second thoughts on India's part but a real problem posed by America's ever-shifting goalpost that threatens the deal. The U.S. has been using the negotiations to broaden India's obligations and make it answerable to Washington. It has also roped in foreign policy matters like Iran. In sum, India is being asked to unequivocally accept the U.S. as its guardian angel. To some extent, the Manmohan Singh Government is responsible for bringing itself under pressure by rushing into a U.S.-drafted deal, without grasping all the nuances and implications. Whenever India has hurriedly entered into an agreement with another state, without close scrutiny, it has proven to be a blunder. Instead of simply agreeing to put its civil facilities under international inspections, New Delhi rashly accepted the more ominous, U.S.-prescribed obligation to first carry out a full civil-military segregation of its nuclear programme and then open its civil facilities to outside inspectors. By agreeing to a unique obligation that no other nuclear power has formally accepted, India undercut its position. The deal, however, has started to come loose largely because of America's penchant for employing negotiations to ruthlessly underpin its interests by dictating terms.

When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh makes his promised statement in Parliament on the rising national concerns over the deal, he should take up Washington's shifting of the goalpost. He needs to directly address the core concerns and not shelter behind empty assurances or his new jingle, "enlightened national interest." Enlightened national interest is as instructive as General Pervez Musharraf's "enlightened moderation." The country can be enlightened only through a straight government response to issues that go far beyond the fast-breeder programme.

Consider the following:

Nothing better illustrates Washington's ever-shifting goalpost than its repudiation of the deal's central plank — that India would "assume the same responsibilities and practices and acquire the same benefits and advantages as other leading countries with advanced nuclear technology, such as the United States." It now insists that India cannot be allowed to pursue the same "practices" or enjoy the same "benefits" as the other nuclear powers.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert G. Joseph has testified that a "voluntary offer" safeguards agreement of the kind the U.S. has with the International Atomic Energy Agency will not be acceptable from India. The five established nuclear powers, under voluntary accords, offer nuclear materials and facilities for IAEA inspections in name only. The IAEA, in return, carries out token inspections or, often, no inspections "to conserve resources." Out of 915 nuclear facilities the IAEA inspects worldwide, only 11 are in these nuclear weapons states. Mr. Joseph and other U.S. officials have also stipulated another condition not applicable to such states: IAEA inspections on Indian facilities "must be applied in perpetuity."

Can India countenance this? On July 29, the Prime Minister assured Parliament that "predicated on our obtaining the same benefits and advantages as other nuclear powers is the understanding that we shall undertake the same responsibilities and obligations as such countries, including the United States. Concomitantly, we expect the same rights and benefits." The Foreign Secretary is on record as saying that India will assume the same duties and rights as the other nuclear powers, "no more and no less." The PMO, in fact, asserted on its website that, "nuclear weapons states, including the U.S., have the right to shift facilities from civilian category to military, and there is no reason why this should not apply to India." But the U.S. has made it loud and clear that India will not get equal rights and benefits.

The current focus on the breeder programme has obscured a more critical issue: when India negotiates facility-specific safeguards agreements and an Additional Protocol with the IAEA, the U.S. will insist on legally binding obligations for New Delhi that the other nuclear weapons states have not accepted. India will not be permitted to make the sweeping national security exemptions and exclusions that the other nuclear powers have built into their Additional Protocol with the IAEA. Furthermore, the role of IAEA inspectors in India will be neither limited nor token in nature. Rather they will have the same lack of restrictions that they enjoy in non-nuclear states.

Secondly, while the deal merely states that India will begin "identifying and separating civilian and military nuclear facilities and programmes in a phased manner," Washington has added specific conditionality — that such a separation "plan" be "credible," "transparent," and "defensible." Put simply, the U.S. has set itself as the judge to whom India has to report.

Contrast the U.S. conditionality with the Prime Minister's July 2005 assurance to Parliament that such identification and separation would be a "phased action ... based solely on our own duly calibrated national decisions ... taken at appropriate points in time." How does Dr. Singh's use of plural nouns ("decisions" and "points" in time) jibe with Washington's strident demand that India satisfy it with a separation "plan" at this point?

The U.S. demands a watertight separation plan in India that it can monitor everlastingly. But it conceals the fact that the other nuclear powers have not done the same, because in a majority of such cases there is not even the pretence of civil-military segregation. In fact, America produces tritium for its nuclear weapons in the civilian reactors of the Tennessee Valley Authority and conducts commercially marketable research in its weapons labs, a right it seeks to deny India. In fact, by berating his host country for failing to meet the U.S. "test of credibility," Mr. Mulford mocked the Prime Minister's commitment to Parliament that "it will be an autonomous Indian decision as to what is `civilian' and what is `military'. Nobody outside will tell us what is `civilian' and what is `military'." Mr. Mulford insists that India open the "great majority" of its facilities to IAEA inspections.

Thirdly, India agreed "reciprocally" to its part of the bargain. But no sooner had the deal been signed than the U.S. moved the goalpost, with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns declaring that the accord "will have to be implemented by the Indian government and then we will have to seek these changes from the Congress... " The State Department amplified by saying "these are preconditions for us... "

By sending the Foreign Secretary to Washington in December 2005 with a separation plan for U.S. approval, Prime Minister Singh unfortunately did not keep his word to Parliament that "Indian actions will be contingent at every stage on actions taken by the other side." A day after the plan was presented in Washington, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said it included the names of facilities and the sequence in which they would be opened to outside inspections, even as he held out the option of further "adjustments" in the plan. How was the presentation of the plan — an action not mandated by the deal — reciprocal to any step by the other side? Until now, the U.S. has not presented any plan of action to its Congress or to the Nuclear Suppliers' Group (NSG).

Fourthly, the moving of the goalpost shows the U.S. will accept India at most as a second class nuclear power. Is the Government willing to proceed with a deal in which the other party openly insists on India accepting unequal terms? The current spotlight on the breeder programme only shrouds more fundamental issues from public view.

The deal, clearly, is more important for the U.S. than it is for India. While no implementation accord can possibly be signed during the Bush visit, the U.S. side would like at the least a statement on continuing "progress." What the Prime Minister needs to do is spell out in Parliament that forward movement demands a definite return to the principles embodied in the deal, including parity and reciprocity. For a start, India should ask for the plan of action the U.S. intends to present to its Congress and the NSG.

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