No one doubts that President George W. Bush's proposed nuclear deal with India, inked on his recent trip to the subcontinent, marks a historic triumph for the world's largest democracy. Many American lawmakers, though, are wondering what's in it for us.
India has been a nuclear pariah since it conducted its illegal "Smiling Buddha" test explosion in 1974 in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; it was subsequently barred from the world market for nuclear technology and fissile material.
Bush's new agreement with India would make energy-starved India a legitimate nuclear power, able for the first time to supply its civilian reactors with foreign nuclear fuel. In return, these plants would be subject to International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and inspections by 2014.
IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei, who won the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on non-proliferation, praises the agreement as "a step forward towards universalization of the international safeguards regime."
But observers impressed by ElBaradei's endorsement should recall the scene in "Team America: World Police" where ElBaradei's feckless colleague Hans Blix is fed to Kim Jong-Il's pet shark when he tries to search the North Korean dictator's palace for illegal arms. Like the ill-fated Blix, IAEA weapons inspectors will be wasting their time minding India's 14 "civilian" plants. To the delight of Indian officials, the Bush agreement leaves eight other reactors entirely outside of the inspections regime, where they will be available for use by India's bomb-makers. And the agreement leaves it to India to designate whether any future plants fall under IAEA safeguards - an enormous concession given the country's plans to double its generating capacity in the decade after 2010.
"This is Santa Claus negotiating," George Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told the New York Times. "The goal seems to have been to give away as much as possible." Robert Einhorn, a former longtime nonproliferation expert at the State Department, suggests that the American team had hoped to rein in India's bomb-making capability but caved to Indian demands in order to conclude the talks.
Worse yet, by making American fuel available for India's civilian reactors, the agreement allows India to devote its indigenous uranium to making bombs - maybe hundreds of bombs. How will India's blank check to build its arsenal play in China, which has kindly refrained from processing bomb-grade material since 1991? Or in Pakistan, India's hostile neighbor?
Bush's nuclear giveaway could also have major repercussions for the world's nonproliferation regime. "With one simple move, the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the entire world has been playing by," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who has pledged to block the deal. Central to these rules are Articles I and II of the NPT, which prohibit the development of nuclear weapons outside of the original five-country nuclear club and bar nuclear powers from assisting other countries in building strategic arsenals.
The India deal is certain to create a double standard in the eyes of many interested observers, particularly at a time when the Bush administration seeks the world's somewhat reluctant support to deprive Iran and North Korea of their own nuclear capabilities. It also potentially undermines the legal basis for opposing weapons proliferation by countries like China and Pakistan.
Of course, the NPT's effectiveness has been limited. It obviously hasn't stopped states like North Korea and Israel from pursuing clandestine weapons programs. Still, without the NPT, Pakistan's Abdul Qadeer Khan would likely still be running his vast nuclear black market with impunity, selling blueprints and technology to countries hostile to American interests. Russian and Chinese assistance to Iran and Pakistan would be unfettered by legal restrictions.
The NPT is a bargain that makes nonproliferation in everyone's interest: keep my neighbor from going nuclear, and I'll return the favor. If America backs away from zero tolerance by offering amnesty to rule-breakers of its own choosing, nations face a dangerous new set of incentives. A whole range of available mechanisms for keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of rogue states - and terrorists - would steadily lose global backing. China and others might begin coddling their own favorite rule-breakers to balance the United States. Undermining existing non-proliferation rules could prove to be the most enduring mistake of Bush's presidency.
The most visible fallout of the agreement will occur in the Pakistani political scene. Bush's tour of India was a humiliating slap in the face to General Perez Musharraf, who came away from Bush's visit to Islamabad empty-handed. Musharraf's offensive against al-Qaeda has cost Pakistan's army some 600 casualties, stoked domestic unrest and provoked multiple assassination attempts. It is unclear how long these sacrifices can continue while Bush cozies up to Pakistan's arch-enemy.
Many Republicans and Democrats in Congress have joined hands in criticizing the agreement in an alliance that mirrors the coalition opposing the infamous Dubai ports deal. But the damage to America's credibility and that of the non-proliferation regime may already be irreparable.
On the other hand, as Bush emphasized in a speech in New Delhi, "The United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangos."
Nate Goralnik '06 is hurtin' for a squirtin'.
