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Is the G-8 nuclear ban the final nail in the coffin of the Indo-US Nuke deal
There is a new Sheriff in town in Washington, and the past practices of the Republican Administration are not so popular in the Democratic majority. Why the US gave up India as a strategic partner. In another sign of the the fraying Indo-US relations, the Obama Administration has backed the G-8 (United States, Britain, France, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan) demand not to sell Nuclear enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Only three countries have not signed the NPT. The three countries are Israel, Bharat and Pakistan. Israel gets all the nuclear materials she needs from a variety of sources and has built up an arsenal of more than 250 bombs. Pakistan has a totally indigenous program which is not dependent on any imported nuclear material from any country. Therefore the only target of the G-8 Memorandum is Bharat. Delhi is directly affected by the G-8 ruling.
The lack of a statement from Delhi on the subject leaves analysts to fear the worst. The Delhi diplomats have been so surprised by the US reversal that they do not know what to say and how to put a spin on the subject. They should have expected this. In fact Rupee News already predicted this several weeks agon in a series of articles listed here.
* Indian gloating on Nuclear deal challenged by China-Pakistan nexus.
* Pakistan already has a Nuclear Deal with China! India tried to raise expectations to portend
* India trapped in Nuclear 123 Treaty: Ban on future tests
The 123 agreement was the singular foreign policy achievement, some would say the singular achievement of the Congress government. Now that symbol of American-Bharati cooperation is not only tarnished, it is sinking into a black hole.
The decision, which hits Indian expectations from the go-ahead on nuclear trade it got from the Nuclear Suppliers Group last year, figures in the LAquila Statement on Non-Proliferation that was adopted at the just-ended G8 summit in Italy.
New Delhi has not reacted officially. Indian Express
* United States has persuaded the G8 to ban the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including India
* The move, which effectively negates the promise of full civil nuclear cooperation lying at the heart of the 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement
* The second U.S. target will be spent fuel reprocessing. Existing agreements with Russia and France do not stipulate a new standalone facility or more intensive safeguards. And as the Obama administration presses ahead with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, attempts could be made to get the NSG to adopt a version of the U.S. right of return for exported items in the event that India is seen as deviating from the disarmament and non-proliferation commitments it made last September
* Is the US India 123 Nuclear deal in trouble again?
* US-Indian 123 nuclear deal puts planet at risk By Jimmy Carter.
As of 2009 the NSG has 46 members: Argentina, Australia,Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States.
It is incomprehensible that the NSG would defy the ruling of the G-8 summit.
New Delhi: Less than a year after the Nuclear Suppliers Group waived its export rules to allow the sale of nuclear equipment, fuel and technology to India, the United States has persuaded the G8 to ban the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including India.
The move, which effectively negates the promise of full civil nuclear cooperation lying at the heart of the 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement, took the Indian establishment by surprise with officials unaware that the G8 was even adopting such a measure at LAquila, Italy. That this was done at a summit in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was an invited guest is likely to add insult to injury when the full implications of the latest decision fully sink in.
The ban, buried deep within a separate G8 statement on non-proliferation, commits the eight countries to implement on a national basis the useful and constructive proposals on ways of strengthening controls on ENR items and technology contained in the NSGs clean text developed at the 20 November 2008 Consultative Group meeting. The Hindu
The G-8 ruling affectively bans the Nuclear Suppliers Group from exporting Nuclear ENR to Delhi. The G-8 ruling along with the Hyde amendment puts severe dampers on the US-Bharti Nuclear deal. The G-8 ruling could also have a catastrophic effect on the NSGs ability to supply nuclear material and reprocessing plants to Bharat.
Minimum criteria: Though the clean text is not a public document, a senior diplomat from a G8 country confirmed to The Hindu that the eight countries had agreed to certain minimum criteria including adherence to the main instruments of nonproliferation as a condition for the sale of equipment and technology destined for safeguarded ENR activities in a recipient country.
In the run-up to the final NSG plenary on India last September, Washington sought to get New Delhi to agree that the nuclear cartels rule waiver would not cover ENR transfers. But with the Indian side sticking to its guns, the NSG finally agreed to a clean exemption allowing nuclear exports of all kinds, including sensitive fuel-cycle-related items and technologies, provided they were under safeguards.
Under pressure from the Bush administration, the NSG subsequently debated new ENR rules last November but failed to evolve a consensus because of opposition from countries like Brazil, Canada and Spain to restrictions that would go beyond what the NPT itself provided for.
With consensus proving elusive during the recent June meeting of the 45-nation club, the Obama administration decided to decouple the question of ENR sales to India from the NSG process something the latest G8 agreement on interim implementation of a national-level ban effectively does.
Indias ability to purchase nuclear fuel and reactors from the G8 or NSG countries will be unaffected by the latest ban. Unless, of course, the new decision becomes the trigger for attempts to further dilute or qualify the core bargain contained in the India exception last year. G8 blocks full nuclear trade with India, The Hindu. Siddharth Varadarajan, Adopts rules making fuel cycle transfers conditional on NPT
In July 2006, the United States Congress allowed US laws to be amended to accommodate civilian nuclear trade with India. A meeting of NSG members on 21-22 August 2008 on an India-specific exemption to the Guidelines[2] was inconclusive. Several member countries, including Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, and New Zealand, expressed reservations about the lack of conditions in the proposed exemption.[3] In another meeting on September 6, 2008, the NSG members agreed to grant India a clean waiver from its existing rules, which forbid nuclear trade with a country which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NSGs decision came after three days of intense U.S. diplomacy.[4] The approval was based on a formal pledge by India stating that it would not share sensitive nuclear technology or material with others and will uphold its voluntary moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. The pledge was contained in a crucial statement issued during the NSG meeting by India outlining the countrys disarmament and nonproliferation policies.Wiki
However this version of events is not universally accpeted. Other versions state that the NSG has not fully endorsed the export of Nuclear materials to Bharat.
The NSG has come up with a clean text of guidelines on ENR but these are yet to be formally adopted. In the G8 statement, however, the eight countries have agreed to implement this text at their individual levels from next year. The Indian Express
It is too early to tell yet, but all indications are that the Indo-US 123 deal is pretty much a dead duck in the water. There will be a lot of rhetoric to resuscitate it, but without the NSG the deal will be useless. It will be interesting to see the song and dance on the subject with Ms. Hillary Clinton when the visits New Delhi.
For now, it prefers to go by the fairly clean waiver it extracted from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Groups on the earlier ban on nuclear trade. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan that form the G8 are part of the NSG. India has its developed its own ENR capability and can live with a ban, officials say. The Indian Express
It is pedagogical to note the happenings when Mr. Sarkozy visits Islamabad this December. What gifts will the French Trojan horse bring to Pakistan?
Ms. Hillary Clinton appointed Mr. Robert J. Einhorn as Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control a known apponent of the 123 treaty with Bharat. Mr. Einhorn was not the only one who has consistently opposed the US-Indian 123 deal. President Jimmy Carter came out against it lock, stock and barrel. US-Indian 123 nuclear deal puts planet at risk By Jimmy Carter.
Knowing since 1974 of Indias nuclear ambitions, other American presidents and I have maintained a consistent global policy: no sales of nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refuses to sign the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. To embed this concept as official national policy, I worked closely with bipartisan leaders in the U.S. Congress to pass the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978.
More recently, in 2006, the Hyde Act was passed and signed by President George W. Bush to define appropriate terms of the proposed U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Both laws were designed to encourage universal compliance with basic terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has been accepted by more than 180 nations. President Jimmy Carter
The fine print of the Hyde Amendment is a minefield for those moving forward on the Indo-US Nuclear deal. The Hyde Amendment is a piece of legislation that Congress passed in December 2006, called the Henry J Hyde Act, which imposes numerous conditions upon India, including an end to nuclear cooperation with the US if India conducts a nuclear test. A Democratic Administration could impose the Hyde Amendment on the 123 deal and cause havoc with the Bush-India deal. The Bush Administration had made the Nuclear deal a cornerstone of its Pro-India and Anti-China policy. Those were the days of building India as a counterweight to China.
In the Administrations eagerness for a foreign policy success, the deal was concluded in great haste, driven by the calendar of Bush-Singh meetings rather than by the seriousness and complexity of the task at hand. Key stakeholders in the U.S. Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) were not consulted in advance. While speed and exclusivity are often necessary to overcome bureaucratic and international resistance to major initiatives, this must be balanced against the need for buy-in, especially when the success of the initiative depends on approval by both the Congress and NSG. In its desire to show boldness and demonstrate a clean break with the past, the Administration gave too little weight to the nonproliferation downsides and too much weight to proving to the Indians its dedication to building a qualitatively new relationship. In the process, it failed to use the leverage available to it to achieve U.S. objectives.Robet Einhorn. Statement to the US Senate Foreign Relations committee in April 2006
Indian Americans overwhelmingly voted for the Republican candidates and ploughed in millions of Dollars to get President Bush rel-elected. In one the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease the Congress Party and the Manmohan government made it very obvious that it would prefer a Republican in the Whitehouse. It backfired.
It is pedagogical to note that after being elected to power, Presdent Elect Obama and after being sworn to office did not call Delhi. He did call Mr. Zardari and the Beijing. When the Democrats took power, they placed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton is a a very pro-Chinese Democrat. On her maiden trip to Asia, she was handed an itinerary to visit Sydney, Jakarta, Tokyo an Beijing. Hillary Clinton personally crossed out Delhi from her itinerary and went to Beijing asking China to continue to purchase T-Bills.
Where there is smoke there is fire. Denials tell a very distinct theory.
A key aide to President Barack Obama has dismissed reports that the new US Administration has kept the nuclear deal with India on the back-burner. Mr Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who co-chaired an inter-agency committee which formulated Mr Obamas Afghanistan-Pak policy, also did not see Robert Einhorns recent appointment as Secretary of State Hillary Clintons special adviser on non-proliferation issues as an impediment in implementation of the nuclear deal, signed during the Bush era.
Senator Obama voted for the US-India civil nuclear deal last fall and he has made clear that he wants to see it implemented. At the same time, President Obama has also made it clear that arms control and non-proliferation are back on the American agenda, Mr Riedel said. On the appointment of Mr Einhorn which has caused a flutter in India because of his strong views against the Indo-US nuclear deal, Mr Riedel said: Einhorn is a very qualified American diplomat and an expert on nuclear issues. I think, you would see, early on in this Administration the attempt to get the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and I think you would see in time that the United States would once again be urging all countries around the world to sign onto CTBT, he said. Indo-US N-deal not on back-burner: Riedel
The appointment of Mr. Robert Einhorm as an American diplomat has caused more than consternation in Delhi. Already panicked Delhi diplomats are now close to hitting the SOS button. Mr. Einhorn is a vociferous opponent of the American deal of exporting Nuclear technology to India. He has made it abundantly clear in his writings. His book discusses other countries that may follow India in acquiring Atomic weapons in his book The nuclear tipping point: why states reconsider their nuclear choicesBy Kurt M. Campbell, Robert J. Einhorn, Mitchell Reiss (Published by Brookings Institution Press, 2004). The Book is available on Google Books free of cost. Book reivew
If India steps up production, Pakistan can be expected to follow suit, China could decide to resume production, and others may be encouraged to seek their own production capabilities. The more materials produced, the more difficult and costly it will be to secure them, and the greater the risksRobert Einhorn
In fact Mr. Einhorn was right on the money. This is exactly what has happened. Pakistan has expedited production of Plutonium in Khushab and has increased the manufacture of atomic material in its Chasnupp plants. Pakistan already has a Nuclear Deal with China! The implications on China are not lost to the world. When Delhi increases production, Islamabad and Beijing fire up their production plans. This may force Japan to go nuclear.
Another reason we should care about stepped up Indian production of fissile materials is that it could lead to increased tensions and destabilizing arms competition in southern Asia, involving India, Pakistan, and China. Pakistani authorities have publicly taken special note of the failure of the U.S.-India nuclear deal to limit Indian fissile material production. Reportedly, the Pakistani National Command Authority recently met to assess the impact of the deal and consider adjustments Pakistan may need to make to its own strategic plans. President Musharraf said, We cannot remain oblivious to the changes evolving in the region. All the steps will be taken for the defense, security, and safety of Pakistan. Moreover, China has warned that the deal threatens to undermine global disarmament moves, suggesting that Beijing may also decide that it needs to respond programmatically. Robert Einhorn
The Hyde Amendment as well as US laws on termination of the agreement led to the Communist Party of India (CPI) leaving the coalition government. The Congress Party survived by the skin of its teeth with widespread report of huge amounts of cash given to members of parliament to save the treaty.
In terms of the substantive elements of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal, there are several the Congress will want to probe and understand more clearly. Among them will be whether an Indian nuclear test explosion or some other Indian actions would trigger the termination of U.S. nuclear cooperation. A related question is whether the U.S. would be committed to assist India in obtaining reactor fuel from third parties if U.S. fuel supplies had to be cut off as a result of an Indian nuclear test or some other action. Robert Einhorn
The Indian National Congress has since obtained a fresh mandate from the voters, but for a while it was touch and go. Bruce Reidels recent statement in defense of Hillary Clinton says more about the future of the Indo-US deal than reams of papers presented to the UN Senate.
Many Democrats including President Carter had opposed any Nuclear deal with the US.
Knowing since 1974 of Indias nuclear ambitions, other American presidents and I have maintained a consistent global policy: no sales of nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refuses to sign the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. To embed this concept as official national policy, I worked closely with bipartisan leaders in the U.S. Congress to pass the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. NUCLEAR ARMS India nuclear deal puts world at risk By Jimmy Carter Published: September 11, 2008
Pakistan already has a Nuclear deal with China and President Zardari passed up the supply of Nuclear raw material from Central Asia. Pakistan also claims that France has offered Islamabad a Nuclear deal similar to the US-India deal. According to the Pakistani Foreign Minister that deal is to be signed in September. Details remain sketchy on what has actually transpired between Paris and Mr. Zardari but something is cooking.
Rupee News had predicted the unraveling of the 123 deal on September 9th, 2008. This is what we wrote. India trapped in Nuclear 123 Treaty: Ban on future tests
The Indian left is right! Panglossian elitist triumphalism has inebriated the elitist ruling class into thinking that 123 will instantly propel them into the 23rd century with some sort of magical competitive advantage- blinding the penury stricken pullulating millions into embracing an inequitable deal which seriously impinges on Indian sovereignty & exacerbates the arms race in the Subcontinent, and only fills the coffers of the corrupt & multinationals. Every time the elite has tried to leapfrog the competition, it has had to face unsurmountable impediments.
India is now fully ensnarled with all the provisions of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) without actually signing the treaty. India cannot conduct another test, and almost all of its facilities are under IAEA or other monitoring. If the contract is broken, the US has the ability and the legal wherewithal to retrieve all facilities, and technology. The US will not transfer sensitive and dual use technology to India. The agreement forces India to conform to the Hyde Laws which are NPT in another form:
It is a trap, and it prevents India from any future nuclear test. We firmly believe that India has walked into the nonproliferation trap that the U.S. has set for us, said Yashwant Sinha, a member of Parliament from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
# BJP president Rajnath Singh, while addressing the partys national executive meeting in Bangalore, said that the issue of fuel supply, if the deal came through, was only an assurance and not a commitment.
# Mr Singh said there were several reasons for opposing the deal. For instance, the Peoples Daily recently published an article that China does not intend to limit its nuclear power.
# According to this newspaper, China needs to conduct further nuclear tests, Mr Singh said. If either Pakistan or China conducts a nuclear test that might threaten the balance of our regional strategic and security arrangement, then would not our right to conduct a nuclear test in response be seriously compromised?
# The Bharatiya Janata Partys president, Mr Rajnath Singh, also accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of misleading the country to win a trust vote over the nationally divisive deal.
# A similar accusation also came from the Left Front. It followed US President George W Bush pitching the 123 Agreement to the US Congress as something that is not legally binding.
There is a new Sheriff in town in Washington, and the past practices of the Republican Administration are not so popular in the Democratic majority. Why the US gave up India as a strategic partner. In another sign of the the fraying Indo-US relations, the Obama Administration has backed the G-8 (United States, Britain, France, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan) demand not to sell Nuclear enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries that have not signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Only three countries have not signed the NPT. The three countries are Israel, Bharat and Pakistan. Israel gets all the nuclear materials she needs from a variety of sources and has built up an arsenal of more than 250 bombs. Pakistan has a totally indigenous program which is not dependent on any imported nuclear material from any country. Therefore the only target of the G-8 Memorandum is Bharat. Delhi is directly affected by the G-8 ruling.
The lack of a statement from Delhi on the subject leaves analysts to fear the worst. The Delhi diplomats have been so surprised by the US reversal that they do not know what to say and how to put a spin on the subject. They should have expected this. In fact Rupee News already predicted this several weeks agon in a series of articles listed here.
* Indian gloating on Nuclear deal challenged by China-Pakistan nexus.
* Pakistan already has a Nuclear Deal with China! India tried to raise expectations to portend
* India trapped in Nuclear 123 Treaty: Ban on future tests
The 123 agreement was the singular foreign policy achievement, some would say the singular achievement of the Congress government. Now that symbol of American-Bharati cooperation is not only tarnished, it is sinking into a black hole.
The decision, which hits Indian expectations from the go-ahead on nuclear trade it got from the Nuclear Suppliers Group last year, figures in the LAquila Statement on Non-Proliferation that was adopted at the just-ended G8 summit in Italy.
New Delhi has not reacted officially. Indian Express
* United States has persuaded the G8 to ban the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including India
* The move, which effectively negates the promise of full civil nuclear cooperation lying at the heart of the 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement
* The second U.S. target will be spent fuel reprocessing. Existing agreements with Russia and France do not stipulate a new standalone facility or more intensive safeguards. And as the Obama administration presses ahead with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, attempts could be made to get the NSG to adopt a version of the U.S. right of return for exported items in the event that India is seen as deviating from the disarmament and non-proliferation commitments it made last September
* Is the US India 123 Nuclear deal in trouble again?
* US-Indian 123 nuclear deal puts planet at risk By Jimmy Carter.
As of 2009 the NSG has 46 members: Argentina, Australia,Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States.
It is incomprehensible that the NSG would defy the ruling of the G-8 summit.
New Delhi: Less than a year after the Nuclear Suppliers Group waived its export rules to allow the sale of nuclear equipment, fuel and technology to India, the United States has persuaded the G8 to ban the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) items to countries which have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including India.
The move, which effectively negates the promise of full civil nuclear cooperation lying at the heart of the 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement, took the Indian establishment by surprise with officials unaware that the G8 was even adopting such a measure at LAquila, Italy. That this was done at a summit in which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was an invited guest is likely to add insult to injury when the full implications of the latest decision fully sink in.
The ban, buried deep within a separate G8 statement on non-proliferation, commits the eight countries to implement on a national basis the useful and constructive proposals on ways of strengthening controls on ENR items and technology contained in the NSGs clean text developed at the 20 November 2008 Consultative Group meeting. The Hindu
The G-8 ruling affectively bans the Nuclear Suppliers Group from exporting Nuclear ENR to Delhi. The G-8 ruling along with the Hyde amendment puts severe dampers on the US-Bharti Nuclear deal. The G-8 ruling could also have a catastrophic effect on the NSGs ability to supply nuclear material and reprocessing plants to Bharat.
Minimum criteria: Though the clean text is not a public document, a senior diplomat from a G8 country confirmed to The Hindu that the eight countries had agreed to certain minimum criteria including adherence to the main instruments of nonproliferation as a condition for the sale of equipment and technology destined for safeguarded ENR activities in a recipient country.
In the run-up to the final NSG plenary on India last September, Washington sought to get New Delhi to agree that the nuclear cartels rule waiver would not cover ENR transfers. But with the Indian side sticking to its guns, the NSG finally agreed to a clean exemption allowing nuclear exports of all kinds, including sensitive fuel-cycle-related items and technologies, provided they were under safeguards.
Under pressure from the Bush administration, the NSG subsequently debated new ENR rules last November but failed to evolve a consensus because of opposition from countries like Brazil, Canada and Spain to restrictions that would go beyond what the NPT itself provided for.
With consensus proving elusive during the recent June meeting of the 45-nation club, the Obama administration decided to decouple the question of ENR sales to India from the NSG process something the latest G8 agreement on interim implementation of a national-level ban effectively does.
Indias ability to purchase nuclear fuel and reactors from the G8 or NSG countries will be unaffected by the latest ban. Unless, of course, the new decision becomes the trigger for attempts to further dilute or qualify the core bargain contained in the India exception last year. G8 blocks full nuclear trade with India, The Hindu. Siddharth Varadarajan, Adopts rules making fuel cycle transfers conditional on NPT
In July 2006, the United States Congress allowed US laws to be amended to accommodate civilian nuclear trade with India. A meeting of NSG members on 21-22 August 2008 on an India-specific exemption to the Guidelines[2] was inconclusive. Several member countries, including Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, and New Zealand, expressed reservations about the lack of conditions in the proposed exemption.[3] In another meeting on September 6, 2008, the NSG members agreed to grant India a clean waiver from its existing rules, which forbid nuclear trade with a country which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The NSGs decision came after three days of intense U.S. diplomacy.[4] The approval was based on a formal pledge by India stating that it would not share sensitive nuclear technology or material with others and will uphold its voluntary moratorium on testing nuclear weapons. The pledge was contained in a crucial statement issued during the NSG meeting by India outlining the countrys disarmament and nonproliferation policies.Wiki
However this version of events is not universally accpeted. Other versions state that the NSG has not fully endorsed the export of Nuclear materials to Bharat.
The NSG has come up with a clean text of guidelines on ENR but these are yet to be formally adopted. In the G8 statement, however, the eight countries have agreed to implement this text at their individual levels from next year. The Indian Express
It is too early to tell yet, but all indications are that the Indo-US 123 deal is pretty much a dead duck in the water. There will be a lot of rhetoric to resuscitate it, but without the NSG the deal will be useless. It will be interesting to see the song and dance on the subject with Ms. Hillary Clinton when the visits New Delhi.
For now, it prefers to go by the fairly clean waiver it extracted from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Groups on the earlier ban on nuclear trade. The United States, Britain, France, Canada, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan that form the G8 are part of the NSG. India has its developed its own ENR capability and can live with a ban, officials say. The Indian Express
It is pedagogical to note the happenings when Mr. Sarkozy visits Islamabad this December. What gifts will the French Trojan horse bring to Pakistan?
Ms. Hillary Clinton appointed Mr. Robert J. Einhorn as Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control a known apponent of the 123 treaty with Bharat. Mr. Einhorn was not the only one who has consistently opposed the US-Indian 123 deal. President Jimmy Carter came out against it lock, stock and barrel. US-Indian 123 nuclear deal puts planet at risk By Jimmy Carter.
Knowing since 1974 of Indias nuclear ambitions, other American presidents and I have maintained a consistent global policy: no sales of nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refuses to sign the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. To embed this concept as official national policy, I worked closely with bipartisan leaders in the U.S. Congress to pass the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978.
More recently, in 2006, the Hyde Act was passed and signed by President George W. Bush to define appropriate terms of the proposed U.S.-India nuclear agreement. Both laws were designed to encourage universal compliance with basic terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which has been accepted by more than 180 nations. President Jimmy Carter
The fine print of the Hyde Amendment is a minefield for those moving forward on the Indo-US Nuclear deal. The Hyde Amendment is a piece of legislation that Congress passed in December 2006, called the Henry J Hyde Act, which imposes numerous conditions upon India, including an end to nuclear cooperation with the US if India conducts a nuclear test. A Democratic Administration could impose the Hyde Amendment on the 123 deal and cause havoc with the Bush-India deal. The Bush Administration had made the Nuclear deal a cornerstone of its Pro-India and Anti-China policy. Those were the days of building India as a counterweight to China.
In the Administrations eagerness for a foreign policy success, the deal was concluded in great haste, driven by the calendar of Bush-Singh meetings rather than by the seriousness and complexity of the task at hand. Key stakeholders in the U.S. Congress and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) were not consulted in advance. While speed and exclusivity are often necessary to overcome bureaucratic and international resistance to major initiatives, this must be balanced against the need for buy-in, especially when the success of the initiative depends on approval by both the Congress and NSG. In its desire to show boldness and demonstrate a clean break with the past, the Administration gave too little weight to the nonproliferation downsides and too much weight to proving to the Indians its dedication to building a qualitatively new relationship. In the process, it failed to use the leverage available to it to achieve U.S. objectives.Robet Einhorn. Statement to the US Senate Foreign Relations committee in April 2006
Indian Americans overwhelmingly voted for the Republican candidates and ploughed in millions of Dollars to get President Bush rel-elected. In one the worst cases of foot-in-mouth disease the Congress Party and the Manmohan government made it very obvious that it would prefer a Republican in the Whitehouse. It backfired.
It is pedagogical to note that after being elected to power, Presdent Elect Obama and after being sworn to office did not call Delhi. He did call Mr. Zardari and the Beijing. When the Democrats took power, they placed Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton is a a very pro-Chinese Democrat. On her maiden trip to Asia, she was handed an itinerary to visit Sydney, Jakarta, Tokyo an Beijing. Hillary Clinton personally crossed out Delhi from her itinerary and went to Beijing asking China to continue to purchase T-Bills.
Where there is smoke there is fire. Denials tell a very distinct theory.
A key aide to President Barack Obama has dismissed reports that the new US Administration has kept the nuclear deal with India on the back-burner. Mr Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official who co-chaired an inter-agency committee which formulated Mr Obamas Afghanistan-Pak policy, also did not see Robert Einhorns recent appointment as Secretary of State Hillary Clintons special adviser on non-proliferation issues as an impediment in implementation of the nuclear deal, signed during the Bush era.
Senator Obama voted for the US-India civil nuclear deal last fall and he has made clear that he wants to see it implemented. At the same time, President Obama has also made it clear that arms control and non-proliferation are back on the American agenda, Mr Riedel said. On the appointment of Mr Einhorn which has caused a flutter in India because of his strong views against the Indo-US nuclear deal, Mr Riedel said: Einhorn is a very qualified American diplomat and an expert on nuclear issues. I think, you would see, early on in this Administration the attempt to get the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and I think you would see in time that the United States would once again be urging all countries around the world to sign onto CTBT, he said. Indo-US N-deal not on back-burner: Riedel
The appointment of Mr. Robert Einhorm as an American diplomat has caused more than consternation in Delhi. Already panicked Delhi diplomats are now close to hitting the SOS button. Mr. Einhorn is a vociferous opponent of the American deal of exporting Nuclear technology to India. He has made it abundantly clear in his writings. His book discusses other countries that may follow India in acquiring Atomic weapons in his book The nuclear tipping point: why states reconsider their nuclear choicesBy Kurt M. Campbell, Robert J. Einhorn, Mitchell Reiss (Published by Brookings Institution Press, 2004). The Book is available on Google Books free of cost. Book reivew
If India steps up production, Pakistan can be expected to follow suit, China could decide to resume production, and others may be encouraged to seek their own production capabilities. The more materials produced, the more difficult and costly it will be to secure them, and the greater the risksRobert Einhorn
In fact Mr. Einhorn was right on the money. This is exactly what has happened. Pakistan has expedited production of Plutonium in Khushab and has increased the manufacture of atomic material in its Chasnupp plants. Pakistan already has a Nuclear Deal with China! The implications on China are not lost to the world. When Delhi increases production, Islamabad and Beijing fire up their production plans. This may force Japan to go nuclear.
Another reason we should care about stepped up Indian production of fissile materials is that it could lead to increased tensions and destabilizing arms competition in southern Asia, involving India, Pakistan, and China. Pakistani authorities have publicly taken special note of the failure of the U.S.-India nuclear deal to limit Indian fissile material production. Reportedly, the Pakistani National Command Authority recently met to assess the impact of the deal and consider adjustments Pakistan may need to make to its own strategic plans. President Musharraf said, We cannot remain oblivious to the changes evolving in the region. All the steps will be taken for the defense, security, and safety of Pakistan. Moreover, China has warned that the deal threatens to undermine global disarmament moves, suggesting that Beijing may also decide that it needs to respond programmatically. Robert Einhorn
The Hyde Amendment as well as US laws on termination of the agreement led to the Communist Party of India (CPI) leaving the coalition government. The Congress Party survived by the skin of its teeth with widespread report of huge amounts of cash given to members of parliament to save the treaty.
In terms of the substantive elements of the U.S.-India civil nuclear deal, there are several the Congress will want to probe and understand more clearly. Among them will be whether an Indian nuclear test explosion or some other Indian actions would trigger the termination of U.S. nuclear cooperation. A related question is whether the U.S. would be committed to assist India in obtaining reactor fuel from third parties if U.S. fuel supplies had to be cut off as a result of an Indian nuclear test or some other action. Robert Einhorn
The Indian National Congress has since obtained a fresh mandate from the voters, but for a while it was touch and go. Bruce Reidels recent statement in defense of Hillary Clinton says more about the future of the Indo-US deal than reams of papers presented to the UN Senate.
Many Democrats including President Carter had opposed any Nuclear deal with the US.
Knowing since 1974 of Indias nuclear ambitions, other American presidents and I have maintained a consistent global policy: no sales of nuclear technology or uncontrolled fuel to any country that refuses to sign the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. To embed this concept as official national policy, I worked closely with bipartisan leaders in the U.S. Congress to pass the Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. NUCLEAR ARMS India nuclear deal puts world at risk By Jimmy Carter Published: September 11, 2008
Pakistan already has a Nuclear deal with China and President Zardari passed up the supply of Nuclear raw material from Central Asia. Pakistan also claims that France has offered Islamabad a Nuclear deal similar to the US-India deal. According to the Pakistani Foreign Minister that deal is to be signed in September. Details remain sketchy on what has actually transpired between Paris and Mr. Zardari but something is cooking.
Rupee News had predicted the unraveling of the 123 deal on September 9th, 2008. This is what we wrote. India trapped in Nuclear 123 Treaty: Ban on future tests
The Indian left is right! Panglossian elitist triumphalism has inebriated the elitist ruling class into thinking that 123 will instantly propel them into the 23rd century with some sort of magical competitive advantage- blinding the penury stricken pullulating millions into embracing an inequitable deal which seriously impinges on Indian sovereignty & exacerbates the arms race in the Subcontinent, and only fills the coffers of the corrupt & multinationals. Every time the elite has tried to leapfrog the competition, it has had to face unsurmountable impediments.
India is now fully ensnarled with all the provisions of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) without actually signing the treaty. India cannot conduct another test, and almost all of its facilities are under IAEA or other monitoring. If the contract is broken, the US has the ability and the legal wherewithal to retrieve all facilities, and technology. The US will not transfer sensitive and dual use technology to India. The agreement forces India to conform to the Hyde Laws which are NPT in another form:
It is a trap, and it prevents India from any future nuclear test. We firmly believe that India has walked into the nonproliferation trap that the U.S. has set for us, said Yashwant Sinha, a member of Parliament from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party.
# BJP president Rajnath Singh, while addressing the partys national executive meeting in Bangalore, said that the issue of fuel supply, if the deal came through, was only an assurance and not a commitment.
# Mr Singh said there were several reasons for opposing the deal. For instance, the Peoples Daily recently published an article that China does not intend to limit its nuclear power.
# According to this newspaper, China needs to conduct further nuclear tests, Mr Singh said. If either Pakistan or China conducts a nuclear test that might threaten the balance of our regional strategic and security arrangement, then would not our right to conduct a nuclear test in response be seriously compromised?
# The Bharatiya Janata Partys president, Mr Rajnath Singh, also accused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of misleading the country to win a trust vote over the nationally divisive deal.
# A similar accusation also came from the Left Front. It followed US President George W Bush pitching the 123 Agreement to the US Congress as something that is not legally binding.
