Obama kickstarts India's nuclear deal
By MK Bhadrakumar
The relationship between the United States and India, which lately showed signs
of stress, was revamped on Monday with the announcement that the two countries
have completed the "arrangements and procedures" for US-origin spent nuclear
fuel to be reprocessed in India.
A major stumbling block for the "operationalization" of the civil nuclear
cooperation agreement signed in 2008 by the US and India has been removed. It
took tough negotiations to reach the accord. The US had previously given such
reprocessing rights only to the European Atomic Energy Community and Japan. The
timing is, unquestionably, political.
An agreement may be ready for signing as early as next month, when Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh will travel to
Washington to attend the "nuclear summit" hosted by US President Barack Obama
on April 12-13. This will give Manmohan's visit added significance.
US's special India ties
Without doubt, Obama is putting his personal stamp on the US-India strategic
partnership. The announcement in Washington comes immediately after the
US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, where Pakistan made a strong pitch to secure a
nuclear deal on par with India's. There the US side said that Pakistan needs to
first have a good track record in non-proliferation.
Despite the hype in Islamabad over the strategic dialogue with the US, Delhi
believes the Pakistanis got much less than what they had demanded and probably
expected. The Pakistanis handed Washington an imposing 56-page dossier prepared
under army chief General Pervez Kiani's personal supervision that was a long
wish list of all the things that Islamabad expected Washington to provide it
with.
Instead, the news regarding the nuclear reprocessing agreement with the US
reaffirms India's special status in the US's regional policies.
In the short term, the India-US nuclear deal may mitigate some of the
bitterness felt in India over Washington being less than forthcoming in
providing the Indian intelligence services with access to interrogate David
Coleman Headley, a key suspect in the terrorist strike in Mumbai in November
2008 and who is standing trial in the US. (See
A spy unsettles US-India ties, Asia Times Online, March 22)
In the long term, the new agreement on reprocessing "will facilitate
participation by US firms in India's rapidly expanding civil nuclear energy
sector". Indeed, the commercial spin-off is going to be massive for the US
nuclear industry, running into tens of billions of dollars.
The powerful business lobby in the US is, from Delhi's perspective, serving a
useful purpose, especially when the US economy is desperately keen to secure
export orders. The Indian establishment calculates that its trump card
ultimately lies in the business opportunities that the rapidly growing Indian
market can offer to the US business and industry, believing this could make
Delhi into Washington's long-term partner in the region. The bi-partisan
support in the US Congress for a strong relationship with India acknowledges
this ground reality.
A sense of frustration was building up in Delhi that Obama might be reverting
to "hyphenating" US's ties with India and Pakistan rather than separately
developing each relationship on intrinsic merits, which was a fine legacy of
the former president George W Bush-era.
The new agreement may ease the Indian angst for a coming stormy period of the
next two to three years. At least for now, AfPak remains Obama's number one
priority and Pakistan's role in it will remain central.
Besides, the new agreement only provides for India to reprocess US-origin spent
fuel. It does not envisage transfer of US technology as such, whereas Delhi's
persistent demand has been that the US's remaining restrictions on transfer of
dual-use technology for India are anachronistic.
India's course correction
All the same, the political symbolism of the new agreement cannot be lost on
the international community.
The recent signing of multi-billion dollar arms deals in the defense and
nuclear fields between India and Russia on the sidelines of Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin's visit to India would have driven home to the Obama
administration that Delhi was reviving its strategic ties with Moscow with a
long-term perspective.
Second, Obama is working hard to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation
regime and in essence, he just underscored the US's acceptance of India's
special status in any revamped nuclear non-proliferation architecture.
Third, the US is affirming its differentiated regard for India at a time when
Sino-American ties are showing signs of strain. The US probably feels the need
to galvanize its overall relationship with India as part of its Asian strategy.
Interestingly, even as the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue was under way in the
State Department in Washington, Capitol Hill was conducting a hearing where
India figured.
Testifying before the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, the
commander-in-chief of the Hawaii-based Pacific Command, Admiral Robert F
Willard, said, "Our nation's partnership with India is especially important to
long-term South and Central Asia regional security and to US national interests
in this vital sub-region."
He said India's leadership as the largest democracy in the world, its rising
economic power and its influence across South Asia as well as its global
influence attested to its pivotal role in shaping the regional security
environment.
It cannot be lost on the Obama administration that Delhi is quietly rethinking
its overall foreign policy orientation. Delhi deliberately harmonized its
policies with the US's strategies and even put at risk its traditional ties of
friendship with Tehran in deference to the US's containment policy toward Iran.
There is a feeling in Delhi, on the other hand, that the US placed undue
primacy on the AfPak cooperation with the Pakistani military.
Paradoxically, India is one of a handful of countries that has faith in Obama's
AfPak strategy. Delhi wants the US surge to succeed. It sees no conflict of
interests if the US military presence continues for the foreseeable future.
Delhi is prepared to commit resources to be an optimal participant in the US's
AfPak strategy.
No doubt, Delhi staunchly opposes the forces of extremism in Afghanistan. Most
important, Delhi has steered clear of any regional initiatives that remotely
smack of challenging the AfPak strategy. Yet, Delhi is intrigued that AfPak
diplomacy under special representative Richard Holbrooke trampled on Indian
sensitivities by its crass failure to distinguish the US's friends.
The AfPak diplomats do not seem to get the point that Delhi will do whatever it
takes to safeguard its interests in a tough neighborhood and it has no choices
in the matter.
Obama's realism
Under Obama's leadership, the US-India strategic partnership may already have
lost its innocence. There is bound to be greater maturity on the Indian side in
assessing the volatility of the international system, the growing trends of
polycentrism, the rise of China and the need for India to avoid regional
isolation. How this pans out will be engrossing to watch.
India faces multiple challenges - it must keep tensions under check in
relations with Pakistan, sustain the momentum in Sino-Indian understanding,
work for a stable and secure Afghanistan, repair the ties with Iran, encourage
the transition processes in Nepal and Sri Lanka, and, generally speaking, work
on a neighborhood policy that provides underpinning for India's impressive
annual growth rate coasting toward 9%, so that it becomes sustainable through
the next decade or two.
Obama's signal contribution to the US-India strategic partnership is that he
may be imparting a balance, a sense of proportion to it. It is up to Delhi to
seize the window of opportunity. Obama is not the sort of man to browbeat India
or lay down rules of conduct. Nor is his passion for India in any way to be
doubted.
Surely, any of the Bush-era rhetoric that the US and India would work shoulder
to shoulder as two great democracies in a brave new world or that the Indian
people "loved" Bush for endeavoring to make their country a "great power" will
embarrass the policy makers today - both in Delhi and in Washington.
In sum, implementation of the nuclear deal becomes a turning point in the
US-India partnership. With one stroke, Obama may have calmed the troubled
waters of US-India partnership. It is a masterstroke in its timing.
The present Indian government faces no worthwhile opposition domestically to
the advancement of its agenda of expanding and deepening the US-India strategic
partnership. The majority opinion among the Indian elites also favors strong
US-India ties. Most certainly, a tumultuous reception awaits Obama when he
visits India.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
