More Nuclear Deal

Here's some more from Brian Beutler on the worsening US-India nuclear deal. As approved by congress, we were going to violate international law and give India nuclear assistance unless India made a new nuclear test. The Indians, it seems, were prepared to look that gift horse in the face, so the Bush administration is hatching one of its ignore the law schemes, whereby "Bush has agreed to go beyond the terms of the deal that Congress approved, promising to help India build a nuclear fuel repository and find alternative sources of nuclear fuel in the event of an American cutoff, skirting some of the provisions of the law."

Needless to say, we'll also be urging the international community to clamp down on Iran's nuclear weapons program. The background here is that conservative Republicans think the NPT is useless and that the correct way to prevent "bad guys" from acquiring nuclear weapons is brute force (c.f., invasion of Iraq, desire to go to war with Iran) -- a series of unprovoked, illegal, preventive wars. Liberals tend to think that's wrong, but Democratic Party elected officials are really, really good at putting important questions of principle aside in order to pander to domestic ethnic lobbies, thus most Democrats backed the bill (including Sens. Clinton and Obama -- if John Edwards or Bill Richardson has ever said anything about this please let me know)

Comments

This country is just so damn dysfunctional now.

Posted by Dan Kervick | July 27, 2007 1:20 PM

Not to be a dick, but if you thought the Iraq war was illegal, why did you support it? I mean you've explained that you bought into a pretty bad idea of supporting the invasion and I'm not one to hold grudges (you've certainly learned your lesson) but what made you think the Iraq war was legal then but not now? Or did you just not care?

Posted by Eric the Political Hack | July 27, 2007 1:26 PM

The second paragraph is largely true and very damning, but I think it's important to note that the Democrats are pandering to the high-tech business sector as well as the Indian-American community. And the former group is far more influential on Capitol Hill.

If we have any hope of dragging the political discourse in this country back from the precipice of utter insanity, we shouldn't not let these discussions slide completely into the realm of "identity politics." Cultural alignments motivate voters, but they do not drive most policy decisions. Trade policies are set on K Street. The primary motivation for this deal, on all sides, is to insulate our profitable trade with India from the political fallout of India's nuclear program. Airy concerns such as non-proliferation and ethnic harmony take a back seat to business in this town. Always.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 27, 2007 2:03 PM

Where you're not supposed to look a gift horse is the mouth, not the face (by checking out the teeth, you can tell a horse's age).

Posted by rea | July 27, 2007 2:49 PM

Where you're not supposed to look a gift horse is the mouth, not the face (by checking out the teeth, you can tell a horse's age).

Posted by rea | July 27, 2007 2:59 PM

"The second paragraph is largely true and very damning, but I think it's important to note that the Democrats are pandering to the high-tech business sector as well as the Indian-American community. And the former group is far more influential on Capitol Hill."

However, Indian-Americans also exercise a disproportionate amount of influence in the high-tech business community.

Posted by Reality Man | July 27, 2007 4:45 PM

Democratic Party elected officials are really, really good at putting important questions of principle aside in order to pander to domestic ethnic lobbies

Seems to me that in this regard they are acting like legislators. Which, ah, they are.

Posted by Tyrone Slothrop | July 27, 2007 4:52 PM

Reality Man-- Point taken.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | July 27, 2007 4:53 PM

I'm sure Iran is looking at this with the same bemusement at this as India looked with as the world dealt with a nuclear China.

:)

Posted by Arun | July 27, 2007 7:07 PM

You may want to read this interview
Rediff.com

I'm posting the last question here:

Of the proposed compromises that are being talked about, which are the ones you find unacceptable?

The right of testing in the highly volatile terrorist environment in which we live; the right to reprocess; unrestricted uranium supplies; full civil nuclear cooperation without exceptions of certain parts of the fuel cycle; lifting of embargoes on civil nuclear activity; and safeguards in perpetuity to be made contingent on continuing bilateral cooperation so as to avoid any Tarapur-like situation -- these are some of the most crucial issues that should not be compromised in any eventuality.

Posted by Arun | July 27, 2007 7:22 PM

Indian analyst Brahma Chellany on Tarapur:

"While oil is freely purchasable on world markets, the global nuclear reactor and fuel business is the most politically regulated commerce in the world, with no sanctity of contract, as New Delhi found out bitterly when America walked out midway through a 30-year nuclear cooperation pact it signed with India in 1963.

Although the 1963 pact had the force of an international treaty, the U.S. amended its domestic law to unilaterally rewrite its obligations and halt all fuel and spare-parts supplies. In spite of such a material breach and the expiry long ago of the 1963 pact, India has continued to exacerbate its spent-fuel problem at the General Electric-built Tarapur plant by granting the U.S. a right it didn't have even if it had honoured the agreement — a veto on any Indian reprocessing of the accumulating fuel waste."

Posted by Arun | July 27, 2007 7:24 PM

Full column here:
here

Dr Brahma Chellaney, Centre for Policy Research

Excerpt:

First, the US will have the right not only to cut off all cooperation but also the right to secure the return of transferred nuclear equipment and material if India conducts a nuclear test. The US says it is entitled to terminate cooperation retroactively and to bind India to an international pact the Senate rejected in 1999 — the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Second, the US will have the right to determine how much fuel India can stockpile for “reasonable” reactor-operating needs as well as the right to impound such stocks if New Delhi failed to adhere to the prescribed good behaviour. The claimed “right to return” negates the very notion of lifetime fuel reserves that the PM has sought as an insurance against a Tarapur-style fuel cut-off.

Third, the US will enjoy a double right even on the fuel discharged from reactors. India is to neither ship back the spent fuel to America without its consent, nor reprocess it sans prior US approval. By declining to grant long-term advance consent for reprocessing, the US is loath to put India on par even with its non-nuclear allies. Worse, its dual veto against India is to hold even if it unilaterally terminated or suspended cooperation. With a lesser right in the now-expired 1963 NCA, the US has stopped India to this day from reprocessing the accumulating Tarapur spent fuel.

Fourth, the US will have the right to deny India the promised “full cooperation” through continued sanctions on export of civil enrichment, reprocessing and heavy-water equipment and technology. Yet it will have the right to enforce India’s “full compliance” with US-led technology-control regimes. Put simply, India is to be tethered to these cartels while remaining their target.

Fifth, in addition to ensuring IAEA inspections on all aspects of India’s civilian nuclear programme, the US will have an unparalleled double prerogative: the right to statutorily establish its own end-use monitoring, as called for in the Hyde Act Section 104(d)(5)(B)(i); and the right to institute “fall-back US safeguards” in case of “budget or personnel strains in the IAEA”. The fall-back option will ensure India is subject to intrusive, challenge inspections of the type the IAEA applies to non-nuclear States. The unbridled binary entitlements the US asserts should make India summon the courage and resolve to hold off on a bilateral accord. Surely, the 123 agreement cannot come ahead of long-term national interests.

Posted by Arun | July 27, 2007 7:34 PM

Another

Against this background, the debate on the 123 agreement needs to be conducted in a sober, realistic way, not through spin and hoopla. By papering over fundamental differences, the deal could engender serious Indo-US discord in the years ahead. That danger is already manifest from the conflicting analysis of the still-secret 123 agreement by official briefers. One US congressional official is quoted as saying, "The way the Indians are reading it is not correct from the administration's point of view."

Too often in its independent history, India has rushed to believe what it wanted to believe, only to cry betrayal later.

Posted by Arun | July 27, 2007 7:39 PM

I've seen a bit of discussion on how this deal is disastrous for preventing proliferation of nukes, but I'm actually interested in knowing how much this fucks up our position vis a vis Pakistan.

We're giving a country Pakistan sees as an enemy special nuclear privileges. We've already got a huge problem with al Qaeda both within Pakistan and along the border with Afghanistan. Pervez Musharraf is our "ally", but I have no faith in the strength of his regime. I think Musharraf's regime is about as solid a regime as the one the Shah of Iran was holding on to back in his day. And I think that shakiness and instability is completely ignored by the media.

Any thoughts?

Posted by moot23 | July 28, 2007 3:58 AM

> I think Musharraf's regime is about as solid a
> regime as the one the Shah of Iran was holding
> on to back in his day.

Musharraf himself may be dispensable but it'd
a mistake to think that the institution he
represents, the Pakistani army, is about to be
swept away by a ragtag group of religious fundamentalists.

Posted by DJ | July 28, 2007 10:02 AM