Author: Aziz Haniffa
Publication: India Abroad
Date: February 6, 2004
To equate India's impeccable track
record on nonproliferation with that of Pakistan is not only incongruous,
but also downright obscene.
Come, come, Mr. President. Let us
have a little objectivity. To equate India's impeccable track record on
nonproliferation with that of Pakistan is not only incongruous, but also
downright obscene.
And with regard to the much ballyhooed
'glide path' to the 'next steps in the strategic relationship between the
United States and India' that you announced last month, what's the big
deal?
To lend some context to what I am
griping about, the objectivity bone I have to pick with you, Mr. President,
are comments you made on the eve of the Musharraf-Vajpayee Summit in Islamabad
last month. Comments that went largely unnoticed and subsequently disappeared
in the euphoria over the India-Pakistan rapprochement.
When asked by Mark Knoller from
CBS at an impromptu press conference at Brooks County airport at Falfurrias,
Texas how worried you were about the attempts on Musharraf's life, and
what it meant for the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, you replied
-- among other things like calling Musharraf a 'stand-up guy' when it comes
to dealing with the terrorists et al -- that Pakistan's nukes 'are secure
and that's important.'
Then of your own volition, with
absolutely no prompting or any question about India you went on to say,
'it's also important that India as well have a secure nuclear weapons program.'
Despite President Musharraf 400%
guarantees to Secretary of State Colin Powell that there had been no clandestine
transfers of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya or North Korea, we now find
all these assurances evaporating into thin air.
The General himself has admitted
nuclear proliferation; Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, 'the father of Pakistan's
nuclear weapons program,' and Dr. Mohammed Farooq, former Director General
of the Khan Research Laboratories, have virtually been placed under house
arrest.
To imply in the same breath that
it is imperative that the Indians too 'have a secure nuclear weapons program'
when there has not been a blemish on New Delhi's track record, makes one
wonder what the nonproliferation ayatollahs in your administration have
been feeding you. Or for that matter what they have been smoking!
All this time, particularly after
the demise of the Cold War, we have been fed this spiel that if there is
one thing about U.S. policy toward the subcontinent that is cast in stone,
it is that it is not a zero sum game, that relations with India and Pakistan
will be judged strictly on its own merits.
Baloney!
If that is so, and if eschewing
a zero-sum game in South Asia is U.S. policy, how is it that when asked
specifically about whether Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is secure, in the
same breath and almost like a reflex action, you wish that India's weapons
too are secure from terrorists, notwithstanding Delhi's track record.
Now, consider the 'glide path' or
the 'next steps' in the strategic partnership between the U.S. and India
which took you over two years to announce after your meeting with Prime
Minister Vajpayee in November 2001 when both of you committed yourselves
to establish such a partnership.
On the day of your announcement
from Monterrey, Mexico, January 12 when the State Department invited us
to a briefing to explain the nuances of your declaration, we all believed
the Waiting for Godot suspense was finally over. That high-tech dual use
equipment from civilian nuclear reactors and other sophisticated products
would now flow from the U.S. to India; that the metamorphosis from the
'presumption of denial' to the 'presumption of approval' would mean just
that.
Alas no!
The man providing the background
briefing told us 'there is a presumption in advance of the presumption
and the most important presumption here is that India is going to take
efforts and measures to take a look at its export control regimes, and
its laws and its regulations.'
He warned that only if these measures
were accomplished would it begin to 'make the licensing process easier.'
The caveats he emphasized and reiterated
made us almost believe there was an echo in the press briefing room and
that he had absolutely no desire to provoke the wrath of the domestic nonproliferation
lobby both inside and outside the administration.
'What we are offering is contingent
-- I use that word contingent -- on specific steps on the part of India
to protect against diversion or unauthorized use of any U.S. exports and
to address our broader export controls concerns,' he said.
If we didn't get the message, he
continued to spell it out, saying, 'We are not asking here for any changes
in U.S. domestic law, we are not asking for any changes in our international
obligations and similarly this is not about diminishing in any way our
concerns about India's nuclear weapons or ballistic missile programs.'
For those of us silly enough to
have thought the floodgates to high-technology trade were now open, the
official curbed our enthusiasm, pointing out that 'it will be a phased
approach,' and it could 'take some months, if not some years to carry out.
There is a lot of work to be done on both sides to fill in the details
here.'
All this time we were under the
impression that the work had been done, all the details filled in, and
the t's and i's crossed and dotted.
And just when we rejoiced over his
statement that both Washington and New Delhi had 'agreed to begin a dialogue
on strategic stability, which will include discussions on missile defense
in India,' he reminded us that Islamabad had been offered the same deal.
So much for U.S. policy in South
Asia not being a zero-sum game!
And to think that India was among
the first countries to endorse your ballistic missile defense shield concept,
Mr. President, when you sent Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage
to New Delhi to get India's blessings!
Don't get me wrong, Mr. President.
You are a 'real stand-up guy' too.
The courtesies you have extended
India -- hosting a luncheon for Prime Minister Vajpayee last September
in New York, making him the only visiting world leader to be accorded such
a gesture; inviting External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha last month
to the Oval Office, even ordering coffee to engage him in conversation
even though you had to prepare for your State of the Union speech -- are
manifestations of your commitment to further promote the growing camaraderie
between the two nations.
So I don't mean to burst your bubble
nor of those in New Delhi where such courtesies and rare gestures are the
be-all and end-all of a genuine relationship.
But with this year being election
year, let not the 'glide path' turn into a 'slide path'. Let not the envisaged
strategic relationship revert to the anemic relationships of yore. Let
us not have another two years of yakking before you or your successor announces
'the next steps!
