Waiting for Bush
    By J. Sri Raman
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Thursday 05 January 2006

    Can plans for a state visit serve as a pressure tactic? Yes, they can - and the George Bush administration of the USA is showing how.

    For over six months now, India's establishment has been excitedly waiting for the finalization of President Bush's proposal to visit this far-off country and put the final seal of approval on what is rapturously described as a "strategic partnership" in the making. The mandarins of New Delhi and their mentors in the media and elsewhere have been ready with the red carpet, but Washington won't let them roll it out just like that.

    They have been told, if in more diplomatic terms, that India has to deserve such a great distinction and honor first. There is no mistaking the message to them: the country has to complete its part of the nuclear bargain with the US for the best results from the Bush visit.

    The conditionality has been made clear repeatedly, and the few official denials of the stipulation have been far from strenuous. The Bush visit, originally expected this January, was first put off to February, and is now promised sometime between February and April.

    It was after striking the already infamous "nuclear deal" with Bush in Washington on July 18, 2005, that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh invited the President to visit India. By all accounts, however, the proposal originated in May at a dinner in Moscow to celebrate the D-Day. Bush then reportedly informed wife Laura that India had "a large number of Muslims but no al-Qaeda" and that therefore she need have "no fears" about visiting the country in his company.

    The President, obviously, lacked the information that India's Muslims, while no terrorists, were no supporters of his war on Iraq. Nor are the country's non-Muslims as a whole. However, Bush has had enthusiastic - even effusive - supporters in India's establishment. And what pleased them then was the point he was making about an alleged anti-terrorist basis to the US-India alliance. This has been their pet refrain too, even if they have failed to turn the alliance against Pakistan thus far.

    Under the nuclear deal, Bush promised to amend US laws in order to provide all assistance for India's civilian nuclear program, despite its refusal to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and its nuclear weapons test of 1998. India, in return, undertook the task of separating its civilian and military nuclear facilities and laying the former open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Neither side has made serious progress on its accepted obligations.

    In India, the deal has elicited strong opposition not only from critics of the "strategic compact" with the Bush dispensation but also from political forces that had initiated the process. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, whose coalition government took the first steps towards the "partnership," came out against the deal because of the dire threat he saw it posing to India's nuclear weapons program.

    The Bush administration has, however, refused to budge. As the President's point man for the deal, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, put it recently, Washington "believes it is better to wait before we ask Congress to consider any adjustments in law until India is further along in taking the necessary steps to fulfill our agreement." He said it was unlikely the Indians would have taken these steps before the first part of 2006. "It could be February or March or April," months which he also mentioned as possible months of the Presidential mission.

    To this, he has now added the teaser, "Of course, yes, very definitely he will visit India. It will be nice to have this initiative completed by the time of the President's visit, but it is not necessary."

    Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph has been more explicit. Said he: "We are going to continue and we have continued to work with India to get it to take additional nonproliferation measures. We've talked with them about joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, we've worked with them very closely in the context of the International Atomic Energy Agency actions on Iran. These are the kinds of actions that we would like to see just as a member of the nonproliferation community."

    New Delhi, as we have seen in these columns before, has demonstrated readiness to join the proliferation security initiative (PSI), which some concerned countries in Southeast Asia see as a major violation of international maritime law. The Singh government has also shamed India by voting with the US against Iran in the IAEA. All this, however, won't free India from its obligations under the nuke deal, as Bush and Burns have made loud and clear.

    The US pressure campaign has received powerful support from security think tanks that have proliferated along with nuclear weapons. Illustrative is a sermon on the importance of the "strategic partnership" by K. Subrahmanyam, chairman of the National Task Force on Strategic Development. He attributes the "partnership" to the US Administration's alleged perception that "India is a responsible nuclear power and valuable partner in fields vital to US interests."

    Another Bush-admiring security expert, C. Raja Mohan, asks the Prime Minister not to abandon "bold experimentation" in foreign policy. In a newspaper article, he says, "If the fear of entering uncharted waters extends to the implementation of the nuclear pact with the United States and making a choice in Vienna on Iran's nuclear proliferation at the end of this month, there won't be much intellectual excitement or credibility left in UPA's (the ruling United Progressive Alliance's) foreign policy."

    Those quivering with excitement at the prospect of the Bush visit may have to wait a while. For the others, the Singh government's foreign policy lost its credibility quite some time ago.