Indian and American negotiators worked through the weekend to find an emollient form of words that would allow both sides to make President George W. Bush’s visit this week into an apparent triumph by skating over the profound differences that have emerged over India’s nuclear status. Bush was supposed to sign a deal this week that would allow India full access to U.S. civilian nuclear technology and nuclear fuel.
But the deal has proved elusive, with India’s nuclear scientists, key security officials and politicians within the ruling government coalition all combining to say that the small print of the current draft deal is unacceptable to India.
High level dissent is already appearing.
It was not supposed to be like this. Last July 18 President Bush and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agreement in Washington that set out the broad principles of a deal, which was presented with great fanfare as the United States recognizing and supporting India’s rise to great power status.
Under the American draft that India is now rejecting, India has been demoted from this top table to the status of a country that has a “developing nuclear power program.”
In his speech to the Asia Society last week, President Bush clearly endorsed this demotion of India’s status. He said: “Under this partnership, America will work with nations that have advanced civilian nuclear energy programs such as Britain, France, Japan and Russia to share nuclear fuels with nations like India that are developing nuclear energy programs.”
The reaction among India’s critics of the deal was furious.
“This is more than just a symbolic downgrading of our status. It leads the way to whole series of controls on our civil and military nuclear programs and our access to nuclear fuel that will erode our nuclear deterrent, expose our own pioneering researches in new nuclear technologies, and tie the hands of India as a sovereign nation by insisting we commit to this deal ‘in perpetuity.’ It all adds up to an insult.”
Uh, George. Real diplomacy is more difficult than the sort of snowjob that works on Texas voters.
