March 7, 2006
What the Indian Giver Got
By Pat Buchanan
Standing beside Pervez Musharraf, an ally in the war on terror,
President Bush explained how he told him Pakistan would not be getting
the same aid in developing peaceful nuclear power that Bush had
just promised to India:
"I
explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with
different needs and different histories. So as we proceed forward,
our strategy will take in effect those well-known differences."
Bush was
bluntly saying India is a democracy we can trust not to spread
nuclear technology, but we're not sure we trust you. After all,
your boy A.Q. Khan was running a Home Depot for A-bomb technology.
Unstated
message: We're not sure any nuke technology we give you, Pervez,
will not end up in an al-Qaida madrassa. For there is no guarantee
you will be around that long, Pervez, given your enemies have
tried to kill you four times and elections are to be held in 2007.
If Musharraf
feels he was asked to come through the service entrance and given
the bum's rush, who can blame him?
While even
his greatest admirers do not confuse Bush with Bismarck, what
the president did on his Asia tour seems inexplicable.
In the Cold
War, India aligned with Moscow and repeatedly fought a smaller
Pakistan that was our friend. In the war on terror, no ally has
taken greater risks than Musharraf. While both India and Pakistan
refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India was
first to break faith with a West that gave it nuclear technology
and the first to test nuclear weapons.
Why, then,
did Bush agree to transfer U.S. nuclear technology only to India?
In so doing, he insulted an ally and blew a hole right through
the NPT regime on which we stand to make our demands on Iran and
North Korea?
Apparently,
at an all-night session on the last night in India, the U.S. negotiators
capitulated to all of India's demands, lest Bush leave New Delhi
with nothing to show for a trip halfway around the world but an
agreement to import mangoes.
What did
Bush give -- and get?
India will
be given the same access as Japan to U.S. technology and nuclear
fuel, which will enable India to divert its fuel to weapons.
India agreed
to let the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect 14 of its
22 nuclear facilities, while eight, military in nature, are off-limits.
This is a like a college president agreeing to let cops search
the dorm for a stash of marijuana -- as long as they stay off
the sixth, seventh and eighth floors.
Would the
United States permit Iran, which signed the NPT and has allowed
IAEA inspections of all known nuclear facilities, to agree to
a deal like this? No way. We don't trust them -- but we trust
a democratic India that already has the fruits of its past deceit,
a nuclear arsenal.
Unilaterally,
Bush has decided that democracies who refuse to sign the NPT and
secretly build, test and maintain nuclear weapons will be exempt
from the laws. Nations we do not entirely trust, like Pakistan,
get no help. Nations we detest, like Iran, face sanctions and
preventive wars.
While Pakistan
was sent to the back of the bus, this was a triumph for India.
Bush got nothing but press clippings for his presidential scrapbook.
What happens
now?
Israel,
which has also refused to sign the NPT and has 200 to 300 nuclear
weapons, will demand the same nuclear technology that India got.
On what grounds can Bush deny Israel?
And while
Bush may grant exemptions from U.S. law and the NPT regime for
countries he views as friendly and democratic, China is likely
to provide similar aid to its friends, democratic or not, and
step into the breach Bush opened with Pakistan.
Iran will
use the U.S. concessions to India to show U.S. hypocrisy. For
unlike New Delhi, Tehran signed the NPT, agreed to open up its
nuclear facilities and never tested a bomb. On this one, Democratic
Rep. Ed Markey is right: "America cannot preach nuclear temperance
from a barstool."
That Bush
decided to end decades of estrangement between America and India,
and make her a friend and partner, letting Cold War bygones be
bygones, is commendable. But why did we have to pay a price for
India's friendship? Economically, India sells twice as much to
us as she buys, and outsourcing benefits her workers, not ours.
As for India
being a counterweight to China, we don't have to pay for that.
With Muslims to the east and west, Chinese to the north, and Maoists
in Nepal, India needs us more than we need India.
Nor is New
Delhi so foolish as to allow herself to be dragooned into some
NATO-like U.S. alliance to encircle or contain China. She has
good lines to nations not exactly our friends: Iran, Syria and
Cuba.
In New Delhi,
Bush traded a horse for a rabbit, and some of us are wondering
as to the whereabouts of the rabbit.
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
