Letting India in the Club?

India is a country that had me at hello. Call me biased, but I have a soft spot for countries of one billion people, speaking a hundred different languages and practicing a variety of religions, whose people hold regular free and fair elections and, despite massive poverty, still produce generations of doctors and engineers who help to make the world a more productive and peaceful place. Sure, as today's bombings in India illustrate, it has its problems — but it is not Iraq. It is a beacon of tolerance and stability.

Nuclear Ayatollahs

K Subrahmanyam

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is known in this country as a great friend and admirer of our democracy and a strong advocate of outsourcing of tasks related to Information Technology to India. Therefore one regrets to find he chose to accept the biased information supplied by a fellow American, the former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control and Disarmament, Robert Einhorn, instead of outsourcing his query to India and then basing his advice on the information gathered thereby.. He wants India to stop further fissile materials production in order to get exceptionalisation from the Nonproliferation Treaty.This view is based on Einhorn's information that all nuclear powers, including China have stopped fissile materiala production. Robert Einhorn served in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) from 1972 to 1984, in the Policy Planning Staff of the State Department from 1986-92, as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State1992-99 and Assistant Secretary of State from 1999-2000.

It was during his tenure in ACDA, China concluded its treaty with Z. A. Bhutto in June 1976 to proliferate nuclear weapons to Pakistan. The US formally agreed to look away from this proliferation in 1982, during the talks between the Pakistani delegation led by Agha Shahi and US Secretary of State, Alexander Haig. During this period Dr. A. Q. Khan dealt with China and obtained the Chinese design of the bomb. According to the very recent disclosures of the Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, CIA interceded twice in 1976 and 1985 with the Dutch government to save Dr. A. Q. Khan from prosecution. The Pakistanis assembled their bomb in 1987 and the US delayed acknowledging Pakistani bomb-making till 1990.

The Chinese supplied M-9 and M-11 missiles to Pakistan from late 80s. Though Pakistani government acknowledged the receipt of the missiles in 1983 in its Senate, the Clinton Administration (with Robert Einhorn as Deputy Assistant Secretary) maintained for seven long years, till a couple of months before Clinton demitted office, that the State Department was yet to make a determination on the receipt of Chinese missiles in Pakistan. In 1994 the transfer of 5000 ring magnets to sustain the Pakistani centrifuge operations took place from China . This was a deliberate violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty and yet the US readily accepted the Chinese explanation that this transaction was without the permission of Chinese Central Government.

From 1987 onwards, Dr. A. Q. Khan had initiated his proliferation to Iran. Gen. Aslam Beg, the Pakistani Army Chief, at that time informed two Assistant Secretaries of State, Harry Rowan and Henri Sokolski, that Pakistan would be compelled to share nuclear technology with Iran in view of US sanctions on Islamabad.. Dr. A. Q. Khan's proliferation to Iran continued from 1987 – 2002 and during this period Robert Einhorn was on watch in the State Department on arms control and nuclear proliferation. China also supplied equipment and materials to Iran for its nuclear weapons programme. The Chinese drawings on bomb design were recovered from Libya and till today there is no explanation from the Chinese. While the US has conveyed its displeasure to Pakistan on its refusal to make available Dr. A. Q. Khan for interrogation no one has raised the issue of asking the Chinese to explain their proliferation.. China continues to construct two nuclear power reactors in Pakistan. In India there are concerns that under the cover of reactor construction China continues its proliferation to Pakistan.

Given this history, nuclear proliferation Ayatollahs like Robert Einhorn, Henri Sokolski, Harry Rowan, Strobe Talbott and the entire Clinton Administration command very little credibility in India. If China had stopped its fissile material production,as Einhorn maintains , why does it not make a formal declaration or join in initiating discussions on concluding the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty? Most of these Ayatollahs have spent a lifetime shielding China and Pakistan and finding excuses for the tolerant attitude of past US Administrations for the most blatant proliferation campaign by China-Pakistan axis.

Even according to the most critical estimate by US Strategic community, India over the last 16 years has built up around 95-100 warheads – approximately 5-6 weapons per year. India at that stage was not bound by the norms of Nonproliferation Treaty and had all its indigenous reactors out of safeguards. Now India will be in the nonproliferation regime, though not as a member of NPT, and India is keen on cultivating the goodwill of all friendly nuclear powers. The world today is a balance of power in which prospects of violent conflict among major nations are becoming ever rarer. But India adjoins a failing state, an epicenter of terrorism which has a live proliferation link with China. .

India lives in a dangerous neighborhood and has to sustain its democracy in a region where there are major non-democratic states that have a record of proliferation over the last two decades. In such circumstances the credible minimum deterrent of India should not lose its credibility. The pace of build-up of minimum deterrent by India till now has been very restrained in spite of frequent Pakistani provocative testing of its nuclear-capable missiles obtained from China and North Korea.

Thomas Friedman shoud obtain a detailed account of US policy towards proliferation from China to Pakistan and through it to Iran, Libya and North Korea from those who were in charge and come to hardheaded conclusions. China does not acknowledge that it has stopped fissile material production but is able to mobilize enough American nuclear Ayatollahs to proclaim to the world its nuclear virtues. There is a Hindi proverb, which fits this context. After eating one hundred mice the cat went on its Hajj pilgrimage.

http://rajeev2004.blogspot.com/2006/03/five-rejoinders-to-tom-friedmans-faux.html

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