Bush Gives India a Nuclear Exemption

In doing so, he may have given Iran a free pass to ignore the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty also.

What happened:

Hoping to forge a new alliance with the world’s largest democracy, President Bush last week signed an agreement to sell nuclear fuel and reactor components to India. The deal, the centerpiece of Bush’s five-day trip to South Asia, essentially exempts India from the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. New Delhi has refused to sign that treaty, and instead has developed both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Now, in return for U.S. assistance with its nuclear energy needs, India will open its civilian reactors—but not its weapons program—to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. For its part, the U.S. gains a powerful new economic and military ally in the region to offset the growing influence of China. “India and the United States have much to gain from this new partnership,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told his parliament. Bush called the agreement “necessary.” Members of Congress, which must approve the deal, expressed concern that the deal weakens the U.S. case against other nations seeking to become nuclear powers—Iran in particular. “You can’t break the rules and then expect Iran to play by them,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D- Mass.), “and that’s what President Bush is doing.”

What the editorials said:

“Well done, Mr. President,” said National Review Online. For all Bush’s “supposed lack of realism,” this deal is a “triumph” of pragmatic thinking. By strengthening ties with India, we gain a potentially huge market for our exports, while reducing India’s drain on global oil supply. And what’s the downside? That this might encourage rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran to build nukes? Last time we checked they were doing that already. The idea of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad reading the text of this treaty and “shouting ‘Eureka!’ as he spots the loophole that lets him build his own nukes is charming but absurd.” But is it absurd to think that, say, Russia and China might use our inconsistency as an excuse to avoid getting tough with Iran? said The New York Times. We could have sworn the U.S. was trying to “galvanize international opposition” to Iran’s pursuit of nukes, but now Bush has undermined that effort. Worse, Bush publicly “embarrassed” President Pervez Musharraf—perhaps our most vital ally in the war on terror—by denying Pakistan the nuclear sweetheart deal he had just granted its most bitter rival. “Mr. Bush should have just stayed home.”What the columnists saidThis is “nuclear madness,” said Bob Herbert in The New York Times. India has been begging for this deal “for more than three decades.” And every president from Nixon to Clinton has rejected it for fear of undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By giving India carte blanche to build as many nukes as it wants, Bush has opened the door to an arms race on the Asian continent. Only in the “mad-hatter thinking” of our president is this conceivably a good thing.Bush was wise to ignore the “shrill opposition from nonproliferation purists,” said India scholars Alyssa Ayres and Sumit Ganguly in The Wall Street Journal. India is destined to become a major global power with or without the assistance of the United States. It has already proved itself a responsible nuclear power, denying requests by both Libya and Iran to sell them nuclear technology for oil. By building a partnership “between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest,” Bush can at least ensure that the U.S. gets “on the right side of history.”Don’t underestimate the impact of this deal on China, said Paul Richter in the Los Angeles Times. By permitting, if not actively encouraging, the buildup of Indian nuclear forces, the agreement causes “Beijing to worry more about India and less about the United States.” Bush also hopes that if the booming Indian economy relies more on nuclear power, it will reduce the demand on world oil supplies, and gas prices at U.S. pumps.What next?The White House plans to aggressively sell Congress on the agreement, and is already scheduling briefings with key members. Many Republican leaders are taking a “wait-and-see” approach to the issue, said David R. Sands in The Washington Times, but others are already signaling their opposition. “This thing has to be looked at very, very carefully,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). “I’m very, very skeptical.”