Normally, Indians have used to hear and probably enjoy little bit at the sight of Pakistan being talked about as a bad boy, who normally accused of behind funding and harboring terrorists and responsible for spreading nuclear weapon know-how's to Iran and North Korea.
So when the talk in the Washington for most of the year revolving around North Korea and Iran, whenever Iraq is not mentioned, it is with in expected lines when a reputed foreign policy news organization chose nuclear proliferation news as the top story of the year.
So when that happened, my first expectation was, it should be either about AQ Khan's Nuclear black market, which basically ended up being a Trade Missile for Bomb deal with North Korea and gave Iran a viable inexpensive under the radar uranium based nuclear programs.
So what was the surprise here?. This top story is about nuclear proliferation. This top story is about Iran trying to get in to Nuclear weapon know-how's. But the country accused is not Pakistan. Are you kidding me?. If it is not Pakistan, which other country can be accused?
No reputed media will accuse the Big boys in the nuclear club ( US, UK, Russia, France, China) for nuclear proliferation. It does not matter that in some intelligent circles, it is still strongly believed that China provided Pakistan the complete blue print of nuclear bomb making knowledge. But that news were never part of any top story in any of the last 2 decades.
So which country is accused of helping Iran to in the latest news cycle?. It is India.
Technically these are three separate sanctions against few Indian companies for exporting - Chemical, Nuclear and Missile parts to Iran. Does it mean, India no longer enjoy the moral superiority it used to carry in comparisons with her infamous neighbor.
Before jumping in to any conclusion, Lets take a quick look at the sanctions itself.
1. US sanctioned two Indian chemical companies for exporting banned chemicals, used for Rocket Fuels
2. US sanctioned two Indian nuclear scientists Shri Ch. Surendar and Y. Sivaraman Prasad, both belong to the top most elite members in the nuclear scientific community. Mr prasad was in Iran to transfer technology to extract tritium, a material necessary to make smaller, more efficient missile-deliverable nuclear warheads - as alleged by US.
3. US sanctioned two Indian companies for transferring missile parts to Iran
India is not happy about any of it.
The first charge looked more like a mistake. Because one banned company was owned by a Australian entity and another by a American and there are at least 7 Chinese and 2 Australian companies also banned by US for the same crime. This is not big deal. It looks like the exported chemicals were not even banned under chemical weapons conventions.
The maximum damage this banning can do is, allow the Pakistani foreign secretary to make nice sound bites, when he is sitting in front of a switched microphone and a camera.
The second sanction which happened in the late summer of 2004, was still being fought by Indian government and one of the deal breaker items in the Indian Us Nuclear Deal agreement. Again this one was not a very serious one, and as recorded by this report submitted to the US Congress.
But the most serious and highly talked about sanction was the third one, where two firms were banned for transferring missile parts to Iran.
There were few doubts, whether these transfers helped to build rockets, which were used by Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel. There were serious questions raised about the timing of this news, as it was broken by the US government only after the US India nuclear deal was ratified by the US congress.
Still there is no smoking gun evidence here. This looks more like a tap in the Indian government shoulder by US to stop working with Iran in any capacity.
Though it could be that these are minor violations compared to other nebulous proliferations, this latest sanction had taken a life out of its own, and now ended up being Number one in
The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006. India helped to Build the bomb, but US looked other way.
For god's sake, even if this alleged missile transfers were true, how it is that transferring missile parts can help to build bomb?.
These are other reports by other reputed news organizations regarding this.
House Voted on Indian Deal Unaware of Iran Missile Sales
Bush signs legislation permitting nuclear cooperation with India
Bush signs India nuclear deal -Reversal opens doors to trade, controversy
Most of the liberal Blog was against this deal right from the start. When this missile transfer news broke, it gave them more fuel to attack this deal.
India as a Nuclear Power
Take a look at the comments section to read few strong reactions from the Indian liberal readers, including yours truly to keep the facts straight.
What is going on here?. Is it a over reaction from the media?
Or is this a legitimate concern that giving this deal to India, US has permanently voided the NPT and giving green signals to countries who harbor thoughts of owning a nuclear weapon.
Or is this a concern that US foreign policy will be viewed in more hypocritical sense, since one hand they are rewarding India and in the other hand force countries like Iran, North Korea and others to give up.
Or is this a concern that Pakistan, - still enjoys lot of clout in the cold-war era US state department, will be forced to look else where ( probably China), as US and India getting closer and sharing a good time - will start another deadly arm race in South Asia.
Or is this a result of current state of the US president, who provides so little comfort to the general public and to the media and liberal blogs about his competence and decision making ability - It is a foregone conclusion that every deal made by this president is bad for the US and to the general world peace.
Or is this a concern that Neo-conservatives who were responsible for the ill fated Iraq war, will again fail in their desired mission to contain china's growing influence
China Runs up African Debt by hedging the bet on India.
I can not decide for sure, which one of the above is the reason for this deal getting a bad press here in US.
I am still not sure, what did US and India get out from this deal?
Personally, I think this deal is between two desperate countries -
- US trying to nudge India away from co-operating with Iran in any capacity
- Use India to contain China's growing clout
- India trying to get unlimited nuclear fuel for fast growing nuclear energy needs
- Getting access to western technologies denied for a long period of time
- Keeping a lid on how much of its nuclear reactors will be open for IEAA inspections.
- Finally a chance to join with the Big five nuclear club as the sixth country eventually.
These may or may not be the objective of Indian positions, as this was a very secretive deal even by Indian standards.
There were lot of oppositions with in Indian scientific community itself. I ignored the indian opposition parties view, since they oppose evertying for the sake of opposing.
The deal which was agreed upon between Bush and Singh and signed by the Congress / Senate were different, though the severity of the changes were reduced by the signing statements Bush included in his ratification.
This happened, despite the fact that this deal enjoyed a good amount of support in both the parties and in the Congress and Senate.
Jury is still out to pick the country,which came out as the winner in the deal.
But in the near future, this deal will continuously give India a lot of bad press. With the successful UN Sanctions on North Korea and Iran related to their Nuclear weapons activities, this historic deal between the planet's two largest democracies, will continue to be drawn in to any WMD discussions in the fore-seeable future.
Only history can decide the fate of this deal and the probably the fate of this little blue dot, we live and call it as home.
Let us all hope that this deal will end up on right side of the history.
So when the talk in the Washington for most of the year revolving around North Korea and Iran, whenever Iraq is not mentioned, it is with in expected lines when a reputed foreign policy news organization chose nuclear proliferation news as the top story of the year.
So when that happened, my first expectation was, it should be either about AQ Khan's Nuclear black market, which basically ended up being a Trade Missile for Bomb deal with North Korea and gave Iran a viable inexpensive under the radar uranium based nuclear programs.
So what was the surprise here?. This top story is about nuclear proliferation. This top story is about Iran trying to get in to Nuclear weapon know-how's. But the country accused is not Pakistan. Are you kidding me?. If it is not Pakistan, which other country can be accused?
No reputed media will accuse the Big boys in the nuclear club ( US, UK, Russia, France, China) for nuclear proliferation. It does not matter that in some intelligent circles, it is still strongly believed that China provided Pakistan the complete blue print of nuclear bomb making knowledge. But that news were never part of any top story in any of the last 2 decades.
So which country is accused of helping Iran to in the latest news cycle?. It is India.
Technically these are three separate sanctions against few Indian companies for exporting - Chemical, Nuclear and Missile parts to Iran. Does it mean, India no longer enjoy the moral superiority it used to carry in comparisons with her infamous neighbor.
Before jumping in to any conclusion, Lets take a quick look at the sanctions itself.
1. US sanctioned two Indian chemical companies for exporting banned chemicals, used for Rocket Fuels
2. US sanctioned two Indian nuclear scientists Shri Ch. Surendar and Y. Sivaraman Prasad, both belong to the top most elite members in the nuclear scientific community. Mr prasad was in Iran to transfer technology to extract tritium, a material necessary to make smaller, more efficient missile-deliverable nuclear warheads - as alleged by US.
3. US sanctioned two Indian companies for transferring missile parts to Iran
India is not happy about any of it.
The first charge looked more like a mistake. Because one banned company was owned by a Australian entity and another by a American and there are at least 7 Chinese and 2 Australian companies also banned by US for the same crime. This is not big deal. It looks like the exported chemicals were not even banned under chemical weapons conventions.
The maximum damage this banning can do is, allow the Pakistani foreign secretary to make nice sound bites, when he is sitting in front of a switched microphone and a camera.
The second sanction which happened in the late summer of 2004, was still being fought by Indian government and one of the deal breaker items in the Indian Us Nuclear Deal agreement. Again this one was not a very serious one, and as recorded by this report submitted to the US Congress.
But the most serious and highly talked about sanction was the third one, where two firms were banned for transferring missile parts to Iran.
There were few doubts, whether these transfers helped to build rockets, which were used by Hezbollah in Lebanon against Israel. There were serious questions raised about the timing of this news, as it was broken by the US government only after the US India nuclear deal was ratified by the US congress.
Still there is no smoking gun evidence here. This looks more like a tap in the Indian government shoulder by US to stop working with Iran in any capacity.
Though it could be that these are minor violations compared to other nebulous proliferations, this latest sanction had taken a life out of its own, and now ended up being Number one in
The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006. India helped to Build the bomb, but US looked other way.
For god's sake, even if this alleged missile transfers were true, how it is that transferring missile parts can help to build bomb?.
These are other reports by other reputed news organizations regarding this.
House Voted on Indian Deal Unaware of Iran Missile Sales
Bush signs legislation permitting nuclear cooperation with India
Bush signs India nuclear deal -Reversal opens doors to trade, controversy
Most of the liberal Blog was against this deal right from the start. When this missile transfer news broke, it gave them more fuel to attack this deal.
India as a Nuclear Power
Take a look at the comments section to read few strong reactions from the Indian liberal readers, including yours truly to keep the facts straight.
What is going on here?. Is it a over reaction from the media?
Or is this a legitimate concern that giving this deal to India, US has permanently voided the NPT and giving green signals to countries who harbor thoughts of owning a nuclear weapon.
Or is this a concern that US foreign policy will be viewed in more hypocritical sense, since one hand they are rewarding India and in the other hand force countries like Iran, North Korea and others to give up.
Or is this a concern that Pakistan, - still enjoys lot of clout in the cold-war era US state department, will be forced to look else where ( probably China), as US and India getting closer and sharing a good time - will start another deadly arm race in South Asia.
Or is this a result of current state of the US president, who provides so little comfort to the general public and to the media and liberal blogs about his competence and decision making ability - It is a foregone conclusion that every deal made by this president is bad for the US and to the general world peace.
Or is this a concern that Neo-conservatives who were responsible for the ill fated Iraq war, will again fail in their desired mission to contain china's growing influence
China Runs up African Debt by hedging the bet on India.
I can not decide for sure, which one of the above is the reason for this deal getting a bad press here in US.
I am still not sure, what did US and India get out from this deal?
Personally, I think this deal is between two desperate countries -
- US trying to nudge India away from co-operating with Iran in any capacity
- Use India to contain China's growing clout
- India trying to get unlimited nuclear fuel for fast growing nuclear energy needs
- Getting access to western technologies denied for a long period of time
- Keeping a lid on how much of its nuclear reactors will be open for IEAA inspections.
- Finally a chance to join with the Big five nuclear club as the sixth country eventually.
These may or may not be the objective of Indian positions, as this was a very secretive deal even by Indian standards.
There were lot of oppositions with in Indian scientific community itself. I ignored the indian opposition parties view, since they oppose evertying for the sake of opposing.
The deal which was agreed upon between Bush and Singh and signed by the Congress / Senate were different, though the severity of the changes were reduced by the signing statements Bush included in his ratification.
This happened, despite the fact that this deal enjoyed a good amount of support in both the parties and in the Congress and Senate.
Jury is still out to pick the country,which came out as the winner in the deal.
But in the near future, this deal will continuously give India a lot of bad press. With the successful UN Sanctions on North Korea and Iran related to their Nuclear weapons activities, this historic deal between the planet's two largest democracies, will continue to be drawn in to any WMD discussions in the fore-seeable future.
Only history can decide the fate of this deal and the probably the fate of this little blue dot, we live and call it as home.
Let us all hope that this deal will end up on right side of the history.
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