[NYTr] Doubts Grow Over US-India Nuclear Deal

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AP - Aug 26, 2007
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/INDIA_US_NUCLEAR?SITE=WILAC&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Doubts Grow Over U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI (AP) -- The United States gave India nearly everything it
wanted in a landmark nuclear energy deal, but that may not be enough
for a vocal chorus of Indian critics.

A wave of opposition has left India's government reeling and raised
serious doubts about the deal's future. Critics argue the agreement
could undermine India's cherished nuclear weapons program and allow the
U.S. to dictate Indian foreign policy.

Leading the charge are the communist allies of India's prime minister,
and beneath their arguments many here see a deeper objection - they
don't want New Delhi drawn closer to Washington under any circumstances.

For both countries, the stakes are enormous.

The deal has been repeatedly touted as the foundation of an alliance
that could potentially redraw the global balance of power, completing
the transformation of a once-hostile relationship between the world's
two largest democracies.

U.S. policymakers see India as a counterweight to an ever-more powerful
China, and the deal reverses three decades of American policy by
allowing the shipment of nuclear fuel and technology to India, which
never signed international nonproliferation accords and has tested
atomic weapons.

The two years of painstaking negotiations to reach the deal have also
provided President Bush with a foreign policy achievement amid the Iraq
war and other crises.

For India, the benefits are arguably greater. Its booming but
energy-starved economy would gain access to much-needed nuclear fuel
and technologies that it has been long denied by its refusal to sign
nonproliferation accords. Even though the deal only covers civilian
nuclear power, it tacitly acknowledges India as a nuclear-weapons
state, giving its weapons program a degree of international legitimacy
- and adding to India's growing clout.

The deal, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an Aug. 13 speech to
Parliament, is "another step in our journey to regain our due place in
global councils."

But few of the deal's opponents heard his speech that day - they were
too busy shouting him down and disrupting Parliament, as they have done
nearly every day since.

The opponents run the gamut from right-wing Hindu nationalists to the
communists, who are key to Singh's parliamentary majority. The nuclear
agreement does not need parliamentary approval, but Singh's government
could collapse if his communist allies pull their support because of
the deal.

Most of their criticism stems from the Hyde Act, passed last year by
American lawmakers to allow nuclear trade with India.

It contains a nonbinding clause directing the U.S. president to
determine whether India is cooperating with American efforts to
confront Iran about its nuclear program. That has been seized on by
Indian critics as proof that Washington intends to direct New Delhi's
foreign policy.

The nuclear deal does not address what happens if India tests an atomic
weapon - a sign, American critics say, that New Delhi got too much out
of the pact.

Indian critics, meanwhile, argue that the lack of an explicit right to
test is a sign the U.S. aims to shut down the country's weapons program.

But for the communists, their ultimate objection appears simply to be
the United States.

"We must stand against a strategic partnership with the United States
of America," said Basudeb Acharya, a top official of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist).

He called the invasion of Iraq and Washington's efforts to stop Iran
from producing nuclear weapons "foreign policy adventures," and said:
"We want no part of this."

The standoff has the communists warning Singh not to press ahead with
the next steps in the deal - negotiating agreements with the
International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a
group of nations that export nuclear material - and the prime minister
daring them to stop him.

But with talk of early elections growing louder, both sides have
started to back down. They are expected to announce this week the
creation of a committee to examine the deal before pushing ahead with
it.

That, Indian and American officials privately say, could end up
scuttling the pact, which still has to be approved by U.S. lawmakers,
delaying it to the point where it is no longer viable.

"We will talk and talk and talk and nothing will be done," said a
senior member of India's scientific establishment with knowledge of the
nuclear deliberations.

"The Americans will not wait forever," he said, speaking on the
condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivities. "And we
will never get an agreement like this again."

American officials, who have publicly stayed out of the fray, privately
confirmed that view, saying that with U.S. presidential elections
coming up next year, they could only wait so long.

Washington acceded to most of New Delhi's demands, giving India the
right to stockpile nuclear fuel and reprocess it, a key step in making
weapons.

Abandoning such a deal would "be a major setback to India's
international ambitions," said retired Gen. Ashok Mehta, a strategic
analyst in New Delhi.

"Long-term, India, without the help of the United States and or any
other big power, will take much longer to be counted globally," he said.

© 2007 The Associated Press.