newpersia
10-05-2005, 11:20 AM
IAEA Meet: A Shameful Vote against Iran
by Praful Bidwai
THERE could have been no surer or more ignominious way of turning India’s long-standing friends into enemies, jeopardising her economic and political interests, splitting the Non-Aligned Movement, and acquiring the reputation of being a United States stooge while sacrificing independence in foreign policy. Yet, New Delhi has accomplished that at one stroke by voting for a resolution sponsored by the European Union-3 (Germany, France and Britain) at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which wrongfully reprimands Iran for its nuclear activities. India has not only let down Iran; it has shot itself in the foot.
The vote marks a decisive turning point in India’s international stance. It’s the greatest foreign policy shift since Independence. Iran was a litmus test. India failed it — comprehensively and dishonourably. The failure is the more deplorable because the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) promised to correct the pro-US tilt in Indian policy under the National Democratic Alliance, and pursue a staunchly independent line. India’s vote was driven by an obsession with joining the Nuclear Club on terms set by the US under the July 18 nuclear deal. If this judgment sounds too harsh, consider this:
India was under overt pressure from the US to isolate Iran, which Washington, unlike New Delhi, regards as an exporter of terrorism and a “rogue state” determined to acquire nuclear weapons. India promised to oppose the IAEA’s referral of Iran to the Security Council for potential sanctions. But India abjectly facilitated such referral. The resolution lays the logical and legal grounds for it. It declares that Iran’s history of “concealment” of activities, and its “non-compliance” with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards, give “rise to questions that are within the competence of the Security Council”.
India colluded with the US-EU-3 in gratuitously altering the IAEA’s decision-making procedure. Its 35-member board of governors conventionally takes decisions by consensus. When the US realised there would be no consensus on Iran, it clamoured for a vote. India backed it. This split the hitherto-united NAM group. India also violated a recent agreement with Russia and China not to precipitate the Iran issue.
India practised deception. The US sent a delegation to New Delhi, led by under-secretary for disarmament Robert Joseph, just before Dr Manmohan Singh’s mid-September visit to the US. Following this, but before the PM’s visit, India decided to vote with the US “in a crunch situation” (The Hindu, Sept 17). India then acted out a charade for two weeks.
The EU-3 drafted a tough resolution taking Iran to the Security Council, which they knew wouldn’t pass. Then, they introduced a pre-planned “mild” resolution. An elaborate pretence was made the India had toned down the original draft. India said that since the EU-3 had now addressed its concerns, it must support the motion. In Vienna, the EU-3 acted as a surrogate of the US. India played the surrogate of a surrogate, further demeaning itself. India’s post facto rationalisation was that the resolution would facilitate diplomacy to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis. In fact, the crisis has got aggravated: Iran feels offended and terms the resolution “illegal”. It feels let down. Iranian leaders are calling for “punishing” India. Iran’s first knee-jerk response was to announce the cancellation of a $22 billion liquefied gas contract with India. (It has since restored/reaffirmed the deal.) But the US is triumphalist.
India now stands in the distinguished company of Singapore, Peru, Ecuador and Ghana. NAM’s weightier players like Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Algeria and Nigeria stand on the other side. (India forms the important IBSA grouping with the first two.) Tiny Venezuela, under president Hugo Chavez, gutsily opposed the resolution. Even Pakistan and Sri Lanka abstained. India couldn’t muster that courage. So much for this Emerging Giant!
The Iran crisis burst upon the world in 2002 with disclosures that Tehran ran a nuclear programme concealed from public gaze for 18 years. It acquired a small number of uranium centrifuges and auxiliary facilities. Other countries, including Israel, Pakistan, Taiwan, the two Koreas, and India too, have indulged in clandestine nuclear acquisitions. Most got away. Iran was however targeted for other reasons—the 1979 siege of the American embassy, deep-rooted US prejudices despite Iran’s emergence from Ayotollah rule, and an eye on its oil and gas. President Bush says Iran belongs to the “Axis of Evil”.
Whatever Iran’s intentions behind enrichment, it adopted a highly cooperative attitude towards IAEA inspections. These haven’t revealed evidence of a military programme, as the US desperately hoped. Traces of enriched uranium were detected on some equipment. But these were sourced to A.Q. Khan’s nuclear-commerce network. Subsequent IAEA reports, including the latest (Sept 2), couldn’t conclude that Iran has violated NPT-IAEA obligations. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, Iran is at least five to 10 years away from a weapons capability.
Meanwhile, Iran’s presidential elections happened. The EU held back its incentives package, missing the July 31 deadline while waiting for the outcome. When the “radical” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won against the “moderate” Rafsanjani, the EU reneged on the package and demanded that Iran surrender the uranium enrichment option forever. Iran refused to renounce its “sovereign right”. The Paris agreement collapsed. Iran started converting uranium oxide to hex fluoride gas at Isfahan, a facility preliminary to, and physically far removed from, centrifuge enrichment at Natanz. India’s hypocrisy is stark. It now preaches non-proliferation. But India is itself a primary proliferator. It wantonly conducted an atomic explosion in 1974 and conducted five more nuclear blasts in 1998 and has since refused to sign any nuclear restraint agreement.
Equally shocking is India’s subordination of its interests to its “strategic partnership” with the US. Under the July nuclear deal, India hopes to get American nuclear reactors/materials. But nuclear power has long been frozen in America. No new reactor has been ordered there since 1973! Nuclear power is fraught with environmental, occupational-health and waste problems. Its contribution to energy can at best be marginal in relation to oil/gas. Of sterling importance here is the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, now under advanced negotiation. This holds the key to peace and prosperity in the entire South Asia-West Asia region and will open a conduit to energy-rich Central Asia. The Vienna resolution may kill the pipeline.
Cooperation with Iran isn’t just an economic proposition. It’s political too. India and Iran have enjoyed close, comfortable relations and worked as anti-Taliban allies in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Iran came to India’s rescue at the UN human rights commission, preventing censure over Kashmir. Here is the critical question: Does India’s future lie in South Asia, itself linked to West and Central Asia, and to Southeast and East Asia? Or does it lie with Washington? India will blunder gravely if it chooses the second option.
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=10063
by Praful Bidwai
THERE could have been no surer or more ignominious way of turning India’s long-standing friends into enemies, jeopardising her economic and political interests, splitting the Non-Aligned Movement, and acquiring the reputation of being a United States stooge while sacrificing independence in foreign policy. Yet, New Delhi has accomplished that at one stroke by voting for a resolution sponsored by the European Union-3 (Germany, France and Britain) at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which wrongfully reprimands Iran for its nuclear activities. India has not only let down Iran; it has shot itself in the foot.
The vote marks a decisive turning point in India’s international stance. It’s the greatest foreign policy shift since Independence. Iran was a litmus test. India failed it — comprehensively and dishonourably. The failure is the more deplorable because the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) promised to correct the pro-US tilt in Indian policy under the National Democratic Alliance, and pursue a staunchly independent line. India’s vote was driven by an obsession with joining the Nuclear Club on terms set by the US under the July 18 nuclear deal. If this judgment sounds too harsh, consider this:
India was under overt pressure from the US to isolate Iran, which Washington, unlike New Delhi, regards as an exporter of terrorism and a “rogue state” determined to acquire nuclear weapons. India promised to oppose the IAEA’s referral of Iran to the Security Council for potential sanctions. But India abjectly facilitated such referral. The resolution lays the logical and legal grounds for it. It declares that Iran’s history of “concealment” of activities, and its “non-compliance” with Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) safeguards, give “rise to questions that are within the competence of the Security Council”.
India colluded with the US-EU-3 in gratuitously altering the IAEA’s decision-making procedure. Its 35-member board of governors conventionally takes decisions by consensus. When the US realised there would be no consensus on Iran, it clamoured for a vote. India backed it. This split the hitherto-united NAM group. India also violated a recent agreement with Russia and China not to precipitate the Iran issue.
India practised deception. The US sent a delegation to New Delhi, led by under-secretary for disarmament Robert Joseph, just before Dr Manmohan Singh’s mid-September visit to the US. Following this, but before the PM’s visit, India decided to vote with the US “in a crunch situation” (The Hindu, Sept 17). India then acted out a charade for two weeks.
The EU-3 drafted a tough resolution taking Iran to the Security Council, which they knew wouldn’t pass. Then, they introduced a pre-planned “mild” resolution. An elaborate pretence was made the India had toned down the original draft. India said that since the EU-3 had now addressed its concerns, it must support the motion. In Vienna, the EU-3 acted as a surrogate of the US. India played the surrogate of a surrogate, further demeaning itself. India’s post facto rationalisation was that the resolution would facilitate diplomacy to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis. In fact, the crisis has got aggravated: Iran feels offended and terms the resolution “illegal”. It feels let down. Iranian leaders are calling for “punishing” India. Iran’s first knee-jerk response was to announce the cancellation of a $22 billion liquefied gas contract with India. (It has since restored/reaffirmed the deal.) But the US is triumphalist.
India now stands in the distinguished company of Singapore, Peru, Ecuador and Ghana. NAM’s weightier players like Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Algeria and Nigeria stand on the other side. (India forms the important IBSA grouping with the first two.) Tiny Venezuela, under president Hugo Chavez, gutsily opposed the resolution. Even Pakistan and Sri Lanka abstained. India couldn’t muster that courage. So much for this Emerging Giant!
The Iran crisis burst upon the world in 2002 with disclosures that Tehran ran a nuclear programme concealed from public gaze for 18 years. It acquired a small number of uranium centrifuges and auxiliary facilities. Other countries, including Israel, Pakistan, Taiwan, the two Koreas, and India too, have indulged in clandestine nuclear acquisitions. Most got away. Iran was however targeted for other reasons—the 1979 siege of the American embassy, deep-rooted US prejudices despite Iran’s emergence from Ayotollah rule, and an eye on its oil and gas. President Bush says Iran belongs to the “Axis of Evil”.
Whatever Iran’s intentions behind enrichment, it adopted a highly cooperative attitude towards IAEA inspections. These haven’t revealed evidence of a military programme, as the US desperately hoped. Traces of enriched uranium were detected on some equipment. But these were sourced to A.Q. Khan’s nuclear-commerce network. Subsequent IAEA reports, including the latest (Sept 2), couldn’t conclude that Iran has violated NPT-IAEA obligations. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, Iran is at least five to 10 years away from a weapons capability.
Meanwhile, Iran’s presidential elections happened. The EU held back its incentives package, missing the July 31 deadline while waiting for the outcome. When the “radical” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won against the “moderate” Rafsanjani, the EU reneged on the package and demanded that Iran surrender the uranium enrichment option forever. Iran refused to renounce its “sovereign right”. The Paris agreement collapsed. Iran started converting uranium oxide to hex fluoride gas at Isfahan, a facility preliminary to, and physically far removed from, centrifuge enrichment at Natanz. India’s hypocrisy is stark. It now preaches non-proliferation. But India is itself a primary proliferator. It wantonly conducted an atomic explosion in 1974 and conducted five more nuclear blasts in 1998 and has since refused to sign any nuclear restraint agreement.
Equally shocking is India’s subordination of its interests to its “strategic partnership” with the US. Under the July nuclear deal, India hopes to get American nuclear reactors/materials. But nuclear power has long been frozen in America. No new reactor has been ordered there since 1973! Nuclear power is fraught with environmental, occupational-health and waste problems. Its contribution to energy can at best be marginal in relation to oil/gas. Of sterling importance here is the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, now under advanced negotiation. This holds the key to peace and prosperity in the entire South Asia-West Asia region and will open a conduit to energy-rich Central Asia. The Vienna resolution may kill the pipeline.
Cooperation with Iran isn’t just an economic proposition. It’s political too. India and Iran have enjoyed close, comfortable relations and worked as anti-Taliban allies in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Iran came to India’s rescue at the UN human rights commission, preventing censure over Kashmir. Here is the critical question: Does India’s future lie in South Asia, itself linked to West and Central Asia, and to Southeast and East Asia? Or does it lie with Washington? India will blunder gravely if it chooses the second option.
http://www.navhindtimes.com/stories.php?part=news&Story_ID=10063