Viennese Waltzes
The nuclear deal hinges on how the US handles the NSG exemption for India
SEEMA SIROHI
Senior Indian officials had just finished a crucial closed-door briefing on the Indo-US nuclear deal for the 45 countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Vienna. After the 25-minute high-voltage pitch, they expected some questions, a few clarifications. What followed on that fateful August 21 was total silence. It was a dark portent—the opponents already had a group strategy to block the deal with a flood of amendments. And there began another two weeks of agonising, nail-biting suspense in the long and always difficult march to the finishing line.
Indian officials were rattled, even angry at the situation in Vienna—the mayhem of 50 amendments with no room to manoeuvre. After a horribly bruising battle at home, in which PM Manmohan Singh fought for survival, they had banked on Washington to deliver its part of the bargain—an unconditional waiver from NSG rules. But things fell apart, the centre did not hold.
The next NSG meeting on September 4-5 will reveal if the US can regain control of the process and corral support for the deal, which has soaked gallons of diplomatic and political blood. India is prepared to walk away if unwarranted conditions are tagged on to the draft. Thanks, but no thanks, is the message to Washington.
And US Ambassador David Mulford understands it.
India and the US are working on a new draft to find common ground while mounting another offensive to convince the naysayers. Officials speak of three possible scenarios—the NSG exemption brings in provisions of the politically explosive US Hyde Act from the back door (an awful outcome from India's point of view), the NSG exemption is less stringent than the Hyde Act (good for India but the US Congress may balk) or the NSG postpones a decision (bad for both India and the US).
The three contentious issues are—India's right to conduct a nuclear test, a demand by some countries for periodic review of Indian compliance of its non-proliferation commitments and denial of enrichment and reprocessing (ENR) technology. Objectors want the NSG to automatically end nuclear cooperation if New Delhi tests again, going beyond the existing NSG guidelines, which call for "consulting promptly" to "assess the reality" in case of explosion of a nuclear device. As for ENR technology, the NSG itself is tied up in knots over whether to bar or approve sales. Canada wants to sell but only to countries which signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the source of all troubles for India, which has refused to sign it. India will not accept any mention of "future compliance" to the NPT either. If Canada wins on the ENR issue, it would end up tying Russia and France too.
What is happening is an attempt to load the NSG exemption for India with conditions in the Hyde Act, thanks to the "non-proliferation underground" in the US bureaucracy and Congress. New Delhi had expected a degree of difficulty in the NSG but not the barrage of disfavour it had to face.
Canada alone produced 25 amendments, showing once again that Ottawa never fails to disappoint. Austria, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and the Netherlands pooled their muscle and made a joint opening statement at the plenary, calling themselves "particularly strong supporters" of non-proliferation.
The "monumental hypocrisy" of certain European countries, which sold dual use technology to Pakistan's A.Q. Khan network, is breathtaking, officials say. The latest example was an admission by the Swiss government that it destroyed computer files connected to Khan's nuclear mart to protect CIA operatives, said the New York Times. Washington bore down heavily on Switzerland to protect the CIA's means and methods; the Swiss complied. The same Swiss are in the front row at the NSG to deny a clean waiver for India, and the US can't seem to find its voice.
Delhi is seething at the proportions of the Vienna ambush. "The US always knew who the recalcitrant countries were. So did they completely go to sleep? We realised the problems early enough and leveraged our bilateral strength with various countries," an Indian official said. "Despite the domestic political uncertainties, we continued the rounds of NSG capitals." It
was a new phase of Indian diplomacy—aggressive and edgy, filled with a "with-us-or-against-us" flavour. The nuclear deal was a litmus test of friendship.
US officials reject the notion of "sleeping on the job" or sabotage, saying that letters from President George Bush and demarches have flowed steadily from Washington to NSG countries. Condoleezza Rice went to New Zealand in July partly to lobby for the deal, the first secretary of state to visit the country in nine years. But it is also possible that Washington's attention wandered over the past 11 months while the deal was stuck in New Delhi's political quagmire. At one point, US officials openly talked of "moving on" to other issues because they didn't think the deal would get past the Left hurdle. Ambassador Mulford had even called a special briefing to focus attention on other facets of Indo-US relations.
But the trouble has rarely been at the top levels of the Bush administration. As in the past, it is the busybodies at the mid-level who don't feel like following orders. It happened when a two-page enabling legislation morphed into a 28-page monster called the Hyde Act, creating a huge ball of fire in New Delhi because of its long list of expectations and prescriptions. This time around, senior administration officials seemed distracted by other world crises, leaving the field open to manipulation and mismanagement by others.
Sources say originally the US, UK, Russia and France had planned to jointly push India's case at the NSG meeting, but the Georgia crisis crashed through that idea. William Burns, the third ranking official at the State Department, was diverted from cracking the NSG for India to cooling the Russia-Georgia crisis.
This left the leadership to lower-level officials, who felt the NSG could be well used to extract more conditions from India.
"I don't think the Americans tried very hard and the reasons are many. Perhaps they wanted to show the US Congress they are doing their best to carry out the Hyde Act. Perhaps they lost heart because it took us a year to get sorted and the amount of criticism they came under," says former ambassador Arundhati Ghose. As for Russia, sources say Moscow, smarting from the PM's decision not to ink the deal for four extra reactors because of US pressure, was supine on the NSG front.
Russia got active only after the PM rang Moscow asking for help.
Last week Washington tried to make amends. The US Embassy was abuzz, with Mulford calling on ambassadors of recalcitrant countries. Visiting assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Richard Boucher, worked the phones, consulting furiously. He met national security advisor M.K. Narayanan and special envoy Shyam Saran to gauge if India's red lines could be a shade lighter.
But he got an earful. The US should not assume that the PM would sign on to something unacceptable because he has invested high political capital on the nuclear deal. As Ghose said, "India is not desperate and we should walk away. We have done it all our life."
Except this time the fallout would be radioactive for Indo-US relations. 
In fairness the value is in brackets (11.5kt). if this was Chic-4 then that is ~ 12-30kt. If these were tested stuff then why did TSP test in 1998? Looks like self goal?
