Daily DAWN
August 04, 2008
THE landmark Indo-US nuclear deal has edged yet another step closer to fruition.
On Friday, governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved a key nuclear safeguards agreement that will open 14 of India’s 22 declared nuclear reactors to non-proliferation inspections.
The next step is to secure a waiver from the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) which bans exports of nuclear fuel and technology to nuclear weapons states that have not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).
After that the US Congress is expected to ratify the deal later this year which will allow the US to export nuclear fuel and technology to India, reversing three decades of Indian isolation. The deal is controversial in Pakistan because it is India-specific.
Speaking to an audience in Washington, Prime Minister Gilani demanded a similar nuclear status for Pakistan.
However, no such equal status is forthcoming from the US. When President Bush visited Pakistan in 2006, he made it clear that the US found Pakistan and India to be different countries with different needs and histories that are kept in view by American strategy.
What are those differences? Bluntly put, suspicions of nuclear proliferation. Nicholas Burns, the US diplomat who is one of the architects of the Indo-US deal, has recently spoken about “India’s trust” and “credibility” because it has not proliferated nuclear technology as Pakistan is believed to have.
The Indo-US deal has alarmed Pakistan because it draws together countries that have long been mutually suspicious of each other in a bid to offset China’s growing regional power.
Also, in a world where energy woes are set to grow, the deal will greatly improve India’s energy security. Currently nuclear power supplies about three per cent of India’s electricity.
By 2050, nuclear power is expected to provide 25 per cent of the country’s electricity, reducing its dependence on imported hydrocarbon fuels.India-centric hawks in Pakistan’s establishment are concerned by the government’s apparent caving in to US pressure to not resist the deal, arguing that the deal jeopardises Pakistan’s long-term security.
The pragmatists recognise that the deal is a seismic shift in the power equation in South Asia. Pakistanis long used to seeing a binary, zero-sum game between India and Pakistan have to adjust to the reality of US realignments in the neighbourhood as India and China hurtle towards the status of economic powers.
Changes in the status quo always worry states, especially those whose policies are reflexive, reactionary and eschew creative strategic thinking. One only hopes that our strategists will not succumb to grandiose notions of great power status for Pakistan and use the deal to trigger off a nuclear arms race in South Asia.
What should be more worrying are the negative implications the agreement may have for global nuclear disarmament.
