EDITORIAL

March 3, 2006

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George W. Bush and Pakistan President, General Pervez
Musharraf, Walk to the Aiwan-e-Sadr, or 'House of the
President,' for a Press Conference, Mar. 4. (above).

BBC NEWS VIDEO: President Bush and General
Musharraf Press Conference, Pakistan, Mar. 4, 00:11:10

[NEWS SLIDE SHOW: Bush in Pakistan].

Bush and Musharraf at President's House, Pakistan. (below).





Pakistan Lawyers Protest the Arrival of
George W. Bush in Karachi Mar. 3 (above);


Opposition Parties Hold an Anti-American Rally
in Karachi, with Crowds Burning American
Flags and Chanting 'Death to Bush.' (below)






Pakistani Protesters Give George W. Bush
a Not-So-Warm Welcome. (above);


India's First Nuclear Blast in Pokhran India
in 1974; Former Indian Prime Minister
Indira Ghandi Inspects the Site. (below)

 



Pakistani Military Police Assigned to Keep
Order at an Anti-U.S. Rally in Rawulpindi,
Pakistan, Mar. 4. (above);



Activists of a Pakistani Youth Group
Pose as Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. (below)


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With a few exceptions, today the Indians are rapturously jubilant. They have their deal for American nuclear technology just the way they wanted it. President Bush has called the deal historic. The quaking Indian media, the intellectual elite and wide swaths of the political class have cooingly adopted his description, extolling the deal as landmark, epoch-making and what not. And indeed it is historic, but only for making history in hypocrisy and duplicity.

At this point in time, America and its European allies are unbendingly arrayed against the Iran's nuclear program, even though it is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which India is not. Iran insists its nuclear effort is well within the NPT's framework and had signed up an additional protocol, calling for snap inspections of its nuclear facilities by the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. While India has pursued its nuclear activities away from the gaze of international monitors, and most of its nearly two dozen nuclear facilities are outside international safeguards.

And yet President Bush has decreed that India can have access to America's nuclear technology, and possibly to that of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group  but Iran can't even pursue what it insists is a peaceful nuclear program.

The Nuclear Suppliers'
Group. []
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[Editor's Note: The United States proposed the formation of a Nuclear Suppliers Group following the 1974 nuclear explosion by India. Its primary purpose was to ensure that suppliers uniformly applied a comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure that nuclear cooperation did not contribute to proliferation, and to involve a key non-NPT supplier, France. []

But there was a sticking point in this nuclear deal. The Americans wanted India's fast breeder reactors, which provide fuel for weapons, to be added to the list of civilian nuclear facilities that are to be open to international scrutiny. The Indian establishment would not agree to this; its nuclear scientists wanted these reactors on the military list, which will not be open to inspections. But even on this difficult issue, President Bush conceded to India's demands, magnanimously agreeing that they could keep their fast breeder reactors on the military list.

Is this not blatant hypocrisy and duplicity? Pray, what else could it be if Iran is not allowed even peaceful nuclear pursuits and India is permitted to keep even military nuclear facilities outside international scrutiny? And isn't it an even bigger hypocrisy to deny Pakistan the same access to American nuclear technology?

It would take a nuclear expert to more poignantly explain how this nuclear deal will impinge on the region's security situation. But it is incontrovertible that it has disturbed the balance of power in the area. India was already known to possess enough plutonium to build scores of bombs. And now, that enormous capability is bound to get a tremendous shot in the arm, with unmonitored fast breeder reactors functioning with complete freedom under the protection of the world's only superpower, pursuing its weapons program with added vigor.

But when have the Americans shown any consideration for such concerns on the part of Pakistan, or for the tilt of balance of power against it in the region? Only our sages in the [Musharraf] Administration seem to believe that things are changing for the better. Unfortunately, there are no such indications on the horizon. Rather, it appears that the nuclear episode of decades ago is about to be repeated.

Let us recall those days, when India tested its first bomb in 1974 and unleashed the demon of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent. Was India punished by the self-styled champions of non-proliferation? Wasn't it, instead, Pakistan, that was castigated?

India was left alone to freely, even indulgently, pursue its nuclear weapons program, and all of its guns were trained on Pakistan. Pakistan was pilloried, demonized and cut with the sharp blade of sanctions, embargoes and what not. For greater effect, it was slapped with the racist charge of trying to fabricate an Islamic Bomb. Hypocritically enough, these denigrators of Pakistan admitted Indians into their ranks to denounce it for its nuclear program. Nor were these people overcome with shame or remorse when India tested a series of bombs in 1998. Instead, they turned all of their animosity on Pakistan to keep it from nuclear testing.

Indeed, anyone in Pakistan who thinks it will be different this time round must be the most moon-struck soul on earth. The Americans have many tricks in their bag to deny Pakistan a similar nuclear deal. They can tout up hoaxes like the AQ Khan episode and the bleak possibility of congressional approval of such a dispensation for Pakistan. And even though President Bush has spoken of the deal with India as the beginning of some kind of grand global plan to supply nuclear power technology in some distant future, Pakistan can never hope to benefit from a similar nuclear deal from America. It's as simple as that.
It is India that really matters to the Americans, as much to build it up as to have a counterweight to the fast rising global power in China as to benefit from India's huge market and lucrative investment opportunities.

Pakistan's relevance comes only in the context of America's war on terror. All of Washington's current talk of long-term relations is hogwash. It has dished out such prattle aplenty in the past, only to abandon and betray Pakistan at its most crucial hour. It is only our elite that despise the lessons of history. Otherwise, this hypocrisy of the Bush Administration would be more than enough to tell us where we stand in its calculations.