India’s Nuclear Dilemma: Washington Crosses Fingers

On Tuesday the crucial vote in the Indian Parliament over the India-US civil nuclear deal would decide the fate of the present coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The Washington establishment is keeping its fingers crossed and lips sealed before Tuesday’s trust vote,” says The Economic Times.

“The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country’s domestic affairs, but officials sure are hoping the Manmohan Singh government would survive. For, the government’s survival alone would give the embattled President George W Bush one last chance to score a major foreign policy success…

“On July 22, Manmohan Singh will find out whether his gamble has paid off – or if it has cost him his four-year-old administration. ‘If they are to keep their jobs, Singh and other Congress party members have to convince voters, as well as lawmakers who are sitting on the fence, that the leadership hasn’t sold out and turned India into a US pawn,’ The Time magazine said.

“Businessweek noted that eyeing more than $100 billion in new reactor construction contracts in just the next 10 years, US companies had been lobbying for the last three years in both New Delhi and the US for the passage of the nuclear deal. In the event of the nuclear deal falling through, the prospect of losing more lucrative contracts to the French and Russians has them worried.” More here…

According to Asia Times: “The latest New Delhi grapevine is that the government has been bribing members of parliament to come on board the deal and that the going rate of purchase of loyalty is US$6.25 million per member. Surely, that is corruption on an epic scale for even a notoriously corrupt country like India, which Transparency International places at somewhere near the bottom of the pit in the world community.

“The Congress party-led UPA faces a no confidence debate in parliament on Tuesday. This follows the withdrawal of support to the government by its left-wing allies in protest against the deal with the US. If the government loses the vote, early elections are likely – they are currently scheduled for May next year – and the deal could be abandoned.

“There is a pronounced non-proliferation agenda in the deal in so far as Delhi virtually surrenders its right to have nuclear tests and agrees to monitoring of its nuclear program, including fissile material production in perpetuity; the deal envisages that Indian foreign policy will be congruent to US global strategies.” More here…
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