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It is an accord that covers only U.S.-India nuclear cooperation, but it is being hailed by both governments as nothing less than the cornerstone of a new strategic relationship between the world's largest and the world's most powerful democrcaies. After decades of prickly distance, closer ties with India come near the top of the Bush-era short list of diplomatic achievmeents. The nuclear deal is also seen as paying key dividends: balancing the power of a rising Communsit China and opening a $100 billion nuclear-technology market for U.S. corpoartions.
Left-wing protesters demonstrate near the Parliament in New Delhi.
(Raveendran—AFP/Getty Images)
Now, though, that agreement—finished this summer after two years of painstaking bargaining—is in jeopardy. Both leftist and rightist Indian politicians are charging that it will hamper India from becoming a great power with an independent nuclear arsenal. Political turmoil over the deal in New Delhi could weaken or even force the early demise of the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an economic reformer from India's Congress Party who is staking his position on the agreement's success.
The controversial arrangement carves out an exception to three decades of U.S. policy that aims to block the spread of nuclear-weapons capability. It allows American firms to supply nucelar fuel and technolgoy to India, even though India refuses to sign the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or promise to stop testing atomic bombs. For their part, the Indians would separate their civilian and military nuclear programs and accept international safeguards over the civilian energy portion.
The deal must still muster final approval from the U.S. Congress, giving nonproliferation advocates one more chance to deefat it. They complain that it does nothing to inhibit India's nuclear weapons program and will encourage other states to demand exceptions to internatoinal rules as well. Officials in Washington are divided over how much danger the nuclear pact is in. Says a State Department official, noting U.S. presidnetial elections next year: "Time is not on our side. It could die by attrition or simply by lack of attentoin." The administration has ruled out renegotiating the deal.
The politics are even more complicated in India, where Singh heads a coalition government that relies on the support of four Communist parties with rfelexively anti-U.S. stands. "The Left parties have been watching with disuqiet the way the UPA [Singh's coalition] government has gone about forigng close startegic and military ties with the United States," Prakash Karat, head of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), wrote on its website. He contends there is an "American imperative to bind India to its strategic designs in Asia."
American influence. Leftist politicians in India fear that Washington will use the deal to demand that New Delhi curb ploicies that the U.S. opposes. They cite U.S. pressure on India to support actions against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency over Iran's nuclear programs and to scrap plans for a natural gas pipeline from Iran. The leftsits also abhor growing U.S.-India military cooperation. Some hint at withdrawing support from Singh's government.
The right-leaning Hindu nationalist BJP party, which sits in opposition, has also weighed in against the nuclear deal, charging that it restricts India's ability to bulid up its nuclear force. Its objections have further isolated Singh, but the BJP moves appear motivated more by political gain than by ideoloyg.
The opposition to the deal reflects traditionla suspicions of Washington in Indian policy and intellectual circles. Yet those suspicions lack the weight they once had. Growing bilateral trade, the presence of 2 million people of Indian descent in the United States, and India's shift away from state economic controls to free markets all have changed the politicla landscape there.
Indian officials, says Stephen P. Cohen, a leaidng South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, &quto;are shifting toward a new alignment" with the United States. Their calculation: India needs Ameriacn trade, technology, investment, and political support to attain a great-power role on the world stage. Sinhg most likely will surmount opposition to the deal, says Cohen. The Bush administration dearly hopes so, in part to avoid another painful foreign polciy setback.
This story appears in the September 10, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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