US Mid-Term Elections: End of Indo – US Nuclear Deal?

The long awaited verdict is finally out. This week’s US Congress midterm elections saw the Democrats won convincingly. They will control both the House and the Senate from next year. It is a return to controlling the Congress after the gap of 12 years. Democrats won the Senate with a clear majority of 51 seats against 49 seats won by the Republicans in a 100 seats Senate. Similarly, with 230 seats already been won in the House and led in two races, while Republicans won 196 seats and led in seven races, the most likely result in the 435 seats House would be a 232-203 majority for the Democrats.

The midterm elections became a referendum for President Bush and the voters have shown him the way. Every thing is different now for President Bush. The numbers above describe the changing balance in a new American Congress that will convene in January 2007. With the new composition in the Congress, there is possibility that the American foreign policies crafted out by President George W. Bush will be affected.

From Iraq war, the war on terror, North Korea’s nuclear issue to China policy, defeat by the Republicans means differently according to analysts. For Iraq war, it means a new approach to solve the Iraq quagmire has to be formulated sooner rather than later. The American public has become impatient and they want a change. On the war on terror and the North Korean nuclear issue, the rise of the Democrats will give hope to more dialogues and soliciting views rather than an emphasis on military intervention as favored by the conservative wing of the Republican Party.

On the other hand, according to David Zweig of Center on China’s Transnational Relations, Hong Kong, the Republican defeat means a weaker executive and a weaker executive means a weakening of America’s China policy. According to him, US – China relations do better when a President is strong, weak Presidents are no good for US – China relations.

These predictions and analyses, however, remain to be of a distant future. Even though there is now a change of guard in the American Congress, but there will be no change of policy overnight. The Democrats must take very cautious and step-by-step approach so as not to disappoint the voters who have cast their votes to reject President Bush. One thing is, however, of a very near future: the future of Indo – US nuclear agreement mooted in July 2005 and signed in March this year in New Delhi.

Will this new American Congress end the deal or will it help the deal to go through?

The Indo – US nuclear agreement has gone through various stages of detailed legislative consideration within the US over the last 16 months. As of now, the proposed bill cleared by the House of Representatives last July has three more steps before closure. First, a vote in the full Senate; later, reconciliation of the language of the bill as passed by the House and the Senate; and finally a vote in both legislative chambers. With the Democrats now controlling the Congress and the fact that a vote on the deal has been stuck in the Senate for the last two sessions where the Republicans were the majority, there is now some caution in New Delhi about the immediate future of this important deal. The so-called ‘Lame-Duck’ session of the Congress, which commences next week, must work very hard if it wants to see this deal through.

Most analysts in India, however, believe that the deal will likely to go through. There are several reasons for this optimistic view.

First, the core of the agreement among the supporters of the deal is a conviction that a closer relationship with India in the early part of the 21st century is in the abiding American interest. The nuclear area that had become a bone of bitter contestation was innovatively re-arranged to become an area of co-operation, even while respecting US non-proliferation sensitivities.

Second, even though the Democrats gained control of the US Congress riding an anti-Bush wave and some key opponents of the deal, who have argued that it undermines global non-proliferation efforts, have been among the Democrats, there was about 80 per cent support in the various Congressional committees over the last few months. Senior Democrats like Senator John Kerry and Congressman Tom Lantos have expressed their strong supports throughout this period. Moreover, in the post Tuesday’s triumph, there is a positive gesture from some key Democrat lawmakers on the nuclear deal.

Thus it would be misleading to infer that the agreement with India is a purely Republican affair.

Third, the assurance by President Bush that getting the India-US nuclear deal through the Senate next week is a priority. US Ambassador to India David C. Mulford echoed this view and said on Thursday that there was every intention to get the deal legislation through next week. Even though the upcoming Lame Duck session is hard to predict and other bills could be a priority, but with the very strong bipartisan support that had been expressed for the deal in last 24 hours, the deal will likely to go through.

At the end, it remains to be seen how these positive factors will evolve and help the deal to go through in this coming week. But if the deal fails to get through this time, it does not mean the end of the road.

The first and the second reason above are enough to convince everyone that the deal will return for reconsideration to the new Congress in early 2007. The essence of the agreement, which envisages closer co-operation between the US and India will neither die nor be rejected by the new Democrat-dominated US Congress. To recall the words by Tom Lantos, “It is my strong hope that we can have the bill on the House floor in July, and then, with House passage, we will have opened a new era in United States-India relations.” The deal might just get delayed, perhaps.

Nuclear Deal Agreed, What is Next?

Four months after the signing of the much-hyped Indo-US nuclear deal in New Delhi, the US House of Representatives finally passed the bill that would accommodate the implementation of the agreement. Under the proposed deal, the United States will aid the development of civil nuclear power in India in return for New Delhi placing its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.

With an overwhelming majority in the US House voted for the deal, by a vote of 359 to 68, it means a major victory for the Bush administration, which argued that nurturing India as an ally outweighed concerns that the agreement would free more nuclear material for India to use for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

This approval of the bill also means that the US would for the first time allow itself to ship nuclear fuel and technology to a country that has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India, Pakistan and Israel are countries with nuclear capability that refused to be a part of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The deal is also seen as a sign of a geopolitical re-alliance following the Cold War, one that allows India to jump-start its quest for alternative energy, as its economy booms.

With majority of Democratic and Republican leaders in both houses of Congress have expressed strong support for the bill, it is expected that the Senate would pass the bill when they will meet and vote for it this year-end. And if it becomes law, the measure would reverse some three decades of US policy to restrict access to nuclear technology.

On the contrary, when the members of the US House are overwhelmingly in support of the deal despite opposition from some of its members, in India, the scene is the opposite. The Manmohan Singh’s government is facing distractions both from the opposition and from his own coalition partners, especially the Left parties and the Samajwadi Party.

They argue that if the bill that has just been passed by the US Congress finally becomes a law, it would curtail India’s independency in the nuclear technology development. According to the agreement India must separate its indigenously developed civilian and military nuclear facilities, and submit civilian facilities to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

At the same time, the international community would see India as an ally to the US in South Asia, replacing Pakistan, something that the Left parties have been criticizing since the very beginning.

In response to these critics, PM Singh said that the Indian government would wait and watch the final shape of the agreement and will response accordingly. He said, "Let it (legislative process) be completed. Once it is completed we will then determine whether there are elements which go beyond what we have committed in July 18 (agreement) last year."

Thus the Indo-US nuclear deal is definitely having its supporters and detractors. The supporters say that the deal is the best deal an emerging giant like India can get from a superpower like the US. It will boost India’s growing needs of energy to keep the pace of its ever-growing economy. Nuclear power will help feed its rapidly expanding economy. At the same time, it strengthens international security by tightening US ties to ally India, the world's biggest democracy. A new alliance with a South Asian giant would balance the power equation in Asia that has been dominated by China.

On the other hand, the detractors argue that the deal is opposed to the NPT. India has refused to sign the Treaty. It also undermines the US campaign to halt the development of nuclear technology by Iran. Worse it could trigger a new nuclear arms race in South Asia. Pakistan's expanding nuclear program could fan the rivalry that saw the neighbors almost go to war for a fourth time in 2002, and conduct tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998.

In view of all the pros and cons, it must be remembered that unilateralism in international politics must be confronted at all cost. Nuclear technology is free for all. All sovereign nations, both developing and developed countries, can equip itself with the technology as long as there is responsibility in it. It is the responsibility of the political leadership to be accountable and responsible for their decisions. If India, an emerging giant in Asia, is capable of developing the technology independently and responsibly, why restrain it? So does Iran.