NUCLEAR-armed states are criminal states. They
have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World
Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to
carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate
nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear
states has lived up to it.
The United States is a leading violator,
especially the Bush administration, which even
has stated that it isn’t subject to Article 6.
On July 27, Washington entered into an agreement
with India that guts the central part of the NPT,
though there remains substantial opposition in
both countries. India, like Israel and Pakistan
(but unlike Iran), is not an NPT signatory, and
has developed nuclear weapons outside the treaty.
With this new agreement, the Bush administration
effectively endorses and facilitates this outlaw
behaviour. The agreement violates US law, and
bypasses the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the 45
nations that have established strict rules to
lessen the danger of proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms
Control Association, observes that the agreement
doesn’t bar further Indian nuclear testing and,
"incredibly, ... commits Washington to help New
Delhi secure fuel supplies from other countries
even if India resumes testing." It also permits
India to "free up its limited domestic supplies
for bomb production." All these steps are in
direct violation of international
nonproliferation agreements.
The Indo-US agreement is likely to prompt others
to break the rules as well. Pakistan is reported
to be building a plutonium production reactor for
nuclear weapons, apparently beginning a more
advanced phase of weapons design. Israel, the
regional nuclear superpower, has been lobbying
Congress for privileges similar to India’s, and
has approached the Nuclear Suppliers Group with
requests for exemption from its rules. Now
France, Russia and Australia have moved to pursue
nuclear deals with India, as China has with
Pakistan - hardly a surprise, once the global
superpower has opened the door.
The Indo-US deal mixes military and commercial
motives. Nuclear weapons specialist Gary
Milhollin noted Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice’s testimony to Congress that the agreement
was "crafted with the private sector firmly in
mind," particularly aircraft and reactors and,
Milhollin stresses, military aircraft. By
undermining the barriers against nuclear war, he
adds, the agreement not only increases regional
tensions but also "may hasten the day when a
nuclear explosion destroys an American city.“Washington’s message is that”export controls are
less important to the United States than money" -
that is, profits for US corporations - whatever
the potential threat. Kimball points out that the
United States is granting India "terms of nuclear
trade more favourable than those for states that
have assumed all the obligations and
responsibilities" of the NPT. In most of the
world, few can fail to see the cynicism.
Washington rewards allies and clients that ignore
the NPT rules entirely, while threatening war
against Iran, which is not known to have violated
the NPT, despite extreme provocation: The United
States has occupied two of Iran’s neighbours and
openly sought to overthrow the Iranian regime
since it broke free of US control in 1979.
Over the past few years, India and Pakistan have
made strides towards easing the tensions between
the two countries. People-to-people contacts have
increased and the governments are in discussion
over the many outstanding issues that divide the
two states. Those promising developments may well
be reversed by the Indo-US nuclear deal. One of
the means to build confidence throughout the
region was the creation of a natural gas pipeline
from Iran through Pakistan into India. The "peace
pipeline" would have tied the region together and
opened the possibilities for further peaceful
integration.
The pipeline, and the hope it offers, might
become a casualty of the Indo-US agreement, which
Washington sees as a measure to isolate its
Iranian enemy by offering India nuclear power in
exchange for Iranian gas - though in fact India
would gain only a fraction of what Iran could
provide.
The Indo-US deal continues the pattern of
Washington’s taking every measure to isolate
Iran. In 2006, the US Congress passed the Hyde
Act, which specifically demanded that the US
government "secure India’s full and active
participation in United States efforts to
dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and
contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons
of mass destruction."
It is noteworthy that the great majority of
Americans - and Iranians - favour converting the
entire region to a nuclear-weapons free zone,
including Iran and Israel. One may also recall
that UN Security Council Resolution 687 of April
3, 1991, to which Washington regularly appealed
when seeking justification for its invasion of
Iraq, calls for "establishing in the Middle East
a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and
all missiles for their delivery."
Clearly, ways to mitigate current crises aren’t lacking.
This Indo-US agreement richly deserves to be
derailed. The threat of nuclear war is extremely
serious, and growing, and part of the reason is
that the nuclear states - led by the United
States - simply refuse to live up to their
obligations or are significantly violating them,
this latest effort being another step toward
disaster.
The US Congress gets a chance to weigh in on this
deal after the International Atomic Energy Agency
and the Nuclear Suppliers Group vet it. Perhaps
Congress, reflecting a citizenry fed up with
nuclear gamesmanship, can reject the agreement. A
better way to go forward is to pursue the need
for global nuclear disarmament, recognising that
the very survival of the species is at stake.