NOW THERE'S AN AXIS THAT DOESN'T HAVE OUR INTERESTS IN MIND...:

BJP must step in and save N-deal (C Uday Bhaskar, October 15, 2007, Rediff)

If this deal is either inordinately delayed thereby subjecting it to 'slow death', or rejected for reasons that are more ideological and anti-American, it will be a grave setback for India's long term strategic interests in the 21st century. The central feature of the July 2005 agreement is not about nuclear energy or nuclear weapons -- it is about removing the nuclear commerce and related technological denial regimes placed on India since 1974. The extension is that the removal of these US-led fetters will enable India to deal with the external world in a more equitable manner -- a freedom it currently does not have. India's sovereignty -- that was shrunk in May 1974 at US initiative -- will gradually be restored.

Thus failure or inordinate delay in taking forward the deal, by way of engaging with the Internation Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group will actually result in keeping India's sovereignty shrunk and eroded -- the very objective that the Left parties are claiming to advance!

The best case scenario in the current political impasse is for the A B Vajpayee-L K Advani combine to step in and arrive at a grand consensus with the government over the deal. It may be recalled that the rapprochement with the US began post May 1998 with the National Democratic Alliance in power and both the principal political parties � the BJP and the Congress -- are agreed in wanting to have a closer relationship with the US and, more importantly, to get over the estrangement with Washington related to the nuclear issue.

Irrespective of whether the general elections are held now due to the Left withdrawing support to the Congress, or in 2009 as per schedule, whoever occupies the Indian prime minister's chair (in all probability a BJP or Congress leader leading a fragile coalition) will have to deal with the occupant of the White House.

And the most undesirable exigency for the bilateral India-US relationship would be a return to the bitter tenor of the Clinton years -- when the US was determined to 'roll-back, cap and eliminate' India's nascent strategic nuclear profile. And if the nuclear deal is scuttled, then the possibility that the US will revert to its earlier anti-India posture on nuclear matters is almost certain.

Interaction with Washington's strategic community suggests that there is muted glee among US non-proliferation zealots who are grateful that what they could not achieve in the US Congress -- aborting the July 2005 agreement -- has been given to them on a platter by one section of the Indian legislature. They are equally determined that once this moment of Bush radicalism passes -- and a Democrat occupies the White House -- it will be back to business as usual with India -- meaning that pressure will mount to bring India back into the nuclear corral.

...Indian Communists, the American Left, Chicoms and Pakistan--the winners in Indian-American estrangement.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2007 7:58 AM