India-US nuclear deal wavers

But the collaboration on the deal has contributed to improved relations between the two nations.

from the October 24, 2007 edition

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Although the Bush administration had received one positive vote from Congress on the nuclear deal, some experts said growing doubts in the US about the deal are also a factor in the accord's fall from grace.

"Many members of Congress are growing increasingly skeptical of what the Bush administration is negotiating," says Rep. Edward Markey (D) of Massachusetts, a longtime supporter of multilateral nonproliferation efforts. "It's heartening to see the members coming over to me and shaking their head at what the Bush administration went so far to accept."

In authorizing the Bush administration to conclude a civilian nuclear agreement with India, the House passed legislation last year that placed a number of conditions on a deal, such as requiring India to adhere to various multilateral controls.

Bush has said such conditions are not binding – a position that grates against even some Republicans – while some Indian politicians hold up such measures as evidence of American attempts to impose US foreign policy on India.

Potential boost to bombs

Representative Markey says the nuclear deal would boost India's bombmaking capacity perhaps sevenfold, to as many as 50 bombs a year. Members of Congress, he adds, are increasingly concerned about India's continuing close ties to Iran in the energy field.

"India is not serious" about confronting Iran over its program, he says. "That's the issue that could really break the deal in the halls of the House and Senate."

Markey casts doubt on the deal's political future in the US, saying he does not believe a Democratic president would adopt it. But others note that both Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama supported it in a Senate vote, although with some reservations.

Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says that "job No. 1" of any deal should be "making sure nuclear facilities are secure." But that issue is not addressed "at all,", he says. He believes the Bush administration has not "been keen on the nonproliferation agenda," but a new administration of either party might view things differently, he says.

In any case, others say the accord reflects a bipartisan desire to cement relations with India – in recognition of both its track record on nonproliferation and its strategic place as a stable democracy in a region of key importance to the battle with Islamic extremism.

"The fact is that if the US wants a partner it can rely on in the region, that partner is India," says Riedel of Brookings. "In the first place, India's record on proliferation [of nuclear materials and know-how] is virtually spotless," he says. "But India also knows what it is to be the target of Islamic jihadism, so there's an abundance of issues to carry a growing bilateral relationship into the 21st century."

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