This is why Pakistan is apoplectic, the non-proliferation fundamentalists are enraged, and the Chinese are working feverishly to undermine efforts to change the rules in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). But it appears that they worry too much: if the Indian paranoid class has its way, India will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of strategic victory.

Many of their objections to the deal are simply fictional. The provisions in the new US law that the critics of the deal find most objectionable are included in section 103 of the Bill as ‘Statements of Policy’ rather than as legal conditions. The US Congress does not make US foreign policy, which is the prerogative of the president. Critics of the deal have pointed to the few rare cases when the US Senate has refused to ratify international treaties to suggest that the Congress controls US foreign policy, a deliberate misrepresentation. Indeed, President Bush has explicitly stated that section 103 will be taken as purely advisory.

Another fictional issue is the US-India scientific cooperation on nuclear non-proliferation, section 109 of the Bill, which, it is argued, forces India to cooperate with the US on non-proliferation technologies. But that section only authorises the setting up of such a programme, it does not require such a programme. As the explanatory statement points out “Section 109 is not intended to create an obligation for India to meet.”

The congressional leaders have reiterated the boilerplate about capping, reducing and eliminating South Asian nuclear programmes. But they also note in their explanation that they “understand that US peaceful nuclear cooperation with India will not be intended to inhibit India’s nuclear weapons programme”, which appears not to have caught the eye of the critics despite their close reading of documents. Again, in their explanation of section 104(a)(2), which deals with waiver of sanctions, they note that “This waiver will be necessary because India will presumably continue to produce material for its nuclear weapons programme, consistent with its separation plan.” Both points have been carefully ignored by critics of the deal in India.

... contd.