The Hindu Business Line : Insufferable arrogance

The sense of outrage expressed by the Opposition political parties in India over the arrogant tone of the recent pronouncements emanating from the US official and diplomatic circles, seeking to lay down the do’s and don’ts of relations with Iran, is entirely justified.

Even the Foreign Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherji, who keeps his cool in the most trying circumstances, has been forced to react in sharp language, in effect telling the US to lay off. In a way, the Indian official establishment has had a foretaste of the kind of arm-twisting of India by the US for which the Henry J. Hyde United States India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act of 2006 provides ample licence.

Under Section 104 of that Act, the US President is required to submit to the appropriate US Congressional committees a report containing, among a number of other intrusive conditionalities, “a description and assessment of the specific measures that India has taken to fully and actively participate in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability and the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess nuclear fuel and the means to deliver weapons of mass destruction.”

Before demitting office in January 2009, the incumbent President, Mr George W. Bush, must be feeling bound to send the mandated report detailing the extent to which he had been able to prevail upon India to toe the US line on Iran. The US official stance already presumes that Iran is already bent on acquiring “weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability,…” etc. In its warped judgment, any country that does not join the US “to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran” is outside the pale of civilised community.

‘New crazies’

All this has driven the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr Mohamed el Baradei, himself to lose patience sometime ago with the war-mongering going on in the dovecotes of the US Administration, and denounce ‘the new crazies of Washington’, for saying that the only solution was to bomb countries and change regimes. He categorically said that Iran is far from having a nuclear weapon and that the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged weaponisation, nor does it have credible information in this regard.

As per the latest (February 22) report of the Director-General to the IAEA Board, the Agency has been able to confirm the non-diversion of declared nuclear material based on the verification of nuclear material accountancy reports regularly received from Iran. Of course, it also points out that Iran was yet to conclude the Additional Protocol giving the IAEA additional authority to conduct inspections, and that, contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities and the development of new generation centrifuges.

However, the IAEA has made good progress in resolving all issues except the one concerning weaponisation studies undertaken by Iran. Even in respect of this, there is no indication that they were linked to nuclear material. As on April 23, the IAEA has said that Iran has agreed to cooperate by furnishing information in May to dispel any impression of its being engaged in the development of nuclear weapons. The US had better wait for the conclusion of the efforts by the IAEA and not jump the gun, as is its wont.

B.S.RAGHAVAN

More Stories on : Foreign Relations | Offhand | Politics

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Insufferable arrogance

Sovereign investing

Why sub-prime is not a crisis in India

‘Focus will still be on the US because of the huge potential’

`We will look at opportunities, both in India and globally'

Inflation tiger and Government deficits