Maverick's World

India US Nuclear Deal: 90 Percent Progress

As I said earlier in the US, the appearance of progress is more important than actual progress.

There is now a media psywar underway to paper over the American inability to make any substantial moves towards resolving Indian concerns on the deal.

Let me briefly summarise for you all the 90 percent progress that has taken place thus far...

It all began when the Indian PM and the American President carried out negotiations and reached an agreement as per their executive powers.

The Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs realised that this agreement signalled the end of their reign and began a vicious assault on President Bush. They relied heavily on anti-Bush sentiments in the Senate and Congress to buoy their own political stock at the expense of President Bush.

Over the second Bush tenure, things have gone far from smoothly for the President. President Bush is widely viewed inside the US as someone who makes what appear to be half hearted and misguided attempts at doing things that only sort of make sense. High ranking officials in the government routinely make open ended and ambigious statements that suggest that President Bush is at best a harmless moron of the Dan Quayle variety, and it is largely respect for Bush Sr. that keeps a lot of this dissent within the adminstration's own people from coming out into the media.

The Non-Proliferation Ayatollah launched anti-deal Jihad created a maelstrom that sucked down many a national security analyst in India. The Indian national security community is by far the most distrustful and skittish in the world, and there was no way they could ignore the Non-Proliferation Ayatollah's defiance of President Bush. As the South-Asia Pakistan Lovers Association joined up with the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs in opposing the deal, the die was cast. When only token punishments were issued to the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs for their defiance of the President, the Indian national security community, could only conclude that President Bush was not in a position to guarentee the political security of any trading arrangement of this nature. Sans political security, a new negotiating position had to be created in India, a form of leverage had to be invented.

The construction of this new position required a wider debate inside India as it went beyond the established limits of debate that had existed for well over a decade. The Americans made misguided attempts to modulate this Indian internal debate by planting editorials in the lay press and organising numerous press conferences where people, mostly pro-deal lobbyists, spoke out of turn. This made it look like the Americans were openly peddling influence and this over-aggressive marketing style did not go down well in India. The Indians don't like being pushed into something and so the tide of the debate turned against any further overt compromise with the US. It did not help matters that some idiots tried to tag India-Iran relations on to this negotiation cycle. If the Bush Adminstration wanted India to buddy up with Haliburton's ventures in Iran, then surely other ways of communicating that could have been used.

As the Indian negotiators turned from their diffident manner to a more legalistic and narrowly worded communication, the Americans sensed the failure of their pre-publicty campaign and are now moving to secure a new position from where they can avoid blame for the failure. If it can deflect blame for this failure, the Bush Adminstration can hope to save face internally. The time honoured tradition of blaming top bureaucrats for the failure of a policy cannot be pursued in the US at this time. President Bush has already fired Rumsfeld and practically fired the Attorney General Gonzales. If he fired another second rung bureaucrat, it will only add to the pool of former national security grey suits now openly turning against President Bush. So the only alternative left to the US is to try and push the blame on India. That is what is being done with this carefully orchestrated media campaign. The best skills of the US, their unbelievable lead over the world in the area of film making is being used to produce mockumetraries that will lay blame for the failure of this deal on India's doorstep. It is unlikely India will be able to hold its ground in this offensive, the American film making process is the by product of well over fifty years of the most intensive and well organised research into human psychology. This research was carried out by the American intelligence establishment at great cost and was the key to success in the American propaganda during the Cold War. It is always important to bear in mind that the Russians did not believe their own propaganda, the Americans did... thats how good it was. Documentaries made for Discovery Channel, History Channel or Public Broadcasting are seen as impartial information in the US, they are not seen as government propaganda (as for example they are in India).

From an Indian perspective, it does not make sense to fall prey to the American national obsession with television dramas. We have other pressing concerns. So long as the communication is clear, the prospect of further negotiations remains. To the best of my understanding the PM has done everything in his power to get the Indian point of view out. Despite what you hear, he is not to blame for this mess. If anything keep a careful eye on the Karan Thapar types who will promptly air the American inspired blame card.

At the present time the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs have been able to save themselves, however their time is largely coming to an end. The present success will blind them to the reality that the bulk of the nuclear industry's interests are now turning against them. Unlike the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs, the nuclear industry views reprocessing as an inevitable consequence of global energy utilisation patterns. The nuclear industry implicitly supports an expansion of its markets. This is a far cry from the 70s when the NPT was concieved. At that time the nuclear industry was small, and largely devoted itself to making weapons. Uranium was the king and as long as the P5 could make enough of it for their bombs, controlling reprocessing and limiting Uranium access in places like India was acceptable. That is how this regime came about. Today this is no longer so, and it is quite obvious that none of the Non-Proliferation Ayatollahs grasp this.

posted by maverick @ 4:00 AM