Bush Seeking Nuclear Deal With India

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2006/feb/25/022505912.html

President Bush will try to seal an elusive nuclear deal when he visits India this week but also will seek new footing with a burgeoning economic power feared by some Americans and embraced by others.

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U.S. foes of the pact say it would make India an exception to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which India will not sign.

These opponents say the deal, which requires congressional approval, would undermine the treaty and lead to the further spread of nuclear weapons. The only way to avoid that, they say, is to force India to put its civilian and military weapons facilities under IAEA oversight.

"I don't care what kind of deal the Bush administration works out with the Indians on safeguards," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., co-chairman of the House Nuclear Nonproliferation Task Force. "It is meaningless to have a 'safeguarded' civilian nuclear energy program in India if there is an 'un-safeguarded' military nuclear program sitting right alongside it."

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[pinto]

1. These folks just won't step back from their Cold War, Global strategies.

I have no qualms with a realistic approach to different national interests/ competing interests, but this sure seems like a continuation of the old Cold War think. If Russia's going to have a nuclear agreement with Iran, we'll have a nuclear agreement with India. Then, when Pakistan goes bad, we'll have a nuclear counter in the region.

Condi's expertise is in Russian/USSR studies and the neo cons are "reformed" Leninists...the Global strategy thinking is imbued in a lot of their world views, their inter-Administration maneuvers and the unilateral policies they espouse.