A meaningful or a bland visit?

The POST, Sun, Mar,19, 2006.

Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema


To most South Asian, American regional policy appears to be confused, inconsistent and in many ways reactive in nature rather than being calculative and innovative. While the confusion is partly the result of regional dynamics, the inconsistency in American policy is the product of changing global environment. Washington has never been able to gauge the exact intensity of rivalry and emotional platitudes of the Indians and the Pakistanis. It views the Indo-Pak relations from a global perspective disregarding the aspirations of the regional actors.

Much has been made out of the recent Pakistan visit of the US President George Bush. As
a matter of fact the very announcement of President Bush’s intended South Asian visit had ignited a vociferous debate in both India and Pakistan. While the India visit of the President Bush has been generally hailed by many commentators as very significant and productive, the Pakistan visit is dubbed as an appendix to India visit. The tendency among the people of South Asia to make a comparative analysis of visits to more than one country is relatively more pronounced among the Indians and the Pakistanis then the other South Asians.

Two elements of comparison stand out even after a quick glance; time spent in these two countries and the tangible/visible outcomes. According to many analysts both Clinton and Bush spent few days in India in wooing India and both more or less spent very little time in Pakistan lecturing or instructing the Pakistanis. The difference in time spent in India itself invokes strong reactions among many Pakistanis when compared with time allocated to Pakistan.

With India the US signed many agreements whereas with regard to Pakistan these were either promises or reiteration of commitments to a strategic dialogue. With India the US administration appeared to be bending backward to please them and with Pakistan a different kind of tone appears to have been adopted. However this does not imply that the visit was a total failure but somehow it generates the impression of being nothing more than a bland visit.

The nuclear agreement with India has not only reflected the recognition of India’s ability to play a global role but also an effective recipe to bail India out of its augured energy crunch.
According to the agreement India has to place 65% of its total installed nuclear capacity under international safeguards. Its 14 civilian reactors would be placed under safeguards and 8 would remain in the military category and would not be subjected to safeguards. India has to separate civilian nuclear facilities from that of the military nuclear establishments. For all this India gets US civilian nuclear technology, including fuel and reactors that were denied to India for the last 30 years.

One major implication of US-India nuclear agreement is that US has implicitly recognized India as a nuclear weapon state. This also means that US would have to make changes in its existing nuclear related laws sustaining the non-proliferation regime. It is not surprising for those who have been keenly watching the American foreign policy pursuits, that US has undertaken such pursuits in the past in congruence with the dictates of the time. While the US was insisting rest of the world to sign the CTBT, it was unable to secure passage from its own legislature. This time the recent agreement also entails that the US will have to work hard not only to make the necessary amendments in its own laws but would also influence the nuclear suppliers group in order to ensure nuclear fuel supply for India.

By and large the Indo-US nuclear agreement has been an achievement for India though it still has to cross many hurdles. The anti nuclear community in US has already started its campaign to stop its materialization. But one cannot deny its symbolic value for India and damage it is going to inflict upon non-proliferation regime. The deal has not yet accorded the status of a nuclear weapon state to India but at the same time India is no longer on the list of non-nuclear states.

On the positive side the deal is going to create a third category of the states that have nuclear weapons capability. Indeed this appears to be reflective of ground realities in many ways. Perhaps it would have been better for the last NPT review conference to create a third category and by so doing all the three non-recognized nuclear weapon states could have been brought into the overall fold of the NPT. At the time such suggestions were given but these were not deemed attractive enough and the emphasis continued to remain on non-proliferation. The recent American nuclear deal with India can also be viewed as a forerunner for eventual Pakistan and Israel’s entry into this special category in some future suitable time. The American Secretary of State Rice’s assertion that ‘this is not time for such an arrangement with Pakistan because of the proliferation concerns’ clearly kept the option open for future eventualities of similar nature.

Some writers have stressed that India’s impressive record in non proliferation has been acknowledged and rewarded though many reports clearly indicate that Delhi also violated its nuclear commitments and there is no reason to believe that they will not do in future if their national interests so demanded. A recently released report by Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which was published in leading newspapers stressed that India took out fuel rods from a reactor it had received from Canada, extracted the plutonium from those rods and detonated its first nuclear test in 1974. At the time India termed it as a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’ but it has now been admitted that it was test for weapon design.

Compared to Indian nuclear deal, Pakistan has nothing to show in terms of similar concrete outcome. However one cannot just dub the Pakistan visit as a total failure. Not only Pakistan’s contributions in fight against terrorism have been emphatically once again acknowledged but also the significance of Pakistan’s partnership in the international coalition has been reiterated. In addition, an Energy Dialogue has been set between Pakistan and US to find an effective and feasible solution to Pakistan’s growing energy problems. This could also mean that Pakistan could continue to explore all possible avenues in order to meet its future energy requirements. The establishment of Industrial zone in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan for duty free entry into the US along with progress made over the Bilateral Investment Treaty certainly amounts to some kind of tangible outcome.

Since many Pakistanis compared the time spent in Pakistan by President Bush with that of his stay in India along with not extending the India-type nuclear agreement to Pakistan, the visit appeared to many Pakistanis as a bland visit. The India-Pakistan visit of the President Bush once again reflected the Americans inability to properly gauge the intensity of feelings of the Indians and the Pakistanis have for each other. The American dilemma is how to be very close to India without driving Pakistan away. While they recognize the importance of keeping both of them on their right side and also to cater for the internal dynamics of the US, the policy pursuits in this region confronts them with an acute complex situation which requires a recipe that should not only be feasible and effectively guard their interests and objectives in the region but also keep both India and Pakistan on their right side. However if one looks from the South Asians viewpoints, the visit simultaneously appears meaningful to India and somewhat bland to most Pakistanis.

The writer works for Islamabad Policy Research Institute.