US Doublespeak Must End

THE last round of talks between Jaswant Singh and Strobe Talbott have been termed 'positive and constructive', but this does not mean much. For two developments took place days before the talks, which left the delegations with virtually no option but to mark time. The first was the US attack on the training camps of Osama Bin Laden. The second was the resolution passed by the BJP's national executive in Jaipur, warning the government against signing the CTBT in a discriminatory non-proliferation regime.

The American air strikes have stalled an Indo-US agreement by reducing the latter's leverage over Islamabad. There are few differences left between India and the US over the CTBT, but many questions remain to be resolved concerning the non-deployment of nuclear weapons and missiles. Much of the discussions in the last two rounds of talks have therefore centered on finding a concept of non-deployment that reconciles India's need for a 'credible minimum nuclear deterrent' with the US' demand that India not damage the global nonproliferation system that it has crafted over the last six years. But, unlike the CTBT, India can assume constraints on deployment only if Pakistan assumes them too. What's more, given Pakistan's proclaimed willingness to use nuclear weapons first in order to counter India's superiority in conventional arms, and the fact that control over nuclear weapons and missiles rests with the military and not the civilian government, and that the political system there is notoriously unstable, India has to insist that commitments given by Pakistan are verified by the US through its satellite-based and human intelligence networks (no doubt Pakistan would want similar assurances). The wave of resentment that has swept Pakistan after the American missile attacks has, for the time being at least, gravely reduced Islamabad's capacity to give such assurances, and to accept any regime for verification of non-deployment that can be portrayed as an acceptance of limits on its sovereignty.

The BJP national executive's resolution has created a different kind of hurdle to an agreement. A close reading shows that it contains nothing that the Vajpayee government has not already thought of and made a part of its negotiating position vis-a-vis the US. Thus, in addition to cautioning against accepting any obligation that legitimises a discriminatory non-proliferation regime, it has warned the government that even a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing would need to be reviewed if a change in the country's security environment required it. Since the CTBT is not discriminatory between nuclear powers (and India is one, whether others like it or not), the national executive's main caveat does not any longer apply to it. As for keeping open the option of conducting more tests, the CTBT permits this to all signatories, when there is a grave threat to national security.

The real significance of the resolution lies not in its content, but in the fact that the national executive of the party passed it. In contrast to all the other centrist parties in the country, the BJP has several characteristics of totalitarian parties, whether of the Left or Right. The most important of these is that the party is not just an instrument for the capture of power, but the vehicle for an ideology. In such parties the organisational wing always claims, and usually exercises, ascendancy over the parliamentary wing. Thus, the note of caution struck at Jaipur cannot fail to further inhibit the government in its negotiations, for it means the government will have to explain its actions not only to the Opposition, but to its own cadres and office-bearers. This is not an insuperable hurdle. The party's demand reflects dissatisfaction with the government's failure to keep it informed and obtain its inputs on policy, rather than dissatisfaction with the direction the negotiations are taking. This is also the Congress' complaint. Placating both will not be difficult. But there are more weighty reasons why the government should pause a moment before it concludes its deal with the US.

Whether Washington likes it or not, its raids on Mujahideen camps in Afghanistan have changed its options in this turbulent region drastically. For five years, the State Department has been developing a largely covert policy of supporting Pakistan to support the Taliban in its bid to capture the whole of Afghanistan. This, they believe, will open the way to Central Asia for US commerce and industry. The attacks virtually doomed this initiative at the very point of success. US policymakers have been backpedalling furiously, sending out signals that they will make no more attacks if Bin Laden is thrown out of Afghanistan or brought to heel by the new rulers in Kabul. But the Taliban are, after all, Afghans. They have not forgotten and will never forget, that Bin Laden came to their country to fight their war and was their guest when the US attacked him. No matter how much Pakistan entreats them to keep Bin Laden under control, they will neither expel him nor put serious curbs on him. On the contrary, the more fervently Pakistan advocates the US' cause, the more rapidly will its influence with the Taliban diminish.

Bin Laden is also not a lone renegade but a god-like figure who occupies a position at the centre of a vast seamless web of Afghan-returned and Pakistani madrassa-trained Wahaby Islamic extremists who have unleashed terror in more than dozen countries from the US to Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Burma and the Philippines. This fraternity has vowed to take revenge for the attacks on Bin Laden—the first such act was an attack on a 'Planet Hollywood' restaurant in South Africa. The US may thus soon find itself being sucked into a vortex of violence that has no end.

This prospect has subtly changed the balance of power between India and the US in the negotiations now taking place. India has always deeply resented the Clinton administration's refusal to acknowledge that India is the principal victim of the new Islamic terrorism spawned by the Afghan war and that the ISI in Pakistan is offering shelter and sanctuary to these terrorists in exchange for their doing its dirty work in Kashmir.

It should now make it clear that these double standards must end if India and the US are to reach a durable agreement. If more attacks take place in the coming months on US facilities, its ties with Pakistan will perforce change, and its capacity to obtain and oversee commitments is likely to decline. India will do well to keep its own policies on non-deployment fluid till this process is completed and a new equilibrium reached. This does not mean that no agreements can be reached in the meantime. The best course is for India to commit itself to signing the CTBT, but continue to discuss modalities of non-deployment till the dust settles. The former will open the way for Clinton to visit India in November. The latter will safeguard India's vital security interests.