India as US camp-follower?

New Delhi has accomplished just that by supporting an anti-Iran resolution sponsored by the European Union-3 (Germany, France and Britain) at the International Atomic Energy Agency. India has let down Iran; worse, it has shot itself in the foot.

India's vote is the greatest-ever blow to its foreign policy independence. It betrays the United Progressive Alliance's promise to correct the pro-US policy tilt under the National Democratic Alliance.

India's vote was driven by an obsession with joining the Nuclear Club on American terms under the July 18 nuclear deal. Sounds too harsh? Consider this.

• Washington pressured India against Iran. It regards Iran as an "exporter of terrorism" and a "rogue state" determined to acquire nuclear weapons. India promised to oppose the IAEA's referral of Iran to the Security Council for sanctions, but facilitated the referral.
• However, the Foreign Ministry's website says "finding Iran non-compliant is not justified"; the resolution itself "recognises that 'good progress has been made in Iran's correction of [alleged] breaches'" of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty safeguards. Yet, India voted for the motion!
• In Vienna, the EU-3 acted as a US surrogate. India played surrogate to this surrogate, further demeaning itself.
• India colluded with the US-EU-3 in gratuitously altering IAEA decision-making procedures. Its board of governors conventionally takes decisions by consensus. When the US realised there would be no consensus on Iran, it demanded a vote. India backed it, splitting the hitherto-united NAM group.
• The US sent a lobbying delegation to New Delhi, led by under-secretary for disarmament Robert Joseph, just before Dr Manmohan Singh's visit to the US. Following this, but before the PM's visit, India decided to vote with the US "in a crunch situation" (The Hindu, Sept 17). India then acted out a mere charade.

India's post-facto rationalisation was that the resolution would facilitate diplomacy to resolve the Iran crisis. In fact, the crisis got aggravated: Iran feels offended and terms the resolution "illegal". And the US is triumphalist.

India now stands with Singapore, Peru, Ecuador and Ghana -- not with NAM's weightier players like Brazil, South Africa, and Malaysia. Even Pakistan and Sri Lanka abstained from voting. India couldn't muster that courage. So much for this Emerging Giant!

The Iran crisis exploded in 2002 with disclosures of a nuclear programme concealed from public gaze for 18 years. Iran acquired a small number of uranium centrifuges. Other countries, including Israel, Pakistan, Taiwan, the two Koreas, and India too, have indulged in clandestine nuclear acquisitions. Most got away.

"Axis-of-Evil" state Iran was targeted because of deep-rooted US prejudices and an eye on Persian Gulf oil.

Whatever Iran's intentions behind enrichment, it adopted a highly cooperative attitude towards IAEA inspections. These haven't revealed evidence of a military programme. Traces of enriched uranium were detected on some equipment. But these were sourced to imports from A.Q. Khan's network.

IAEA reports, including the latest (September 2), don't conclude that Iran has violated NPT-IAEA obligations. According to the International Institute of Strategic Studies, London, Iran is five to 10 years away from a weapons capability.

Some information gaps remain regarding Iran's past activities. These can be filled with further investigations. But the US wants to drag Iran before the Security Council a la Iraq.

The EU-3's mediatory effort wasn't honest. They were meant to offer financial and political incentives, and Iran to forswear nuclear weapons. Following an agreement, Iran voluntarily suspended enrichment activities.

Meanwhile, Iran's presidential elections happened. When the "radical" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won against the "moderate" Rafsanjani, the EU reneged on the original incentives package and demanded Iran surrender enrichment forever.

Iran refused to renounce its "sovereign right" and started converting uranium oxide to hexafluoride gas at Isfahan, a facility far removed from centrifuge enrichment at Natanz.

The US-EU-3 decided to confront Iran at the IAEA. For credibility, they needed a Third World heavyweight-collaborator. India played their game.

The resolution imposes harsh demands upon Iran -- even tougher than the IAEA's intrusive Additional Protocol. It demands greater powers to inspect, including "access to individuals, documentation… and R&D locations". Iran must suspend "all enrichment-related activity".

Iran's now being pressed to convert its 2004 legally non-binding offer into an obligation. Uranium enrichment is permissible under the NPT -- with safeguards.

Iran is being given third-degree treatment, like Iraq in the 1990s. Such abuse of power through the IAEA sets a terrible precedent which could be invoked against yet another country the US doesn't like.

India's hypocrisy is stark. It now preaches non-proliferation. But India has been a primary proliferator since 1974. Since Pokharan-II, India has refused to sign any nuclear restraint agreement. India also condoned Pakistan's nuclearisation while rejecting all proposals for restraint.

Equally shocking is India's subordination of its interests to "strategic partnership" with the US. Under the July nuclear deal, India hopes to get American nuclear reactors/materials. But nuclear power stands frozen in America, with no new reactor ordered since 1973!

Nuclear power is fraught with environmental, occupational and health problems. Its contribution is at best marginal in relation to oil/gas.

In contrast stands the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, now under negotiation. This holds the key to peace and prosperity in the entire South Asia-West-Central Asia region and opens new vistas. The Vienna resolution may kill it.

Cooperation with Iran isn't just an economic proposition. It's political too. India and Iran have enjoyed close, comfortable relations and worked as anti-Taliban allies in Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Iran came to India's rescue at the UN human rights commission over Kashmir.

Here's the critical question: Does India's future lie in South Asia, linked to West and Central Asia, and Southeast-East Asia? Or does it lie with Washington? The second choice will be a grave blunder.

Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist.