When India signed the nuclear deal 10 years ago, the rest of the world had the same debate that it is now having, after the Iran deal has been inked. Since 2005, India has partially defied both critics and supporters of its deal. In all probability, Iran too will do the same
This week marked two major nuclear milestones, and the similarities are hard to miss. Each of these deals were a mould-breaker albeit in different ways. While the India deal, signed 10 years ago on July 18, brought country, that was outside the non-proliferation treaty, into the nuclear fold, the Iran deal, signed last week on July 14, is intended to tame a country within the nuclear fold and prevent it from going down the path of North Korea, that was once a part of the NPT, but then withdrew from the regime and subsequently, not just tested, but also proliferated to Syria.
Perhaps the most curious aspect of the India-US deal has been that both optimists and pessimists were proven not only partially right, but also partially wrong. The optimists had said that the deal would spark a civil nuclear revolution in India, and an energy-starved India, whose path to industrialisation, if carbon-based would have contributed enormously to climate change, would now have a ‘green rise’. In other words, India’s industrialisation will be as clean and eco-friendly as nuclear energy allows.
The pessimists, on the other hand, pointed out that a dangerous precedent was being set with the India nuclear pact that would encourage other countries outside the nuclear fold — Pakistan and Israel — to behave badly in the hope of gaining a similar deal. These pessimists had also claimed that the hallowed ground of proliferation was being violated, that all hell would break loose, and the world would hurtle into uncontrolled nuclearisation.
Clearly, both have been proved wrong. Contrary to what the optimists had said, India has neither industrialised significantly nor has it built or operationalised many nuclear reactors (just one at Kudankulam) in these 10 years. Similarly, contrary to what the pessimists had predicted, India is not hurtling towards a nuclear arsenal build-up and the international community is quite certain of that. Pakistan, however, has increased its nuclear arsenal furiously — and while many have attempted to correlate this with the India-US deal, the fact of the matter is that this development is a complex phenomenon whose causality is impossible to prove.
Ultimately, it is those who advocated a middle path — that the deal was neither going to lead to an industrialisation of India nor to the vertical proliferation of Indian nuclear weapons — that have been proved right. Rather, the deal has been about making India a stakeholder in the global nuclear system, recognising an almost unblemished record of good behaviour with respect to outwards proliferation, and incentivising India against proliferation. The deal was about waking up to the fact that India was not going to budge and a middle ground had to be found.
Still, realistically, could the pessimists have been rightIJ Of course, if India wanted to go crazy and build up its nuclear arsenal it could have, with uranium assured for its civilian programme, but it did not do so. The only countries that seemed to believe that this would be the case were Pakistan and possibly China — both implacable foes of India who have a tendency to read the worst into India’s behaviour and ambitions.
Fast forward 10 years to the Iran deal and one can see almost the exact same debate emerge. The only difference is that those in the forefront of opposing the India deal are now leading the charge to ratify this deal. The pessimists, led by Iran’s foes Israel and Saudi Arabia, insist that Iran is an evil empire that will cheat on the deal.
In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have told his Cabinet that Israel’s greatest fear was that Iran would not cheat on the deal, according to a April 12 report in Haaretz. The optimists (people who opposed the India deal tooth and nail), on the other hand, see the Iran deal as a proving period — one in which Iran can show it is serious about following nuclear rules and not about destabilising regimes or supporting terrorism. These issues were are not covered by the deal, anyway.
The middle path approach here is that, much like the India deal, both parties are right, but both parties are also wrong with regard to the Iran deal. The Iran deal will delay breakout, but at the end of the 15-year period, Iran will still be able to produce a nuclear bomb — and if geo-strategic circumstances warrant, it probably will do so.
Also, deals are not meant to be permanent — and to expect otherwise is to be extremely naïve. It is probably safest to tread the middle path here, based on India’s example. In other words, after the deal, nothing really changed in or for India. The power equation did not change nor did geo-political alignments. Terror against India did not cease and there was no outbreak of peace. There is still ample scope for India to hurtle towards weaponisation just as there is also ample scope for a nuclear revolution, if India chooses to industrialise with a high percentage of nuclear power in its energy matrix.
Against this backdrop, it is safe to assume that Iran too will take the middle and accept that both sides of the debate have valid arguments. Nothing will really change in Iran. The deal is expressly aimed at delaying Iran’s breakout — that is what it will do. Will it delay this breakout in perpetuityIJ Will it control Iranian terrorism expressed through Hezbollah or Tehran’s support for the Shias in Yemen and BahrainIJ Of course, not. That is not what the Iran deal is meant to do, just like the India deal was not meant to free Kashmir or ensure better governance in India to ease up the insurgencies in the North-East and the Maoist belt. The illusion that one deal can solve all the worlds problems is unrealistic. As former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said during the India-Pakistan war of 1971, “The best thing that statesmen can do is to avoid the worst.” In this case, the worst has either been delayed by 15 years or avoided.
However, a cautionary note is in order. On the April 14, in this column, this writer had indicated the pitfalls of effectively granting Iran the ‘right to terrorism’ — that is, the lifting of all sanctions, not just the ones nuclear, as nuclear concessions. lifting of all sanctions means that Iran can accelerate its support to terrorists without fear of economic consequences. The greatest test of and threat to the Iran deal, therefore, is not Iranian cheating leading to the production of a nuclear bomb but the actions of Iranian proxies such as the Hezbollah.
(The writer is Programme Coordinator, National Security Programme, at the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi)