Fareed Zakaria: A Nuclear Reality Check

[bigtree]

America goes around the world arguing that a few more warheads would be dangerous and immoral—while it has 12,000 of its own.

Newsweek
April 9, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12225698/site/newsweek/

April 17, 2006 issue - Many of the Bush administration's critics argue, with some merit, that it has often pursued a foreign policy based on ideology and fantasy, not the realities of the world. But now the critics are lost in their own reveries. They fantasize that the United States and India will sign a nuclear agreement in which the latter renounces its nuclear weapons. They criticize the Bush administration's proposed deal with India because it does no such thing. (Instead, India commits to placing 14 of its 22 reactors under permanent inspections, and retains eight for its weapons program.) But this is a dream, not a deal. India has spent 32 years under American sanctions without budging—even when it was a much poorer country than it is today—and it would happily spend 32 more before it signed such a deal. The choice we face is the proposed deal with India or no deal at all.

The nuclear nonproliferation regime has always tempered idealism with a healthy dose of realism. After all, the United States goes around the world telling countries that a few more nuclear warheads are dangerous and immoral—while it has 12,000 nukes of its own. The nonproliferation treaty arbitrarily determined that countries that had nuclear weapons in 1968 were legitimate nuclear-weapons states, and that all latecomers were outlaws. (It was the mother of all grandfather clauses.) India is the most important country, and only potential global power, that lies outside the nonproliferation system. Bringing it in is crucial to the system's survival. That's why Mohamed ElBaradei, the man charged with protecting and enforcing global nonproliferation, has been a staunch supporter of the agreement.

This deal, shorn of all the jargon, comes down to something quite simple: should we treat India like China, or like North Korea? If the former, then we have to accept the reality that it is a nuclear power and help make its program as safe and secure as possible. If the latter, then we'll never stop trying to reverse India's weapons program.

Actually, even if this deal goes through, India will have second-class status compared with China, Russia and the other major nuclear powers. In all those countries, not one reactor is under any inspection regime whatsoever, yet India would place at least two thirds of its program under the eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

full article:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12225698/site/newsweek/




No New Nemesis? No New Nukes

[SeaBob]

1. Fareed Zakaria

He is probably the sanest voice I have heard within the past year. If you haven't watched his PBS show Foreign Exchange it is well worth watching

[Neil Lisst]

2. Fareed Zakaria was talking sense earlier, with Cokie Roberts and

George Will mumbling their disapprovals.

He's clearly got more sense than most of the news talkers we see, from CNN to NBC.

The storyline of the Bush administration sounds more and more like someone who has had way too much to drink.