Re: [Marxism] European Hypocrisy on Palestine

["Sayan Bhattacharyya" <ok.president+marxmail@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/31/07, Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx <Dbachmozart@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> <_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18099.htm_
> (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18099.htm) >

Hypocrisy regarding Iran's, India's nuclear power programs:


"One set of rules for countries we like, another for countries we don't."


U.S. to Announce Nuclear Exception for India

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: July 27, 2007
New York Times

"One set of rules for countries we like, another for countries we don't."

 In February 2004, President Bush, in a major speech outlining new
nuclear policies to prevent proliferation, declared that "enrichment
and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes." He won the cooperation of
allies for a temporary suspension of new facilities to make fuel, but
allies that include Canada and Australia have also expressed interest
in uranium enrichment.

The problem is a delicate one for the administration, because this
month American officials are working at the United Nations Security
Council to win approval of harsher economic sanctions against Iran for
trying to enrich uranium. India is already a nuclear weapons state and
has refused to sign the treaty; Iran, a signer of the treaty, does not
yet have nuclear weapons.

But in an interview Thursday, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary
of state for political affairs, who negotiated the deal, said, "Iran
in no way, shape or form would merit similar treatment because Iran is
a nuclear outlaw state."

He noted that Iran hid its nuclear activities for many years from
international inspectors, and that it still had not answered most of
their questions about evidence that could suggest it was seeking
weapons.

Because India never signed the treaty, it too was considered a nuclear
outlaw for decades. But Mr. Bush, eager to place relations with India
on a new footing, waived many of the restrictions in order to sign the
initial deal. It was heavily supported by Indian-Americans and
American nuclear equipment companies, which see a huge potential
market for their reactors and expertise.

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who opposed
the initial deal and said he would try to defeat the new arrangement,
said Thursday, "If you make an exception for India, we will be
preaching from a barstool to the rest of the world."

Though India would be prohibited from using the fuel it purchases from
the United States for nuclear weapons, the ability to reprocess the
fuel means India's other supplies would be freed up to expand its
arsenal.

"It creates a double standard," Mr. Markey said. "One set of rules for
countries we like, another for countries we don't."

Robert J. Einhorn, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said that in "the first phase of negotiations
with India, the administration made concessions that put the country
on par with countries that have signed" the Nonproliferation Treaty.
(Israel and Pakistan are the only other countries that have refused to
sign it, and North Korea quit the treaty four years ago.)

"Now we've gone beyond that, and given India something that we don't
give to Russia and China."

In general, advocates of a far-stronger relationship between India and
the United States have favored the nuclear cooperation deal, and it
passed through Congress fairly easily. But those arguing that the
administration has not made good on its promises to clamp down on the
trade in nuclear fuel argue that Mr. Bush could be setting a precedent
that will undercut his nonproliferation initiative.

Full: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/27/washington/27india.html>

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