(This post has been updated)
While the media is breathlessly reporting on Iran's nuclear program and the alleged "deadline" for Iran to respond to the US-EU ultimatum on Iran to give up its NPT rights, they're missing another story which amounts to a momentous undermning of international nuclear non-proliferation norms: Today, acting under US pressure, the IAEA Board will formally consider carving out an exception to international non-proliferation laws to recognize India as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.
If you remember, back in 2006 India was bribed by the US into voting against Iran and in favor of reporting Iran's file to the UN Security Council. The reward consisted of US nuclear cooperation deal with India, which is itself a violation by the US of its own NPT obligations since India is not a signatory to the treaty. According to US Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, it was India's vote against Iran that paved the way for the US-India nuclear agreement to proceed.
So let me make that clear in case you missed it: the US insists that Iran do MORE than what the NPT requires of it, while it has VIOLATED the NPT itself by promising nuclear cooperation with India. The NPT strictly prohibits nuclear cooperation with non-signatories such as India, while requiring nuclear cooperation with signatories such as Iran. The Bush administration has done the reverse.
The NPT only officially recognizes 5 nuclear-armed countries: China, the US, Russia, France, and Britain. Even then, those countries were supposed to work towards nuclear disarmament too. Countries such as India and Pakistan and Israel which obtained nuclear weapons after the NPT came into force were supposed to be treated as outside the NPT system and were not supposed to be considered as legitimate nuclear powers.
Many analysts and experts pointed out the blatant hypocricy in the Bush administration's undermining the NPT in the name of promoting nuclear non-proliferation, but they generally been ignored, and the Bush administration claims it has the right to unilaterally carve out its own exceptions to the NPT.
Slate magazine pointed out the potential consequences of this Bush policy on the NPT:
If the United States can cut a separate deal with India, what is to prevent China or Russia from doing the same with Pakistan or Iran? If India demands special treatment on the grounds that it's a stable democracy, what is to keep Japan, Brazil, or Germany from picking up on the precedent?
The Bush administration justifies its policy by claiming that India had somehow proven itself as a "responsible" nuclear weapons state that can therefore be trusted. However, others have their doubts.
Indian officials have been accused of violating US export control laws to acquire weapons-related technologies, for example.
And Paul Leventhal of the Nuclear Control Institute pointed out:
The most distressing and dangerous element of the upcoming US-India nuclear agreement is the blind eye both Congress and the White House have turned toward India's most audacious nuclear violation. From 1960 to the present day, India has been using the world's first Atoms for Peace reactor exclusively for producing plutonium for weapons. India signed "peaceful use only" contracts with Canada and the United States which supplied India the CIRUS research reactor and the heavy water needed to make it run.
Even David Albright complained that "[I]gnoring known flaws in India’s non-proliferation record risks US national security, a dangerous approach in the post-9/11 world."
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