The nuclear pact president Bush inked with India yesterday violates two international agreements and several US laws. Bush consulted neither the treaty agencies or Congress before signing the deal. It is, in short, illegal.
The US is a signatory to both the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group agreement. Both are supported by various US laws which Congress claims to considers binding upon the US president.
But the president, as we know, disagrees. Nuclear proliferation is inherently a national security issue, and the president believes he is above the law in matters of national security— and Congress has shown no willingness to challenge him on the principle.
India is one of only four countries that have not signed the nonproliferation treaty; the others are Cuba, Pakistan and Israel. The deal with India obligates the US to provide civilian nuclear program assistance and materials to India in exchange for Indian acceptance of a limited inspection regime — its military nuclear facilities remain off limits — and an unverifiable promise not to expand its military nuclear programs. Only 14 of the country’s 22 reactors will be subject to inspection, and India has the option of placing any new reactors off limits to inspections.
Bush will ask Congress to approve the deal, and Congress may well go along. In the process, though, they’ll have to amend the laws on transferring nuclear technology that that keep the US in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty, an act that will place us in violation of it. The deal has, however, received at least a tentative thumbs up from Mohammed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Authority; because the IAEA is responsible for enforcing the mechanisms mandated by the nonproliferation treaty, ElBaradei’s approval will help Bush sell the agreement.
But it’s only the UN security council that can initiate any changes to the nonproliferation treaty, and it’s extremely unlikely that China would cooperate. At the same time, only the security council can impose sanctions on countries violating the treaty, and of course there’s no chance of that so long as the US has the veto.
Among the obvious problems with the agreement is that Iran, a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty, is the object of US efforts to impose sanctions for that country’s perceived violations; they’re likely to view the Indian agreement as proof of US double standards, and rightly so: it’s more than bit ironic that at the same time the Bush administration is bringing pressure to bear on Iran for alleged violations of the treaty, the US president is pressing for an agreement with India that largely obviates it. The same irony attaches to ElBaradei’s approval.
Pakistan, which like India is not a signatory, is already asking for a similar deal; the US has already ruled one out. Brazil, another signatory with nuclear weapons ambitions, already regards the nonproliferation treaty as discriminatory with respect to countries that are not already nuclear powers, and may well seize the opportunity to accelerate its on again-off again nuclear weapons program. Before the election of leftist president Lula da Silva, that might not have been an issue for the administration; now, it will be.
If Congress doesn’t approve the deal and Bush decides to go ahead with it anyway, the former body’s options are limited. They can legislate sanctions against US companies that transfer nuclear technology to India, but those sanctions can only be enforced by agencies within the executive branch, and Bush insists the executive branch is entitled to ignore legislation that, in his view, compromises his ability to protect the country. Or, Congress can impeach him, but absent overwhelming Democratic majorities in both chambers, that isn’t going to happen.
In fact, that lack of will to challenge the president could provide cover for Republican legislators running on if not an anti-Bush platform, at least a “Bush who?” one in the November elections: it would, of course, be irresponsible to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis during a time of eternal war. And the deal will recapture an influential segment of Bush’s base: neoconservatives, who are becoming vocally disenchanted with the Iraq war, will rally around any initiative that both puts the screws to international agreements in favor of an individual alliance and funnels billions of dollars to US nuclear technology companies.
We can expect John Bolton, who favors the nonproliferation treaty when it applies to countries the US doesn’t like but opposes it when it constrains the US, to be the administration’s point man on the issue, twisting one arm to gain harsh treatment of Iran and the other to gain relaxed treatment of India.
Grab the popcorn …
A passage to India, around the Nonproliferation Treaty
The nuclear pact president Bush inked with India yesterday violates two international agreements and several US laws. Bush consulted neither the treaty agencies or Congress before signing the deal. It is, in short, illegal.
The US is a signatory to both the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Nuclear Suppliers Group agreement. Both are supported by various US laws which Congress claims to considers binding upon the US president.
But the president, as we know, disagrees. Nuclear proliferation is inherently a national security issue, and the president believes he is above the law in matters of national security— and Congress has shown no willingness to challenge him on the principle.
India is one of only four countries that have not signed the nonproliferation treaty; the others are Cuba, Pakistan and Israel. The deal with India obligates the US to provide civilian nuclear program assistance and materials to India in exchange for Indian acceptance of a limited inspection regime — its military nuclear facilities remain off limits — and an unverifiable promise not to expand its military nuclear programs. Only 14 of the country’s 22 reactors will be subject to inspection, and India has the option of placing any new reactors off limits to inspections.
Bush will ask Congress to approve the deal, and Congress may well go along. In the process, though, they’ll have to amend the laws on transferring nuclear technology that that keep the US in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty, an act that will place us in violation of it. The deal has, however, received at least a tentative thumbs up from Mohammed ElBaradei, the International Atomic Energy Authority; because the IAEA is responsible for enforcing the mechanisms mandated by the nonproliferation treaty, ElBaradei’s approval will help Bush sell the agreement.
But it’s only the UN security council that can initiate any changes to the nonproliferation treaty, and it’s extremely unlikely that China would cooperate. At the same time, only the security council can impose sanctions on countries violating the treaty, and of course there’s no chance of that so long as the US has the veto.
Among the obvious problems with the agreement is that Iran, a signatory to the nonproliferation treaty, is the object of US efforts to impose sanctions for that country’s perceived violations; they’re likely to view the Indian agreement as proof of US double standards, and rightly so: it’s more than bit ironic that at the same time the Bush administration is bringing pressure to bear on Iran for alleged violations of the treaty, the US president is pressing for an agreement with India that largely obviates it. The same irony attaches to ElBaradei’s approval.
Pakistan, which like India is not a signatory, is already asking for a similar deal; the US has already ruled one out. Brazil, another signatory with nuclear weapons ambitions, already regards the nonproliferation treaty as discriminatory with respect to countries that are not already nuclear powers, and may well seize the opportunity to accelerate its on again-off again nuclear weapons program. Before the election of leftist president Lula da Silva, that might not have been an issue for the administration; now, it will be.
If Congress doesn’t approve the deal and Bush decides to go ahead with it anyway, the former body’s options are limited. They can legislate sanctions against US companies that transfer nuclear technology to India, but those sanctions can only be enforced by agencies within the executive branch, and Bush insists the executive branch is entitled to ignore legislation that, in his view, compromises his ability to protect the country. Or, Congress can impeach him, but absent overwhelming Democratic majorities in both chambers, that isn’t going to happen.
In fact, that lack of will to challenge the president could provide cover for Republican legislators running on if not an anti-Bush platform, at least a “Bush who?” one in the November elections: it would, of course, be irresponsible to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis during a time of eternal war. And the deal will recapture an influential segment of Bush’s base: neoconservatives, who are becoming vocally disenchanted with the Iraq war, will rally around any initiative that both puts the screws to international agreements in favor of an individual alliance and funnels billions of dollars to US nuclear technology companies.
We can expect John Bolton, who favors the nonproliferation treaty when it applies to countries the US doesn’t like but opposes it when it constrains the US, to be the administration’s point man on the issue, twisting one arm to gain harsh treatment of Iran and the other to gain relaxed treatment of India.
Grab the popcorn …