Democracy Matters

Iran claims the sovereign right to nuclear power and even nuclear weapons – “theoretically, of course,” says Ahmadinejad. The Iranian public, including dissidents and reformers, appear to support his view. North Korea claims the same; its public has no measurable opinion. The U.S. government, Executive and Legislative, before the election and since then, strongly disagrees and has loudly, though thus far ineffectively, tried to prevent both from mastering the technology and production.

Iran claims the sovereign right to nuclear power and even nuclear weapons – “theoretically, of course,” says Ahmadinejad. The Iranian public, including dissidents and reformers, appear to support his view. North Korea claims the same; its public has no measurable opinion. The U.S. government, Executive and Legislative, before the election and since then, strongly disagrees and has loudly, though thus far ineffectively, tried to prevent both from mastering the technology and production.

Then why, do you suppose, did President Bush send a far-reaching civilian nuclear agreement with India to Congress? And how, do you suppose, did it pass by unanimous consent in the Senate and 330-59 in the House?

Have you lost sleep lately over our possession of nuclear weapons? We are, after all, the only country that ever used them. Do British nukes scare you? French ones? OK, maybe. Israel’s presumed possession of nuclear weapons doesn’t upset us. Soviet nukes sent American schoolchildren on “duck and cover” drills in the 1950s, but Russian ones didn’t seem as scary – until recently. China and Pakistan are indeed worrisome.

The thread here is that the problem with nuclear programs isn’t nuclear technology, or even nuclear weapons capabilities – the problem is with the governments that control either or both. By declaration of intent and/or by behavior including proliferation and support of international terrorism, Iran and North Korea are entirely unacceptable candidates to control nuclear technology.

India is not.

JINSA is proud to have initiated a U.S.-Israel-India “trialogue” in 2003 with a conference in New Delhi dedicated to counterterrorism, intelligence sharing and the future of security relations among the three countries. Follow-on programs took place in Israel and Washington. In 2006, the “trialogue” became a “quadrilogue” with the inclusion of Turkey. The impending nuclear agreement was part of our discussion.

India stands clearly on the stable, democratic side of the ledger, and a powerful example of how a Cold War non-aligned-but-pro-Soviet-country could manage the transition to the politics and economics of the 21st Century. By virtue of its size, location near Iran and China, strength of government and commitment to the rule of law, India is “one of us.” While we could nitpick some details of the deal and some details of Indian governmental policy, we won’t. Treaties and agreements that bring the U.S. and India closer are to be strongly welcomed and supported.

The world is too complicated for a “one size fits all” nuclear policy, but a “one size fits all” political policy might be in order. Rather than trying to wrest the nuclear genie from radical and threatening Iran and North Korea, the U.S. and its allies should be working non-stop to ensure that those countries are governed by democratic institutions whose control of nuclear technology would not cause us such legitimate angst.