India-US Nuclear Deal: The Iranian Factor

By K.N. Pandita

New Delhi is doing a delicate but crucial balancing act in the region.

On July 3, National Security Adviser, Mr. M.K. Narayanan visited Teheran, as Prime Minister’s special envoy. Media reported the hurried visit but curiously avoided speculating its purpose. The visit took place at a time, when behind-the-curtain parleys between the ruling Congress and Mulayam Singh’s Samajwadi Party were in progress. On arrival in Teheran, Mr. Narayanan is reported to have told the press that India would be willing to mediate between Iran and the international community. He met with top Iranian leadership.

The launching of “strategic partnership” between the two countries in January 2003 under the rubric of New Delhi Declaration has yielded only limited results.  However, under the cover of “civilizational ties”, Iran has made deep inroads into the Shiite segment of Indian Muslim society whereas under the same cover India is trying to project its soft pro-Muslim profile to the Islamic world in which Iran occupies an important place.

The linking of Iran to the Indo-US civil nuclear deal emanates from a clash of regional strategies and the political fallout likely to appear from it. Teheran is eager to add countries to the list of her friends in order to render ineffective Washington’s policy of isolating her in the region.

India’s strategic interest in befriending Iran was reflected in one of the MEA’s annual reports, which, among other things, noted, “2004 – 05 saw further deepening and consolidation of India-Iran ties with increased momentum of high level exchanges and institutional linkages between their National Security Councils”. Very significantly, it notes, “ New Delhi and Teheran have joined hands in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and to support the development of “alternative access routes” via Iran’s Chah Bahar port”.

Oil and gas hungry India imports 85 % of her annual requirement from Iran. With a view to deepen energy related relations with Iran, the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) has signed a 25-year deal of 22 billion US dollars to buy 5 million tons per year of Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG). The GAIL will develop Iran’s South Pars gas field. Currently Indian oil imports from Iran are between 1 to 1.5 lac barrels per day making it 7.5 % of total Iranian oil exports. At the same time Indian refineries supply a large part of the refined gasoline to Iran.

The proposed extension of $ 7 billion Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to India (IPI) has not found favour with a section of policy planners in Washington because besides bringing substantial revenues to Iran’s state exchequer, the project is bound to enhance political importance of Iran in the region. It would become alarming if, as intended, the pipeline is extended to China.

Washington’s move of unilaterally lifting nuclear technology–related sanctions imposed on India in post-Pokhran II blast, and initiating a civil nuclear deal with her, can be understood from an article written by Nicholas Burns, the chief US negotiator of Indo-US nuclear deal, and published in Washington Times in May 2007.  He wrote, “India’s growing economy will bring pressure on non-renewable energy resource. It is prudent to help her. India will be the US’ two or three most important strategic partners in the years to come — the other two being Japan and Britain.”

About the same time, there was a loud talk in the US political circles on what is called “Axis of Democracy”. From this, and from the July 2005 launch of a US-India “global partnership”, political analysts inferred that 123 Agreement could be followed by 126 Agreement, which would lead to military cooperation between the two countries.

Even as of now, the two democracies are eyeing a military cooperation of sorts. Lockheed and Martin are vying with Boeing to grab $ 8 billion order for 126 combat aircrafts for the Indian Air Force. US Navy is keen to rope in Indian Navy in its Global Maritime Partnership, the 1000-ships Navy, an offer that a visiting US Naval officer had made in April 2007.  Navies of three countries — India, Japan and the US — made a drill in the Pacific in April 2007. Observers thought it was to send a strong message to China for her growing naval presence from Gawadar in Pakistan to Coco Islands in Myanmar just 50 kilometres from the Indian Andaman Islands.

However, India-Iran cordial relations are causing concern to policy makers in Washington. Their main concerns are (a) India’s policy towards Iran’s nuclear programme is not compatible with that of Washington, and (b) US is against Iran benefiting from India’s fuel imports.
These concerns lying at the bottom, in January 2006, the US Ambassador to New Delhi linked progress on proposed nuclear deal with India’s vote against Iran in the IAEA. Six months later, the House of Representative in the US passed legislation to enable proposed civil nuclear cooperation with India. The bill, indeed, contains language on securing India’s cooperation with US policy towards Iran. But an amendment seeking to make such cooperation binding was defeated by a vote of 235 to 192. It meant that Bush administration was seemingly flexible and did not approve compartmentalizing triangular relationship.

Not only that, replying to questions in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice challenged the veracity of reports in sections of American press that Iranian naval ships had visited India’s Kochi port for “training”. However, she said Washington had made clear to India that it had a concern about their relationship with Iran.

In regard to India’s relations with Iran vis-à-vis Washington’s strategic interests in the region, it is clear that (a) New Delhi does not share Washington’s view of Iran as an aggressive regional power, (b) New Delhi will not accept dictation of her Iran policy from any quarter,  (c) cordial Iran-India relationship should not be construed as an obstacle either to growing India-US relations or to some thaw in Iran-US acrimony in days to come, and (d) in regard to Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, India would not like another nuclear power in the region. India has aligned with international efforts to bring Iran’s controversial nuclear programme into conformity with NPT and IAEA provisions. It is in the light of this last policy parameter of India-Iran-US trilateral relationship that the National Security Adviser said in Teheran that India would be willing to mediate between Iran and international community.

There is an understanding in the US think tanks of India’s domestic compulsions, security concerns and energy pressures. Conspicuously, even Israel has shown equanimity by not publicly objecting to New Delhi’s dealing with Teheran. In a recent Congressional hearing, Stephen Cohen, an expert on South Asia made a profound remark. He said, “ We should not demand Indian support for all our Iranian policies any more than we should allow India dictate our policy towards Pakistan”. Another important State department functionary remarked in the same hearing “ US believes partnership list will grow with time and nuke deal would be the most powerful tool in the process.” It should also be remembered that despite criticism of India in some political circles in the US, a House of Representative Resolution introduced in July 2005 expresses support for the gas pipeline project as “a facilitator of India-Pakistan peace process.”

At the same time, such understanding is not lacking with Iranian policy planners dealing with India. The proof is that despite India’s vote against Iran in IAEA, Teheran had announced that talks on IPI would not be severed.

The relevance of Indian Muslims and Islamic countries to the broad spectrum of India’s regional strategy as enunciated above is a fact to be recognized. External Affairs Minister will be travelling to Iran by the end of this month and the Prime Minister has a standing invitation. India hosted a five-day visit of the Syrian President Mr. Bashar al Assad, a key figure in Israel – Palestine talks. Again, chances of reaching an understanding with Pakistan on Kashmir issue and a Camp David type peace process with US blessings could reduce the ire of Indian Shiite Muslims against the US for intimidating Iran.

And last but not the least is the need to understand the significance of Samajwadi Party leadership seeking and publicising the opinion of ex-President on the feasibility of the civilian nuclear deal. Evidently it was reacting to Chief Minister Mayawati’s utterances that the deal was against the interests of the Muslims. Previously, during his tenure as chief minister of U.P., Mulayam Singh had successfully invited the then visiting Iranian President Mr. Khatami to Lucknow. Neither that visit has lost its impact nor has Mulayam Singh’s U.P. minority electoral constituency eroded.

India is playing a significant role in easing the tense situation in the region and strengthening the peace process. Indian policy planners are confident that the US engagement of Iran is a matter of time. Undoubtedly New Delhi is doing a delicate balancing act.

(The writer is the former Director of the Centre of Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University).

Comments are closed.