Pandora's Deal? How India's Nukes Will Affect Pakistan and Iran

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

A CNP Conversation with Karl Inderfurth and Henry Sokolski

July 25, 2007

[Full Transcript of Presentations]

MR. SCOTT BATES: Thank you very much. Welcome to the Center for National Policy.

We’re very glad that you could all turn out for this event. My name is Scott Bates. I’m the vice president here at the Center, and our president, Tim Roemer, wishes he could be here today, but he’s otherwise detained and so he sends his greetings and invites you to all of our events in the future.

Unlike many other issues in this town, Congress and others in Washington focus on nuclear nonproliferation issues on a bipartisan manner, and today we're continuing that dialogue.

Today, we have a very interesting topic indeed. This is centering around the U.S.-India nuclear deal. I should ask, can those of you in the back hear me okay? Oh, good. We have an overwhelming response today. So the U.S.-India nuclear deal and its effects beyond just this deal, the effects on Iran and Pakistan and the region generally, and I like to think of it this way: it’s about the law of unintended consequences. And if we had never heard of that before, I think in the last few years – I can just think of two examples off the top of my head. That would be Iraq – the law of unintended consequences there – and then, hey, let’s have early elections in Palestine, and that led to Hamas.

So you can go down the list in foreign policy of somebody has a good idea and then there are a lot of other effects. It doesn’t mean you don’t take the action, but I think today we have the luxury on a peaceful, summer day here in Washington to step back and look at how this U.S.-India nuclear deal – if it ultimately goes through, is implemented fully – might have knock-on effects throughout the region. So with us today to consider these issues, we have a former assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs and we have a former deputy secretary of nonproliferation policy. I hate to do this, but I have to read off of the sheet because these gentlemen have extensive biographies and I want to get them right.

Ambassador Karl Inderfurth is a professor of the practice of international affairs and director of international affairs program at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. He served as assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs with responsibility for, among other countries in the region, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. I’m looking at the time period you served and that was when India actually tested, and Pakistan as well.

AMB. KARL INDERFUTH: Much to our surprise.

MR. BATES: Right. I remember that day actually and some of you probably do as well. I was in an airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, on other business and everyone was watching CNN with some interest that day.

AMB. INDERFUTH: Well, we were doing that at the State Department as well. (Laughter.)

MR. BATES: You should be watching ABC.

From 1993 and ’97, he served as representative for special political affairs of the UN with the rank of ambassador. If I remember the lingo, that’s SpecPol. Is that right what they call it there? Maybe not, special political affairs.

AMB. INDERFUTH: Maybe so. Nobody called me SpecPol.

MR. BATES: Okay, good. His portfolio included U.N. peacekeeping, disarmament, and security affairs. You see a theme here. He has served on Security Council missions to Somalia, Mozambique, Burundi, Rwanda, and Western Sahara. Before that – (unintelligible) –

AMB. INDERFUTH: Working at the UN with Madeleine Albright, a former head of the Center for National Policy.

MR. BATES: You’ve done your homework. Thank you, sir. That’s right. We’re very proud to note Mrs. Albright’s connection with us. She’s right up there on the wall somewhere.

AMB. INDERFUTH: She’s on many walls.

MR. BATES: And we’ll put you on the wall right over there. (Laughter.)

Before that, he was Moscow correspondent, worked on national security issues for ABC News for ten years and won an Emmy in 1983. He is also the author of Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council.

We also have with us Henry Sokolski, and Henry is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He served from 1989 to ’93 as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the office of the secretary of defense. And Mr. Sokolski received the Secretary of Defense’s Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Prior to his appointment to this post –

MR. HENRY SOKOLSKI: By the way, the alternative was firing me. (Laughter.)

MR. BATES: Well, there’s a tradition of giving medals as you’re getting fired. Prior to this post, Mr. Sokolski worked in the secretary's Office of Net Assessment, which is a kind of internal think-tank, on proliferation issues. In addition to his executive branch experience, Mr. Sokolski served from 1984 to ‘88 as senior military legislative aide to Senator Dan Quayle. So for some of your staff people, there is life after Congress, and in fact I believe you also worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff?

MR. SOKOLSKI: I did.

MR. BATES: So we have two former Hill staffers here today, and look at them now. (Laughter.)

Mr. Sokolski has also served as a consultant on proliferation issues to the intelligence community through the National Intelligence Council, and he served as a member of the CIA’s Senior Advisory Panel from 1995–96. He is also an author of this book Gauging U.S.-Indian Strategic Cooperation. I think we have copies somewhere here on the table, so please feel free to pick that up.

MR. SOKOLSKI: I should point out that you’ve already paid for this. It’s Army War College, so –

MR. BATES: So the taxpayers – you already own this; you might as well take a copy.

MR. SOKOLSKI: Might as well take a copy. (Laughter.)

MR. BATES: Very good. So thank you again for coming here and, as I said, I don’t think we could have two more knowledgeable people on this issue.

Look, there’s a lot of you here and I want to get to as many of your questions as possible, so what we’ll do is have these two gentlemen give their presentations and then we’ll open it up for questions.

And so first, Ambassador, if you’d like to start.

AMB. INDERFUTH: Thank you very much. I’m very pleased to be at the Center. Actually I did some work with Madeleine Albright before she went to New York when she was at the Center. I did some work with her and it’s very good to be back here.

I’m very pleased to be talking about a subject that could not be more timely. I mean, when we first started discussing this, we didn’t know exactly where the U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement was going to be at this stage. And as many of you know, the last several days have seen the concluding of the government negotiations over the so-called 123 Agreement, and I’m told by my friend Ray Vickery, whom I worked with in the Clinton administration – he was at the Commerce Department as an assistant secretary that apparently the Indian cabinet committee that (had to?) review this has approved it, and that sets the stage for approval by the Indian government, and so this is moving along.

There did seem to be a certain impasse that had been reached, but some important negotiations these past several days with India’s foreign secretary, national security advisor, Ambassador Ronen Sen, the U.S. team led by Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns. They dropped by with Vice President Cheney, which always seems to have some sort of galvanizing effect. The vice president does seem to get things done, and apparently this has now all resulted in movement forward on an agreement that I have supported since it was first announced in July of 2005. And now we need to have further discussions about its implications.

The topic of “Pandora’s Deal? How India's Nuclear Deal Will Affect Pakistan and Iran” – I thought it was going to be “Pandora’s Deal: Deal or No Deal?” but again I think that we now see the deal being finalized. There are other steps that have to be taken to conclude this, including India working out an inspection regime with the International Atomic Energy Agency and then the Nuclear Suppliers Group – the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group who’ll also have to bless this, so we’re not there yet with concluding this, but the recent negotiations over the so-called 123 Agreement here in Washington is an important step. And at the end of this process, Congress will also have to have one further approval vote for the agreement to go forward.

What I’d like to do – we will certainly talk about the implications of this for Pakistan, for Iran – we can throw in North Korea. I mean, will people look at this as something that they want to emulate, and I’m certainly prepared to discuss that. But what I’d like to do over the next few moments is to put this in context. Why did we do this? Why did the United States decide to make a special case of India? This has been an issue – this meaning nuclear proliferation has been an issue – with India and the United States for a very long time. It has always almost certainly been the dominant issue going back to India’s peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974, and then certainly the 1998 nuclear test. I, too, was watching CNN as this took place and we had not had any forewarning from our intelligence community, nor had we had forewarning – I don’t want to place all the onus on them – nor have we had any forewarning from our policy community. I mean, there were two intelligence failures – information failures.

But this issue has been dominant for a very long time, and in the second term of President Clinton’s administration, he was determined to try to find a way to establish a new relationship with India. It had long been discussed that these two countries have so much in common, being the world’s oldest or the world’s largest democracies and why couldn’t we sort of get on the same wavelength? And of course, a lot of that had to do with historical reasons. The Cold War – we were on opposite sides here. The United States and Pakistan were very much over here, and India was a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union. So the end of the Cold War sort of broke apart that obstacle, and in the early 1990s India took some important steps to liberalize its economy under Prime Minister Rao and also his Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, who is now prime minister.

By opening up the economy, moving away from Nehruvian socialism to a market economy, that opened up great opportunities in this relationship. So that occurred in the early 1990s. President Clinton came in. He was somewhat preoccupied with other things, including the economy during his first term, but his second term he wanted to see what could be done to put U.S.-Indian relations on the right track, and he thought that the Indian government, then under Prime Minister Gujral, soon to be Prime Minister Vajpayee would reciprocate – wanted to establish this relationship. So that became a priority, even with the nuclear test in 1998. Clinton was not to be deterred. He had a lot of things he wanted to do as a result of those tests, but he wanted to see if there’s a way to build a relationship.

So on March of 2000 he traveled to India – the first president in 22 years that had been to India. I actually know that because I went with President Carter in 1978 when he went. So I had a sort of return visit. He wanted to pursue this relationship, and he asked us – the White House asked us to come up with the sort of the, if you will, the ten reasons why we want to engage India. What is it about this relationship that we want to pursue? I just happen to have those ten reasons, and I’d like to read these to you very quickly to see the overall context of why did we take this to a point, and the Bush administration has taken it to a point, that we are going to establish a special case with India on this very important issue of nuclear nonproliferation.

The ten reasons why we want to engage India were the following. First, forge better overall ties with an emerging global power – not just regional, an emerging global power, and the world’s largest nation. The (unintelligible) as many of you know, India will surpass China as the world’s most populous nation by around 2030, 2040, somewhere around there, already 1.2 billion people.

Second, to give operational meaning to our shared democratic values and interest in strengthening evolving democracies. We do have democratic interests and we should be pursuing those with India and to see how, as examples, we could spread the idea of democracy around the world, mainly through our example, by the way. That’s the way I think democracy should be spread: through example, as opposed to other actions.

Three, maximize our partnership with one of the world’s largest economies and one of the world’s largest middle classes. What’s the expression? “There’s gold in them thar hills.” Well, I mean, our business community sees a great market in India and wants to pursue it, and India is doing great things with its economy: 9 percent GDP this past year. It’s projected by the 2020 to have the world’s fastest growing economy. It is going to be a major economic force, and we need to be in position to work with and be a part of that development.

Fourth – and here your ears need to perk up for a moment – help move India toward the global nonproliferation mainstream. Help move India toward the global nonproliferation mainstream. This was at a time when we were having intense discussions with them through Deputy Secretary Strobe Talbot and External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh on how to resolve our nonproliferation differences. But we very much wanted to see how we could bring India into the global nonproliferation mainstream, not to remain outside as a non-signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – the NPT. Don’t have it outside the tent; bring it inside the tent. Let’s find ways to work with it even though we knew that India was not going to sign the NPT because that would require India to get rid of its nuclear arsenal. It wasn’t going to do it. China going to get rid of its? No. Pakistan? No. India wasn’t going to do that to sign the NPT, so let’s find another way to work with India on these issues.

Quickly, the fifth – I’ll just run through these – enhance our joint efforts on global issues – urgent global issues, including terrorism and narcotics. Work together to deal with challenges to regional stability, including India-Pakistan issues. Team up to protect the global environment with clean energy and other initiatives where Indian leadership is essential. We can’t deal with climate change and global warming without India being part of that. Now, the Clinton administration had supported Kyoto, the Bush administration doesn’t, but even there the Bush administration has recognized the need to work with India on these issues.

Next, join hands in the global campaign against HIV/AIDS and polio. Fortunately, we’ve seen that the estimates of India’s HIV/AIDS rates is about half of what have been estimated, but it has a major problem and we need to be working with India and share our experiences with that terrible disease. Upgrade our access to the world-class Indian players in the vital area of information technology. I mean, IT – India is IT. They have their (unintelligible) and we have ours and we ought to be working together as we are, and that’s why Bill Gates probably spends more time in India than he does in Indiana. That’s not a bad expression.

MR. BATES: That’s pretty good. (Laughter.)

(Cross talk.)

MR. BATES: Mr. Roemer is from Indiana.

AMB. INDERFUTH: Oh, my gosh. I won’t be invited back. (Laughter.) But the fact is that everyone recognizes that India has through their colleges and universities – this is world class. Finally, boost our thriving and mutually helpful links in education, culture, and people-to-people exchanges. This relates to the growing importance of and contributions of the Indian-American community in this country, two million plus, and the need to see that community as a bridge between our two countries and to develop that relationship even further. So these were ten very good reasons.

One that was not mentioned that has actually become increasingly important is military-to-military ties and strategic considerations, including energy security. We were prevented from pursuing that because of the sanctions that were in place. This was written in March of 2000. After 9/11, these constraints were lifted. The Bush administration has moved ahead on this. So these were the reasons, this is the context, and again help move India toward the global nonproliferation mainstream.

A good new story is that the Bush administration picked up on the foundation that had been laid and accelerated it on U.S.-India relations. This is one of the few examples that you see, unfortunately, of Washington policy continuity. It’s a different form of PC, although this may be politically correct, too, to pursue this relationship, but it’s policy continuity.

And the Bush administration has built on this on the military-to-military side, the strategic side, but also on the nonproliferation side, which then brings you to July, 2005, when Manmohan Singh and George Bush announced the U.S.-India Civilian Nuclear Agreement. It was one that was a big idea and it addressed the issue that was the most difficult to address, and it had a series of understandings and agreements contained in that 2005 agreement. I won’t need to go on to those now, probably we’ll come up with the particulars in the Q&A.

But let me just say this why I very quickly saw this as a positive step, recognizing that my friends that I’ve worked with on nonproliferation issues would have concerns about a further erosion of the NPT. This has been an important agreement and indeed a colleague of mine at the United Nations, Shelly Williams, is here. We worked to see the indefinite extension of the Nonproliferation Treaty. So I believe in this treaty. I think it’s had an important impact, but it also must, as all things, take into account circumstances and special cases, and India has been a special case in terms of nonproliferation. It has not been a proliferator. It has been a – it has undertaken its own efforts to (add?) the export controls in the West for its own program, and it does need to be, in the view of so many of us, inside that global nonproliferation system.

Now, I’m not alone in reaching that conclusion. I just want read you what the world’s nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said after this was agreed to in July of 2005. He is head of the IAEA. Therefore, he has the largest vested interest, if you will, in seeing the global nonproliferation regime strengthen and moved forward. He said that he supported this agreement as soon as it was announced, and he said – this is a quote from Mohamed ElBaradei, who also recently won the Nobel Prize for his efforts in this regard. He said, “The agreement would be a milestone, timely for ongoing efforts to consolidate the nonproliferation regime, combat nuclear terrorism, and strengthen nuclear safety.” He’s made other comments since then, but he supported it. Governments from the UK, France, Russia, Australia are also in support. So there is a recognition that this is an agreement that has an impact on the integrity, the viability of the agreement, but there are more pluses than minuses, more positives than negatives for this agreement because it does bring India into a more cooperative partnership arrangement to address global nonproliferation, both now and in the future.

So why don’t I stop there? We’ll get into the specifics of the impact of the India deal on other countries, but I thought that you needed to see the context in which this was proposed and was pursued by both a Democratic and a Republican administration, and why many of us were very pleased that when it had it first vote in the House and the Senate on the enabling legislation that it was overwhelmingly bipartisan and passed both Houses with overwhelming margins.

And I feel quite confident that with the 123 Agreement now being finalized, and with the successful conclusion of the inspection regime with the IAEA – and I have no doubt that that will be a strong inspection regime and that it will go through – and then with the blessing of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, I think we will have a very important new component to the U.S.-India relationship, a relationship that as I said I think is going to be extremely important to the United States and to India for the 21st century.

MR. BATES: Thank you, Ambassador, for covering 12 years of U.S.-India history in about 12 minutes. I really appreciate that. It does give us great context from someone who is on the inside of this policymaking apparatus, so we appreciate that.

Mr. Sokolski?

MR. SOKOLSKI: First, let me ask a question. How many people here actually are legislative aides – fulltime legislative aides?

AMB. INDERFUTH: They’re too shy, Henry.

MR. SOKOLSKI: Well, they may not be too shy. We may be getting the truth here. Okay, that’s useful to know. Sorry to do that, but it actually goes to – I had tailored my comments for that group, so this is going to be interesting.

I think it’s useful to do, though, because what this agreement is about politically has to do with a vote in Congress. The executive is trying to say that they have negotiated this deal in accordance with a law that Congress passed. So our proximity to the big building with a dome is appropriate. Maybe we can get some of this to the aides on the Hill. But what goes on at the Hill is that the solar plexus of what will happen as far as the timing and possible amendments to this agreement. Conventional wisdom has it that the Hill will roll over and play dead. Why? Well, if you’re Republican, this is the president’s legacy. You don’t want to oppose the president; he’s a Republican. He’s actually the head of the party.

Also I think it’s become a cultural part of our DNA as Republicans to be in favor of nuclear power. I mean, if we could find some use for nuclear waste in our backyard, we’d do it. (Laughter.) For Democrats, if you talk to the aides overwhelmingly, and I have, they will say they’re not wild about this deal. However, they will point out very quickly, it’s not their fault. The Republicans did this, and then they will quickly point out: besides, we really don’t want to annoy the Indians. We’d actually like to get some of their money. We’re running to try to take the White House.

So Congress is not supposed to do anything, and if you take a look at some of the hearings in the Senate, (can be?) really rough, you get the impression that not much would happen. The House, however, is quite active. On your visit in, there was a pile of copies of a letter. I recommend that you read it. It was signed not just by Democrats or just by Republicans, but by the entire leadership of a House committee. It is a remarkable letter and it’s one that suggests that although all ten of the objectives listed by Ambassador Inderfurth are ones that we want to pursue, it may not be that pursuing this agreement on nuclear cooperation immediately and without further amendment is the best way to secure those ten objectives.

In specific, I’d like to talk now about, I guess, three things. One is the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which I think every official, both in Congress and the executive, has said something nice about at least once. However, we will get into what you need to do if you want to support it. It may require more than saying some nice things.

Second, we will talk about India’s relations with Iran, which actually is very important because both the NPT in supporting it and making sure that Iran is isolated by any country that receives nuclear cooperation under the Hyde Act, which is this enabling legislation, are actually legal requirements and objectives of the law. It would be nice if India was reducing its ties to Iran. That’s not the case. So we’ll talk a little bit about that. Then, finally, what I’d like to talk about is, how do you manage the difficulties associated with the NPT in Iran?

I am not going in into Pakistan except in the Q&A, but let me just tell you, having talked with the head of the strategic nuclear forces in Pakistan, General Kidwai, no one should be under any illusion that the Pakistani see this as a plus. They are building a reprocessing plant and reactors dedicated to increase their production for a reason. It has to do with this deal. They would prefer not to because they’re not that wealthy a nation, but they will do it. They don’t want to. So we shouldn’t kid ourselves about that.

Let me now say a few words about the NPT and Iran and close out. First, as a friend of mine said, this deal roughly spells NPT RIP. We shouldn’t beat around the bush. In the latest iteration there were a few sticking points. It took four days. The United States government actually has agreed with India that under certain circumstances the president of the United States might look the other way at a nuclear test and be able to continue nuclear cooperation after they’ve tested.

Now, I don’t want to say, as someone who has studied the ethics and Aristotle that there aren’t circumstances under which homicide isn’t warranted, but it is a rough form of justice to start talking about the circumstances under which a nuclear test might be okay when you have Japan, Germany, Brazil, the Ukraine, and other countries that moved away from testing, moved away from nuclear weapons under the NPT. They must look and think of themselves – as the Ukraine president recently said, “We made a mistake.” That’s not what we want to encourage them to believe.

In addition, there has been plenty of analysis and counter-analysis, but common sense would dictate there is no way that you can supply a country that is starved for very good uranium ore. They can only make about 300 tons per year. Lots is in the ground, but is low grade and it takes a lot of effort to get it out. If they have a requirement for 450 tons to run both their civil and military programs, there is no way that if you come rushing in to bail them out with regard to that supply for their civil program, you are not going to run the risk of helping their weapons program. In fact, in the Hyde Act, which is in – there’s a copy of it on the back this book, by the way. It’s well worth reading. It is not that long to read – maybe the book is, but the Hyde Act isn’t. The Hyde Act is short. I recommend that you read it. In there, they are reporting requirements to make sure that nothing we do indirectly helps their weapons program. There is a concern that it will do precisely that.

It may well be that India never signed the NPT, but we did and we are obligated under those rules not to help any country directly or indirectly make nuclear weapons if they didn’t test a nuclear device before 1967. That is India and that is part of the problem. In addition, there is some very fancy footwork about how we will allow India to make nuclear fuel based on our spent fuel. It’s called reprocessing: a chemical separation of plutonium from the fuel that we supply.

There is no way, however, that I can figure out technically that you can proceed with okaying that without violating one of the strictures in the Hyde Act, which says that you cannot approve reprocessing of U.S.-origin spent fuel unless it’s part of an overall nonproliferation effort to technically figure out how to make such processes more transparent. Why? Because the IAEA has even itself admitted it cannot keep track of materials that are made in nuclear fuel plants. It doesn’t know enough where they are. To give you some idea, in Japan they have a plant they claim to be monitoring. They admit they have lost track over the years of 50 bombs’ worth of material from those nuclear fuel-making plants. This is a similar plant.

If you make the safeguard system come down to these contortions to specialize it in the circumstances around India, you may stretch the tent to cover India, but you will have certainly torn some of the fabric to the point where it will not give coverage as it did before.

Now, a few words on Iran. By the way, when you go to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, there are problems as well. If India is supplied with fuel as a country that doesn’t have all of its facilities under international inspection, it’s going to raise questions for why the NSG shouldn’t give similar treatment to Israel and Pakistan, and some people say Pakistan, oh, well we can forget that politically. But Israel’s a little more serious. It’s my understanding that there are representatives in the Israeli government on the Hill saying, “We kind of like this agreement. We’d like similar treatment ourselves.” That’s not a complete (thought?). I say this as something of a Zionist: I’m Jewish.

I cannot imagine anything less in the interest long-term of Israel’s security than being surrounded by other countries with reactors and them just having to have one, and then being able to say, “Well, this at least justifies our being able to have nuclear weapons” and being content with that. That is not a complete thought. That is probably a prescription for real trouble, but that’s where they’re at. I plead with them to rethink that. That’s where they’re at. Let me make that clear.

I think in general the notion that you can have greater nuclear restraint with the Indian exception is a tough case to make, and people will go along because the United States is a strong country. And generally where we’re drifting is moving from rules to making distinctions between friends and people that we think are not friendly. And this is, if you will, the Bush contribution to foreign affairs. It is an odd thing for Democrats to embrace. I think for some of us Republicans, it’s a little difficult for us as well. We always thought the rules were there for a purpose: to point out who was a bad actor and then we would take care of the bad actor, and that they would be accepted by people because everyone accept and went into the rules.

We’re moving in the direction with this India deal, if we’re not careful, of embracing a view that says, “Well, these are friends. They will always stay friends. Those that are behaving that have not been given similar generous treatment as we might give India will continue to behave and not be jealous, and the world will be as we wish.” Now, if we’ve learned anything over the last 50 years looking at the Shah’s fall and the fall of other governments, not everybody stays a friend. Things change. That’s one of the reasons why we resort to trying to come up with these weak formulations of international rules – because we sense the fluidity of life.

No more on that, some words on Iran. By the way, I can’t resist, Mr. ElBaradei did say nice things about this deal. His staff is appalled when I privately interviewed them, okay, and they wonder what it is –

AMB. INDERFUTH: It’s not so private then, is it?

MR. SOKOLSKI: Well, no. (Laughter.) I figure what – why not say it. Check it out.

You know, I think also with regard to the history, I would challenge people to take a look at how the problems of Iraq and getting India to provide troops and funding actually acted as a bit of an accelerant to focusing on the things that they wanted the most and how ironically, although they didn’t get any of that, this deal (tumbled?) forward because, frankly, those ten objectives that the ambassador laid out are worthy ones. I mean, who wouldn’t want those? I mean, come on. I’m in favor of those, okay. I just don’t know whether proceeding with this deal quickly or without a few more fixes is smart to achieve those goals. That’s where I think we differ.

Iran. Take a look at the letter. The letter makes very clear from Congress that as part of the Hyde Act Iran is a consideration. One of the worries is that the Indians tend to promise things about good behavior on export controls and get caught breaking them. And most recently, there was an indictment of some Indian agents who it appears were run out of the embassy here in Washington, stealing U.S.-origin missile qualified silicon chips – microchips for guidance purposes – and sending to the wrong places and lying and being guided by the embassy. Not a good look, particularly since it was very recent and they promised not to do it in the lead-up to the steal because, gee, it would help not to be in the news about anything like that. I mean, we had an understanding on this that they would not pursue that.

More important, there is a New Delhi declaration signed early in 2003 between Tehran and India. It counts a lot of other relations that they’ve had together over the years, but it involved military cooperation. As a result, their naval exercises and a meeting, which is discussed in this letter between the head of the Iranian navy and that of India, to set up a working group – a military working group.

Now, it’s true that there’re many countries that we have good relations with that have good relations with Iran, and I’d be candid: I think, India needs to have good diplomatic relations with Iran. But none of them, with the exception of India, have a working group – military-to-military – recognized by the governments. This is absurd. It is very difficult to be pleading restraint with regard to Iran and to look the other way with regard to nuclear cooperation with a country that has military-to-military ties.

One of the things the Republican and Democratic representatives ask for is a severing of those ties. They asked Mr. Singh to do this. That would be one of the conditions I think you would want to see through. Maybe you can obviate the need to legislate by just having them sever those ties, but they need to do that.

In addition, they have – you know, they’re helping build a port, which is arguably a naval base, in Iran. The Indians have agents outside of the edge of Pakistan, close to Baluchistan – and I leave it to your imagination what they might be doing since the Baluchs are causing troubles for the central government of Pakistan. In general, they are using Iran also to get to Central Asia and to outflank Pakistan, which is causing the Pakistanis a certain amount of anguish.

I think roughly we need to be careful given that the last few sanctions that are still in place with regard to trading with Iran involve one nuclear scientist who appears to have helped the Iranians figure out how to extract hydrogen or tritium – I should say tritium from heavy water reactors which they’ve built, which is what you use to boost a nuclear weapon. And the last sanction had to do with missile fuel that was being sent right at the same time as Hezbollah was firing stuff into Israel. I don’t think there’s any direct connection, but if you get the point that we do have to be worried about trade that might go on between Indian entities and Iran. Certainly, the Israelis have been concerned about this and have spoken to them repeatedly about making sure that Israeli goods don’t go to Iran.

I want to make sure here I want to get the last point on Iran. I think I’m going to let it go. I can’t get everything, anyway.

All right, what should be done? I think in general it would be good to be very clear about the point about Iran – to be more insistent on that. If we’re going to be strategic partners, you don’t want to be confused about this. Actually, this is what I was going to mention. They’re also – the Indians are very involved in the exploration of gas and oil in Iran, something we are very concerned to break off. They just found a ten trillion cubic foot gas reserve – get this – 90 kilometers away from Bushehr, where the reactor’s being built – talk about irony – and oil. Well, that could perhaps be translated into a lot of hard currency, and normally something like this would be sanctionable under the Iran Sanctions Act. It depends on how much they’ve invested. It looks like they’ve just got underneath the $20 million level. So maybe the – technically, the Indians can claim, “Well, we shouldn’t be sanctioned,” but this is not a favorable factor. The Indians should be encouraged to find other ways to get natural gas and, gosh knows, I know our diplomats are doing everything they can to persuade them of that. We need to do better than this. So Iran is one issue.

I think, finally, some people say we need to rush into this deal for all the other things. I’m not convinced. I think our relations are pretty good. I think the sales will go ahead with or without the nuclear deal being implemented immediately. I say this because the military deals, which are the most sensitive, run on so many other dependent factors. I know a lot of the companies would like the deal to go ahead that would help, but I don’t think it’s essential.

What really ties our countries together are the people. There are so many Indians in the United States. We should let more in. We have not changed those rules for (HP10s?) and visas. I think that’s a scandal. I mean, that’s the (crux?) of what matters between our countries, much more so than this. The energy – the nuclear energy, can wait. It is not a very big part of their electrical generation. The problems associated with greenhouse gases has to do with coal; the nuclear cannot possibly obviate that very quickly. It would take literally centuries for it to overtake the coal.

I think we have time and the time should then be used to insist on the Iran point and I think one other. The Indians claim they need to make some more weapons to get a finite deterrent to their liking. So be it. I think they should go ahead and do that. They don’t need our help. They’re being very clear on that point. When they’re done, let’s implement this deal. It shouldn’t take more than three or four years if they’re serious about the finite deterrent they’re talking about it. It will eliminate all the arguments of the nonproliferation community once they stop.

So my hunch is it’s going to take that long to implement this thing anyway, even if you approved it tomorrow, so why rush to get it wrong? Those are my recommendations.

MR. BATES: Well, thank you very much, gentlemen, and I think we could probably organize a formal debate and they could go back and forth like a ping pong match, but instead I would love to hear your questions and comments.

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