NUCLEAR IRAN: INDIA LOOKS THROUGH THE ENERGY PRISM

Number 12 ● 27 May 2007

The growing suspicions over Iran's nuclear ambitions have emerged as a major foreign policy challenge facing India, during the course of the past year. India voted twice against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), generating widespread debate inside the country that highlighted some of the basic problems facing India and its nuclear policy. It is widely believed that India's IAEA votes in September 2005 and February 2006 were largely a reflection of country's newly found friendship with the US and its desire to seek greater political, economic, energy and security ties with Washington.

The abruptness with which India abandoned Iran at the IAEA was widely commented upon and criticized within the country. The nuclear issue challenges two prime aspects of Indian foreign policy, namely, the quest for closer ties with Tehran and India's newly found friendship with the US.

Since the end of the Cold War, India looked to Iran as a prime focus of its Middle East policy. The desire of the post-Khomeini leadership to end Iran's regional isolation and the Iranian regime's willingness to seek a cooperative relationship with its neighbors encouraged India to open up to Tehran. This process was further supported by India's unfastening ties with Iraq, as a result of the 1990-91 Kuwait crisis.

Following the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to Iran in September 1993, political contacts between the two countries increased. Before long, closer ties with Iran enjoyed widespread support in India, with rival political parties keen on maintaining greater political and economic relations with the Persians.

The nuclear controversy however, complicated this bonhomie on three levels.

First, with its growing demand for energy imports, India began looking to Iran as a potential long-term supplier of oil and natural gas. The widely discussed gas pipeline from Iran to India via Pakistan generated hopes for a greater cooperation not only between India and Iran but also between the two South Asian rivals, India and Pakistan. Thus, India has been faced with the dilemma of how to adopt a position consistent with US policy on the nuclear issue, without undermining its desire to forge closer energy ties with Iran.

Second, the Iranian arguments about that country's inalienable right to civilian nuclear technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) reflect a position India had been advocating for decades. Like Iran today, India had in the past castigated the NPT for not living up to commitments to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Moreover, similar to Iran, national security considerations precluded India from renouncing its nuclear option. Having attained nuclear capacity in 1998, India would not be able to advise against Iran taking the same path.

Although India opposed the NPT, it was not against the idea of non-proliferation. Thus, both before and after its nuclear tests, India had highlighted its non-proliferation credentials and compared itself favorably with countries like China, North Korea and Pakistan, all of whom had contributed to proliferation. Moreover, India does not subscribe to the more-the-merrier approach towards nuclear powers. In its view, proliferation of nuclear powers in its ‘extended neighborhood' would not serve India's national security interests. Thus, a dilemma surfaced regarding India's need to correlate its erstwhile moral arguments about nuclear apartheid with its security concerns vis-à-vis a potential nuclear Iran.

Third, India's pro-Iranian policy came into conflict with its aspiration for closer ties with the US. As long as the Indo-US relations remained part of the US policy towards South Asia, India could afford to ignore the inherent contradictions between its policy towards Tehran and Washington and pretend that the US-Iran tensions were purely bilateral and would not affect India's ties with either of these countries.

However, the nuclear controversy destroyed this myth. As US-Iranian tensions intensified, India became embroiled in the controversy. Its desire to seek energy cooperation with Washington, especially in the sensitive realm of civilian nuclear energy, fundamentally altered India's foreign policy orientation. It soon acknowledged that its desire to simultaneously secure hydrocarbon supplies from Tehran and nuclear technology from Washington would not be that simple.

Within this context of multiple dilemmas and polarities, New Delhi began evolving a complicated policy towards Iran and the US. India soon recognized and adjusted itself to its seemingly incompatible interests vis-à-vis Washington and Tehran. While pursuing the long-term gas pipeline option, India began to distance itself from Iran on the nuclear front. At the same time, without joining the western chorus on Iranian ‘non-compliance', India was keen that Iran should resolve its differences through negotiations within the IAEA.

Rejecting Iranian references to its own nuclear status, New Delhi noted that unlike India, Iran had voluntarily accepted the terms and conditions of the NPT. Thus, while Iran has the legal right to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy, India was keen that it was incumbent upon Iran to exercise these rights in the context of safeguards that Tehran has voluntarily accepted upon its nuclear program under the IAEA. Within this context, India was ready to abandon Iran and vote with the majority in the IAEA.

At the same time, the civilian nuclear technology from the US would not be a panacea to India's energy crisis. While such technology would be a significant addition to the energy basket, it would not be an alternative to oil and gas supplies from Iran. The planned pipeline from Iran, for example, would carry about five million tons of natural gas annually for 25 years.

The overwhelming focus on the energy dimension and US-Iran tensions have prevented India from independently assessing the security challenges posed by a resurgent and militarily powerful Iran. Its regional ambitions and potential for hegemony vis-à-vis neighboring Arab countries should not be ignored by New Delhi, which seeks closer ties with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Such calculations, however, have not been reflected in the strategic debate in India. Any Iranian progress on a nuclear delivery system would certainly bring India within range of Iranian missiles. Currently, no public debate takes place regarding Iran's weapons of mass destruction programs, and the limited discussion on this issue has remained focused on the Israeli context. It is rarely recognized in India that Iran's Shehab, missiles, which could reach southern Europe, could also travel eastward and threaten the Indian homeland.

Thus, the current Indian debates regarding the Iranian nuclear controversy have largely been determined by the energy agenda, namely, gas supplies from Tehran and civilian nuclear technology from the US. Until now its potential security implications remain outside the realm of public discourse■

* P. R. Kumaraswamy is an Associate Professor at School of International Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru in New Delhi.

The Alliance Center for Iranian Studies (ACIS)

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Iran Pulse 12 ● May 27, 2007 © All rights reserved.