India of course, is not Iran, and the US is not alone in wooing the world's largest democracy or in piling on the rhetoric about shared values. Outside the capital, Mr Bush spent most time in Hyderabad, the country's Silicon Valley, symbol of its increasingly close integration into the global economy and home to high-earning outsourced call centres and software exporters. Nor is India in the same league as neighbouring Pakistan. This US ally in the "war on terror" - which the president is visiting today following an ominous suicide bombing attack on the US consulate in Karachi - has also acquired nuclear weapons without ever signing the NPT. But Pakistan has a far worse record on proliferation and is suspected of selling known-how to Iran. The US is now treating India like its uniquely special ally Israel, also outside the NPT, which maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear capacity and is believed to have 200 warheads.

Part of the rationale for the agreement is helping to reduce the dependence of India's booming economy on oil and thus cut greenhouse gas emissions. Another element is accepting a fait accompli which is likely to benefit a US nuclear industry that is keen to sell fuel and reactor components. The hard-fought terms means that 14 of India's 22 reactors will be placed under scrutiny; military ones will not. The military will also retain control of fast-breeder reactors, highly efficient producers of the plutonium needed for warheads - whose numbers could rise from an estimated 50 today to 300-400 in a decade. That is a stunning reversal after 30 years of efforts to deny India nuclear technology, including sanctions when it conducted a nuclear test in 1998.

The US has defended this volte-face in terms of realpolitik and shared values, while China (a "big five" nuclear power under the NPT) is clearly another key, common factor. In return, Washington has demanded Indian support for UN moves against Iran - causing problems from the Indian left and Muslims for prime minister Manmohan Singh. But above all else it is impossible to ignore the disastrous effect this deal is likely to have on global non-proliferation efforts. This is of a piece with other aspects of the US administration's cavalier approach to internationally agreed standards on legal issues or the environment. Mr Bush has been strongly criticised for failing to sell his policy and may face problems in Congress before the deal is approved.

India is a democracy, as is Israel; but both exist in violent and suspicious neighbourhoods. This agreement is about breaking the rules and expecting others to abide by them - or, as one critic put it nicely "preaching temperance from a barstool". It sends a message to Iran and North Korea that the US will only withhold nuclear technology from regimes it dislikes. Most Indians are delighted. But there may be some thoughtful smiles in Tehran and Pyongyang as the wider implications sink in.

Alongside the more flaunted nuclear deal, the US and India have also fleshed out another, more covert deal. That of a 1000-crore project called the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative in Agricultural Research and Education.

The project, touted by Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the "second green revolution", was informally launched this morning when the President visited Hyderabad's Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University, where he time in the various research labs including the pesticide and biochemical labs.

While both administrations have been extremely tight lipped about this deal, the seeds of the project were sown in July last when the PM visited the US. It was decided then to create a body that would identify collaborative scientific research, development and commercialisation, promote emerging technologies and energise trade links between the two nations over a three-year period. The board will comprise eight members from each country, representing academia, government and the private sector.

The university Bush visited, is famed for growing 302 different varieties of seeds and is recognised as pioneers in new rice growing and sustaining technologies. They have single-handedly pushed Andhra Pradesh to the forefront of seed growth and research in India.

"We showed him the cutting edge research we are doing on increasing productivity of various crops," said Dr. M. Ganesh, principal scientist and head of the Agriculture School. "The President also spent time understanding the various types technological and natural methods we incorporate here."

One of the chief drivers for the project in the government's eyes is that the Indian agricultural sector desperately needs a shot in the arm. There has been a sizeable imbalance in the growth of this sector, with the growth rate ranging from 5 per cent per annum in Punjab to 1 per cent in Assam.

However, some agricultural scientists believe that the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative could spell disaster for indegenous research and that the Center is taking a myopic view of things.

"There is a complete blackout at the top about what's going wrong. This is the worst agrarian crises since Independence," says Devinder Sharma an agricultural scientist, who is also a food policy analyst on the forum for biotechnology and food security.

Sharma says the Initiative's board is dominated by large multinationals like Walmart and Monsanto, who are all set to determine the Indian agricultural research agenda.

"The American IPR regime offers patent holders rights to life form, plants and seeds, so there is also the threat of losing rights to indigenous genetic resources. There is also the additional fear that India could become the dumping ground for all the genetically modified crops that there are no takers for in Europe and many other parts of the world," Sharma says.

MS Swaminathan, the father of the green revolution and an honorary member of the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative, feels that no one can affect our farmers unless we are willing.

He adds that he hasn't seen the documents of the agreement yet but says that the country is facing a real crisis.

Hard road

President Bush has still got to convince a sceptical US Congress that the nuclear deal is a good one.

Politicians on Capitol Hill question whether it will undermine international efforts to tackle the spread of nuclear weapons.

Remember, India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its military programme will still be hidden away from international inspections.

Some US politicians say that India is being rewarded for bad behaviour. Others fear the deal will send out entirely the wrong signal to Iran.

And President Bush's arguments so far have not been convincing.

He believes that helping India with its civilian nuclear programme will ease pressure on diminishing oil supplies. Well, not for a long time yet.

He also has to convince the international community that the US was right to bend the rules just for India.

'Favouritism'

The favouritism being shown to India is making other countries in the region wary.

Pakistan's President Musharraf has already asked for the same kind of help and been rebuffed. The US essentially says Pakistan cannot yet be trusted.

China - the major power in the region - will watch with some suspicion as to how the Indo-US relationship develops. Is India now a rival? How will Beijing now challenge America's influence?

Even though President Bush can look back on this visit with some satisfaction, he will also have been fully aware of the controversy he still creates.

In India, tens of thousands demonstrated ahead of his arrival. In Pakistan the police were swift to clamp down on protesters. His first visit to Afghanistan had to be carried out in secrecy.

President Bush may be a friend to those countries' leaders - but he is still hated by many of their people. American foreign policy is still defined by its war on terror. One swallow does not make a summer.

The International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), for example, was created in 1957 by the United Nations, with the primary purpose of containing the number of countries involved in producing nuclear weapons. The Treaty on Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was specifically introduced a decade later, in 1968, to formally commit countries to respect the objective of non-proliferation, while simultaneously attempting to disarm existing nuclear stockpiles without blocking the production of peaceful nuclear energy. Indeed, the Treaty contained three pillars: non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to peacefully use nuclear technology. -This meant that non-nuclear nations accepted not to develop nuclear weapons on their own, while the existing so-called nuclear powers committed themselves not to "induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to ... acquire nuclear weapons."

In 1975, in a parallel agreement, some 44 nuclear-supplier states voluntarily accepted to coordinate their controls regarding the export of nuclear-related materials, equipment, and technology. NSG members, including the United States, are expected to forgo nuclear trade with governments that do not subject themselves to the International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards regime, while the IAEA has the responsibility for verifying that these countries' exports are not used by the importing state for any military purpose.

The fundamental philosophy behind this collective effort of non-proliferation is an implicit commitment on the part of "nuclear weapons states" that they will not use their privileged position to pressure or bully other nations. In particular, the five main nuclear countries have undertaken not to use their nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear country, except in response to a nuclear attack. That is the reason why more than 170 countries are party to the treaty.

However, since the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq, and since the Bush-Cheney administration has adopted a policy of preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states as an integral part of its global military strategy, a nuclear weapons arms race is going full speed ahead among smaller nations, anxious to protect themselves from foreign interference. Great Britain and France have also indicated that they may use nuclear weapons in response to a non-conventional attack by "rogue states". -The introduction of such preemptive-strike doctrines and the adoption of external threatening postures in the affairs of sovereign states have considerably reduced the legitimacy and logic of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation.

What is even more problematic is the fact that some countries have not signed the NP Treaty (Israel, India, Pakistan) and have developed nuclear weapons programs without being subjected to sanctions, while other countries trying to do the same thing (North Korea and Iran) have been threatened with pressures and retaliation. This smacks of a double standard and has considerably reduced confidence in the fairness of interntional agreements.

What's more, the Bush-Cheney administration, on March 2, 2006, seemed to "reward" India, (a country which exploded a nuclear device in 1974 and which has refused to sign the NP Treaty) when it co-signed a nuclear technology sharing agreement. With this agreement, the U.S. has sent another confusing message to other countries anxious to tap nuclear energy, either for civilian or military use. By agreeing to supply nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise to help India produce larger quantities of plutonium, without insisting that India sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, George W. Bush has, in effect, violated if not destroyed the 1968 Treaty.

This recalls his unilateral abrogation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, in early 2001 and his undermining of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty with his policy of placing weapons in space. There seems to be a pattern here with Bush and his circle of risk-taking advisors. -Rather than showing wisdom and leadership and convening international conferences to improve on older treaties, the Bush-Cheney administration has an inclination to abrogate treaties on its own and thus create legal and diplomatic voids.

That is why, in The New American Empire (p. 171), I referred to this administration as some sort of a "wrecking crew" of international treaties and institutions. The Bush-Cheney administration's "go-it-alone" policies in a complex world have been, and continue to be, an abject failure. After their departure, somebody will have to rebuild the entire international system of cooperation from scratch, a system which has been irresponsibly dismantled in only a very few short years.

On Thursday, he signed an historic nuclear deal with India - "a Santa Claus giveaway," said the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace - with little or no regard for its impact on the effort to contain Iran and North Korea.

Friday, he was in Pakistan rejecting a plea from his hosts that, they, too, be given access to civilian nuclear technology, since they are in the same boat as India, having developed the bomb on the sly and refusing to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Bush responds, correctly, that India, a transparent democracy, has not had an A.Q. Khan-like nuclear bazaar.

So you would think that the president - an advocate of democracy in the Muslim world - would be leaning hard on Gen. Pervez Musharraf to hasten civilian rule, rather than gathering more power in his hands.

Yet Bush only offered lame rhetoric: Yes, Musharraf must move towards democracy but ...

The president needs the general in the war on terrorism, especially hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Bush needs India even more, for a host of reasons, including its booming economy, which U.S. businesses want to tap.

Hence the nuclear concessions. Ignoring both U.S. and international law, Bush has promised India access to high-end technology and a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel.

In return, India gets to keep its nuclear arms program. It will have to open up only 14 of its 22 reactors for inspection. The rest it can keep secret, including a fast-breeder reactor that produces the plutonium for bombs. It can even build more breeders.

There is, however, an argument that, rather than a gift from Santa Claus, this is a tough bargain. It opens up two-thirds of India's secret program to inspection. Which is why the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear inspection arm of the UN, welcomes it.

But the lesson nuke-seeking nations can draw is clear: As the late Z.A. Bhutto, prime minister of Pakistan, once famously said, eat grass if you must to free up the resources to develop the bomb, and the world will, eventually, embrace you.

"With one simple move, the president has blown a hole in the nuclear rules that the world has been playing by," said Representative Edward Markey, the leading critic of the deal in Congress.

How do you now go after Iran?

Unlike India, Pakistan or Israel, it signed the non-proliferation treaty. It has not violated the treaty, which entitles it to develop nuclear energy.

What Iran is guilty of is cheating - hiding some aspects of its program - and a lot of fiery anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric. But its cheating has been minuscule compared to Israel's, India's and Pakistan's.

That's why the Atomic Energy Agency report, which goes before its board of governors tomorrow, is so mild: The agency cannot give Iran a clean bill of health but it can find no proof of a nuclear weapons program.

"India is more guilty than Iran could be," says Dilip Hiro, a London-based expert on Iran. "North Korea is more guilty than Iran could be."

All this is awkward enough, but there's more.

Trying to sell the India deal to a skeptical Congress, Bush says that giving India more nuclear power will "take the pressure off the global demand for energy."

This is precisely what Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford said in the 1970s to rationalize their plan to sell the Shah of Iran nuclear power plants. "But, flush with a bulging exchequer, thanks to rising oil prices from 1973 and 1974, he ignored U.S. corporations and awarded the first contract for a nuclear plant to Siemens of West Germany," wrote Hiro in The Iranian Labyrinth (Nation Books, 2005).

One is left with no other conclusion than that the U.S. basically does what it wants and tries to rationalize it by dictating the media mantra of the day.

None of this should come as a surprise. After all, the U.S. was once a great friend of Saddam Hussein.

Haroon Siddiqui writes Thursday and Sunday. hsiddiq@thestar.ca.

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