A column by Michael A. Levi, America’s misguided nuclear strategy, in today’s International Herald Tribune takes the Bush administration to task for what he sees as an “incoherent” nuclear nonproliferation policy:

Last week, President George W. Bush sealed a landmark nuclear deal with India. This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors meets to confront the Iranian nuclear program. . .

The implication here, intended or not, is that while the Bush administration is giving away nuclear technology to India, the UN’s IAEA is toiling away at attempting to prevent a nuclear crisis, or escalation of the existing one, with Iran. But what Levi leaves out is that the IAEA has in fact welcomed the nuclear deal with India, “saying it would end New Delhi’s nuclear isolation and spur global non-proliferation efforts.”

In fact this has to potential to eventually bring India into the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty – or it could destroy it (although if that were the case, why did the IAEA praise the deal?). I guess I missed the “incoherent” part of the policy in his first example, but he provides more:

American nonproliferation policy is incoherent. The United States proposes to promote nuclear energy technologies in India that might increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, while it attempts to persuade Iran to curb its own activities.

First is the ambiguous claim that the deal with India, “might increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.” Rather than specific reasons to distrust India, there is the vague fear-of-the-unknown threat. The terms of the U.S.-India nuclear deal are not as vague:

• India agrees to allow inspectors from the IAEA access to its civilian nuclear program. . . Military facilities—and stockpiles of nuclear fuel that India has produced up to now—will be exempt from inspections or safeguards.
• India commits to signing an Additional Protocol (PDF)—which allows more intrusive IAEA inspections—or its civilian facilities.
• India agrees to continue its moratorium on nuclear weapons testing.
India commits to strengthening the security of its nuclear arsenals.
• India works toward negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) with the United States banning the production of fissile material for weapons purposes. India agrees to prevent the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that don’t possess them and to support international nonproliferation efforts.
• U.S. companies will be allowed to build nuclear reactors in India and provide nuclear fuel for its civilian energy program.

Aside from the self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing, the IAEA had none of that before. So as far as proliferation goes, are we better or worse off? Better.

Second, and correct me if I’m wrong, but is Levi actually attempting to, even loosely, compare India to “let’s-wipe-Israel-off-the-map” Iran? I guess the nuances between the two are difficult for some to read.

In recent years, [the U.S.] has explored a range of new nuclear weapons concepts while counseling others that nuclear weapons are anachronistic. …

Time for a does of realism; at some point in the future nuclear weapons may be used. The scenarios are many. Would you rather those nukes be a) strategic monsters, or b) small tactical devices with far less potential for collateral damage (answering “none of thee above” is not an option for this question)?

American policy also lacks direction. During the Cold War, our aim was stability - we sought to avoid nuclear war. But what is the shape of the nuclear world that the United States now aims to create? Is our goal to prevent all future proliferation? It might seem so, but we have already failed with North Korea. . .

Assuming North Korea is America’s responsibility to handle, what, short of war, could we have done to prevent them from manufacturing nukes? There was the 1994 Agreed Framework, which North Korea abandoned for sexy uranium reprocessing. For those familiar with this issue as it relates to North Korea, Levi leaves a lot more questions than answers. But they are only rhetorical questions.

And did America fail, or did the UN fail by not giving more powers to the IAEA? Did the UN fail by not having the backbone to face the problems presented by North Korea? Sadly the creators of a puppet-movie (Team America) appear to have a better grasp of this than many policy pundits.