By Inder Malhotra On the vexed and vexatious issue of nuclear nonproliferation is there going to be no end to the hypocrisy of the western nations, led by the United States, the sole superpower and the self-appointed guardian of the nonproliferation regime such as it is? This question is unavoidable because of the sequence of relevant events following America's willing acceptance of the Pakistani claim that the rogue nuclear scientist, Dr.
Khan, alone was responsible for the massive leakage of nuclear secrets, materials, equipment and weapons designs to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
At one remove, the U.S.
had also swallowed the Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf's palpably absurd pretence that no military leader was ever involved in the terrible transactions.
Benazir Bhutto, a former Prime Minister of Pakistan and now self-exiled leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), and General (retired) Mirza Afzal Beg, a former Chief of the Army Staff, have both repudiated the make-believe jointly fostered by Islamabad and Washington.
Indeed, they have referred to a full-page advertisement in a Pakistani newspaper 10 months after Gen.
Musharraf had seized power in which the government had "invited buyers" for sensitive nuclear materials.
Beg, a one-time boss of the present military ruler, in fact, showed the advertisement to Mr.
Hamid Mir, a prominent journalist to whom he gave an interview.
Meanwhile, British newspapers continue to publish reports that Dr.
Khan's London-based daughter, Dina, has in "safe custody" documents and a tape-recorded statement that could prove that Pakistani military leaders since 1977, including Gen.
Musharraf, have acquiesced in the shenanigans of the now disgraced "father of the Islamic Bomb".
It is in this murky context that one must view President George W.
Bush's speech at the U.S.
Defence University.
In it, he gloated over the success of the CIA in "exposing" Dr.
Khan's nefarious network and spelt out a seven-point programme to counter the proliferation of the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of delivery.
Ironically, the most important part of his oration was not what he said but what he refused to say, apparently wilfully.
There is, for instance, not a single word in the U.S.
President's speech - or in an earlier presentation by the CIA Director, Mr.
George Tenet - about the role of industrial outfits of European countries, such as Germany, France, Netherlands and Switzerland, in Dr.
Khan's shenanigans lasting two decades.
Bush waxed eloquent about a factory in Malaysia, run by a Sri Lankan collaborator of Dr.
Khan, that reportedly forged some centrifuges.
But he has remained totally silent on a whole range of highly sophisticated equipment and materials that simply could not have been produced either in the Malaysian facility or at the Khan Research Laboratory in Pakistan.
Included in the items supplied by Dr.
Khan's European partners, consistently and persistently, is the plant for the manufacture of uranium hexafluoride, a highly corrosive element that needs to be handled with exceptional care.
The same goes for the high-tech metal alloys needed to produce centrifuges and the powerful motors to rotate these centrifuges at very high speeds.
To cut a long story short, the bitter truth is that European firms, easily identifiable by any serious student of the nuclear business, are the real culprits.
They were the ones that allowed Dr.
Khan to first steal from the European firm, Urenco, designs and drawings of centrifuges and then supplied him all the equipment to enable him to set up the uranium enrichment laboratory at Kahuta.
Thereafter, the dubious European firms were the producers of the nuclear contraband that Dr.
Khan sold in what the IAEA chief, Dr.
El Baradei, calls the nuclear "Wal Market" for which the nearest Hindi equivalent is "chor bazaar".
In other words, Dr.
Khan was the chief organiser and salesman of the goods unlawfully turned out by the European industrial establishments.
And thereby hang not just one tale but two.
First, since the public memory is proverbially short, it needs to be stressed that America's main motive to push through the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) in the sixties was to ensure that Germany (and Japan) did not have access to nuclear weapons.
The Germans knew this because this was the period when they were demanding that "one of the fingers on the nuclear trigger should be German".
According to several nuclear experts, illegal exports of nuclear equipment, material and technology that have torn the NPT to shreds are Germany's "sweet revenge" and in this venture it has had no dearth of collaborators from neighbouring countries all of which are signatories to the NPT.
That is where the second tale, partly bizarre and partly ironic, comes in.
In the midst of hair-raising disclosures about relentless proliferation that has made complete nonsense of the NPT, ostensibly friendly foreign dignitaries, such as the British Foreign Secretary, Mr.
Jack Straw, are advising India to sign the NPT! This is by no means all.
Massive illegal transfer of nuclear technology and equipment having been allowed to take place, there is now an attempt to obstruct lawful and legitimate flow of peaceful nuclear technology.
Bush's seven announcements - made shortly after the "Glide Path" agreement for hi-tech Indo-U.S.
cooperation in the fields of nuclear electricity, space, dual -use technology and missile defence - only one is of major interest to India.
According to it, only those countries that sign the "additional protocol" permitting the IAEA, the UN's "nuclear watchdog", intrusive inspection rights would be entitled to import equipment and technology for civilian nuclear programme.
There is no way India can or should sign the IAEA's "additional protocol" unless this is done on the same terms as are allowed to the five nuclear weapons powers recognised by the NPT.
Despite this country's impeccable nonproliferation record, it is a moot question whether the "Gang of Five" would agree to this.
Of a piece with the America's pernicious proclivity to turn a blind eye to proliferation by Europeans and Pakistanis over the years is its thundering silence on China's major contribution to Pakistan's clandestine nuclear programme first and then its supply of missiles to Islamabad.
China has even built a plutonium reactor in Pakistan and helped it set up a reprocessing plant.
But once again President Bush is totally unwilling to comment on this.
It is not the U.S.
administration alone that is to blame.
The performance of the supposedly independent American media and academia, including its much -praised think tanks, is equally appalling.
To sign or not to sign the IAEA's "additional protocol" is not the only dilemma we in this country will have to face.
There are a number of other posers will also arise.
The most important of these is how to see to it that the undoubted improvement in Indo-U.S.
relations that is in the best interest of both sides is not affected adversely by differences over the nuclear issue that are bound to arise.
Restrictions on the inflow of nuclear civilian technology apart, it stands to reason that for all its coddling of Gen.
Musharraf, America would want to maintain a close watch on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and ask for some ceiling on its nuclear programme.
But Islamabad has tersely told Washington already that it would accept only those measures that are equally enforced on New Delhi.
It would be unrealistic to believe that because of Pakistan's reckless proliferation and our impeccable record in relation to nonproliferation, the U.S.
would automatically reject the Pakistani demand and leave India alone.
That may well be the instinct of Mr.
Bush who does attach importance to his country's relations with India, the largest and most lively democracy with an immense potential economic and strategic partnership.
But his administration is riddled with nuclear fundamentalists who are capable of obstructing any consideration being shown to India in the nuclear arena.
Several highly placed Americans, visiting Delhi for Track II diplomacy, have clearly indicated this.
They included Mr.
Strobe Talbot, the deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, who had held 12 rounds of talks with Mr.
