The endorsement of Iran’s nuclear programme and its right to a full nuclear cycle at the recent meeting of the Non-Aligned Summit increases India’s dilemmas in the balancing act it has been attempting between its support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme and its interests in the region and the United States’ single-minded resolve (goaded by Israel) to deny Iran the temptation to go nuclear militarily.

It was a unanimous resolution in Tehran although New Delhi might not have liked the language of the formulation.
India has formally opposed Iran acquiring nuclear weapons although Tehran has always maintained that its programme is entirely peaceful in intent, with the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring at the summit that the use of nuclear weapons is “a big and unforgivable sin”. But India has hedged its bets by declaring its opposition to any threats of violence in achieving US objectives. And New Delhi emphasised its insistence on a peaceful approach after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah in March 2010 by jointly pleading for the resolution of Iran’s nuclear dispute through dialogue.
At the same time, India had argued that additional sanctions on Iran were counter-productive because they affected the common people most but had little effect on the polity. New Delhi has been forced to cut its oil imports from Iran under US pressure although joint projects, including the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, have proceeded fitfully as has the revived port project to facilitate Indian trade with Central Asia.
A new factor in the Iranian nuclear debate is a bold essay by Prof. Kenneth N. Waltz of Columbia University in Foreign Affairs standing conventional American wisdom on its head by pleading for a nuclear-armed Iran. Taking the India-Pakistan analogy, he argues: “If Iran goes nuclear, Israel and Iran will deter each other, as nuclear powers always have. There has never been a full-scale war between nuclear-armed states”.
Prof. Waltz believes that far from encouraging nuclear proliferation in the region, Tehran’s possession of the bomb would bring peace and stability. In his view, Israel’s monopoly of the bomb in West Asia has led to continuing instability. “Power, after all”, he says, “begs to be balanced”.
New Delhi has never fully explained its opposition to an Iranian bomb. Doubtless, it wants stability in the Gulf region because of its vast energy and trade interests and the welfare of several million expatriates sending money home. Further, New Delhi has no desire of being caught up in the Shia-Sunni conflicts that have sharpened of late. Therefore, according to the former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal, “India has been playing its difficult hand on the Iranian question as well as it can”. The US, of course, turned a blind eye to Pakistani-Chinese nuclear cooperation in the days of the Cold War, and even more recently winked at continuing Chinese assistance outside the framework of existing international arrangements. But Prof. Waltz has argued precisely the opposite. It is Israel’s monopoly of the bomb that has, in part, led to regional instability.
Apart from the NAM Summit’s endorsement, the Iranian nuclear question has come to the fore because of rumblings in Israel of its desire to launch an imminent attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israelis have been building up pressure for so long, particularly in an American election year, that the world is tiring of its threats. Tel Aviv is still capable of launching an attack, which could drag in America and be a disaster for the region and the world. US President Barack Obama has been fending off a possible catastrophe by rhetoric, show of force in the region and warnings, knowing fully well that where Israeli interests are concerned, no US President is a free agent.
India has wavered in the implementation of its Iran policy in the past. It voted in favour of a resolution in Vienna for sending the Iranian nuclear programme to the UN Security Council. Subsequently, it has been insisting on its opposition to resort to force in disciplining Iran. New Delhi has come a long way from the halcyon days of non-alignment. Jawaharlal Nehru never conceived of the concept as a movement and was chary of binding it in the shackles of a permanent secretariat.
Today non-alignment survives, years after the Cold War is over, because it is difficult to kill an international organisation. In India, at any rate, there are few illusions about the moral dimensions of NAM. Even in the days of Nehru’s idealism, there were distinct realistic strands in his promotion of non-alignment outside his sentimental and flawed attachment of an India-China engine of a promising future for Asia and the world.
Today’s reality is that the Arab Spring has changed the shape of the Middle East (what we presumptuously call West Asia). It is an incomplete revolution, with much heartbreak to come. The strife in Syria is one example of the antagonisms and complexities involved. Libya is still trying to become a normal state while Tunisia, smaller in scale, is coping somewhat better. Iraq, though no part of the Spring, is still coping with the horrendous consequences of the American military intervention.
Israel, used to American patronage of cosy dictators, is somewhat bewildered in trying to find its way in the new setting. It has, of course, America’s support, which has sustained and protected it since its birth and the long years of battles with Arabs and in its occupation of Palestinian land. If it does indeed succeed in pushing the US into another war in a Muslim country, this time in Shia Iran, it would be nothing short of a cataclysm.
It is time the government took the country into its confidence to explain what it is seeking to do to safeguard national interests. Sometimes, taking no position is a position by itself. The authorities must level with the people in telling them their objectives in an increasingly dangerous part of the world.