Thursday, July 26, 2007

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Matthew Yglesias agrees with John Bolton

Matt Yglesias doesn't like the nuclear deal with India:

What's happening in this deal is that we're granting India concessions related to its nuclear program and India is giving us . . . essentially nothing in exchange....

Meanwhile, from a neoconnish perspective the fact that this undermines the nonproliferation regime is probably a good thing. They hate the idea that diplomatic agreements might actually work and undermine their efforts to start an endless series of wars.

Yeah... there are a few problems with this interpretation. The biggest, of course, is that the biggest neocon involved in the nonproliferation question opposed the India nuclear deal.

As for Matt's interpretation of the deal.... I've defended it before, but I'll ask the same question again -- under what set of magical circumstances was India ever going to agree to give up their nuclear weapons?

Not everything the Bush administration does is part of the neocon grand plan. Indeed, I think we can all agree that "neocon grand plan" is a really bad joke.

posted by Dan on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM




Comments:

The dangerous thing about the deal with India is that it means that the US doesn't have the high ground. If you allow India nuclear weapons then how can you turn around and claim that Iran is not allowed the same privilege? While as you say India is unlikely to give up their weapons, when you make it easy for them it only undermines your stated goals with other (more odious) countries.

posted by: Be Young on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]



On the other hand, it may be that offering different levels of trust to non-odious states than to odious ones would motivate governments to aim for the former status. (I don't know that this would work, but it's not clear to me that treating states as interchangeable black boxes necessarily works all that well either, even in principle.)

posted by: Mike S. on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]



If you allow India nuclear weapons then how can you turn around and claim that Iran is not allowed the same privilege?

As opposed to "allowing" the UK, France, PRC, and Russia? Is there a particular fairness in the system of "anybody who developed them soon enough to allowed to have them and develop new ones, but not anyone else?" Is it even enforceable?

posted by: John Thacker on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]



Nope, it isn't fair. Taking this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion we end up with a world where almost everyone has nuclear weapons and things don't blow up only because of multi-way mutually assured destruction. Probably after a couple of accidents everyone will grow up a bit.

Of course I only point out problems, I don't have a solution. But certainly randomly invading countries is not a long-term viable approach.

posted by: Be Young on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]



"If you allow India..."
India is an independent nation.Who is there to "allow" sanction this thing or that thing?Nuclear deal is a two-way affair.You destroy your weapons....

posted by: Indian on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]



You want India to give up their nukes? Easy, get the Chinese to give up theirs, which they will gladly do once the Russians give up theirs, and they are just anxiously awaiting for the Americans to give up theirs first.

Iran is not getting nukes because India has them. Iran is trying to get them because they have several thousand American troops on their eastern border in Afghanistan, several thousand American troops to their west in Iraq, surrounded by several American naval bases - and off over the horizon the Israelis have several hundred warheads. Under these conditions, the Iranians would be suicidal to not even try for such weapons. If you want Iran to abandon it's pursuit of such weapons, address some of these concerns.

posted by: KXB on 07.26.07 at 04:45 PM [permalink]






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