Veliath's thoughts and figurings

The URL in question continued a discussion Viju and I have been having on just what is India trying to do.

Viju's fear is that:

1. India looks like a wimp by allowing the US to publicly tell us what we should be doing
2. India is burning its bridges with Iran.

Some of the things that I try to keep in mind as I try to understand what India is doing are:

1. India seems to have long-term goals in most of its foreign-policy decisions. Look at the way we handled Kargil and earlier Kashmir related incidents.
2. India doesn't mind looking like a wimp. It seems to be able to swallow it's pride if that helps in the long term.

So why did India do what it did?

It is obvious India is trying to keep the nuclear deal with the US on track. Why is this so important? Why is it being allowed to overshadow our relationship with Iran - one of our more loyal trading partners?

The nuclear deal to me seems to be important to India for two reasons:

1. Technology transfer. India is way behind its own schedule for the amount of power it should be producing from nuclear technology. This is primarily because indigenous development of this technology has not been as fast as India would have liked. India sure would like and could use a technology infusion.
   
2. Allowing the US to set precedent for nuke technology transfers to India. Once they do it, other countries will follow suite as they'ld love to sell to India. The US has been the most vocal opponents of India's nuclear programme in the West.
   

Since we are interested in a relationship on nukes that should be valid for, say, 2 years and not fuel - which we will keep needing, I expect India will be dragging out the negotiations on the Iranian oil deal for as long as it takes us to get the technology and precedents we need.

Once that's done, India will be able to go back to Iran.

Iran at this time is precariously placed - considering it's on the cross-hairs of the West - and any deal with Iran is risky until we know the situation there is stable.

India does recognize the need for energy security as evidenced by its involvement with the SCO and Asian Energy Security Grid. From the way things are headed, I think we will soon see a tussle between East (SCO) and the West (NATO) over Middle East oil.

Hmm...interesting times ahead.