By IANS
New Delhi : A future Democrat president will not undo the India-US nuclear deal, a top official who served the Bill Clinton administration indicated here Thursday.
“I can’t imagine a future Democrat would undo the nuclear deal,” said James Steinberg, who was the deputy national security advisor during Clinton’s first presidential term from 1996 to 2000.
Steinberg was speaking on “Strategic choices for the United States in the 2008 Election and their Implication for US-India Relations”.
He pointed out that for Democrat candidates, “the issue of nuclear non-proliferation is the central preoccupation”.
“What you are likely to see is an effort to take a wider approach (on nuclear non-proliferation)… and that is failing right now miserably,” said Steinberg, dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.
So, he said, rather than “reopen” the nuclear deal with India, a Democrat president was more likely to engage New Delhi on the issue of a new non-proliferation regime instead of the current, ineffective one.
Steinberg said while China is viewed in the US as a long-term threat due to its military modernism programme and lack of transparency, “few Americans see India’s growth in the same light”.
“China has not emerged as an election issue, but it may become so after the Taiwan elections and Olympics,” he noted, adding that India and the US should engage with Beijing rather than try to “contain” it.
Free trade was an election issue due to the domestic economic crisis and the rise of China, he said, adding that there were voices among both Democrats and Republicans who were sceptical about free trade.
“Senator Hillary Clinton has already said that if she comes to power, she will review all existing free trade agreements and future ones too,” said Steinberg.
Commenting on the contentious issue of outsourcing, which had been a bugbear for Democrats in the past, Steinberg said that effort would be more towards providing social safety at home and not outsourcing.
He noted that while the Democrats viewed China through the prism of human rights, Republicans were worried about China as a military rival.
A similar difference in language and perception is seen when the two camps talk about combating terrorism, Steinberg said. For example, the Republicans always label terrorism as a result of Islamic militancy, which is not done by the Democrats. “Senator Clinton always talks about the threat of Al Qaeda, never Islamic fundamentalism,” he said.
Steinberg noted that if the US continued to see terrorism as a “clash of civilisations” and linked it with militant Islam, then “it would make it difficult for India to follow its policy”.
He pointed out that due to this explicit linkage, countries like Turkey, Indonesia and Malaysia were distancing themselves from the US.
Terming terrorism as a global threat, Steinberg said it was a real threat for India because of its location. It has certainly brought the two democracies closer in their effort to fight the global menace. With terrorism being the overriding concern of American foreign policy, it has cramped the US from taking a broader view on issues like North Korea and climate change.
He said that future relationship of the US with India will depend on the latter’s inclusion in major policy decisions for the region as well as global issues.