From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Adam" <""4thwormcastfromthemolehill\"{at}the
field.near the bridge"> wrote in message
news:43da8b00$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> http://www.payvand.com/news/06/jan/1239.html
>
> I'm not so sure the Russians & Chinese feel as threatened as the US/West
> do.
>
> Adam

Plus the US Ambassador to India practicing Bushian diplomacy enraged India
such that they are now supporting Iran.


http://www.dawn.com/2006/01/28/top2.htm

NEW DELHI, Jan 27: India on Friday distanced itself from US-led calls to
isolate Iran at next week's meeting of the IAEA after controversial remarks
on the issue by Washington's envoy to Delhi enraged the nation as seldom
seen before.

The Indian foreign ministry, facing a barrage of criticism for apparent
obsequiousness towards Washington that ranged from allies in the Left Front
to former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, appeared to have rowed back
from its recent bonhomie with the United States.

"During the past two weeks, India has been undertaking active
consultations with all key members of the IAEA Board of Governors and with
Iran, in order to avoid confrontation and to promote the widest possible
consensus on handling the Iran nuclear issue," a spokesman for the
Indian foreign ministry said.

He explained that in all the consultations, India has urged "that
Iran's right to develop peaceful uses of nuclear energy for its development
consistent with its international obligations and commitments should be
respected".

The spokesman said: "Iran's willingness to work together with the IAEA
to remove any outstanding issues, about its nuclear programme should be
welcomed." In this regard, the agency should be allowed to proceed
according to its work programme and submit a detailed report, he said.

India, he said, also welcomes all initiatives, "including from Russia,
which could enable a consensus to be reached on this issue and urges
further intensive efforts in that direction".

In the bargain India appealed to "all concerned countries (to) avoid
confrontation and work in the spirit of seeking a mutually acceptable
solution".

The Indian clarification, which came in response to a question, coincided
with comments by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that India should
be ready to make hard choices ahead.

Earlier this week, US Ambassador David Mulford, in apparent eagerness to
clinch a civil nuclear energy deal with India before President George W.
Bush arrives here on March 1, said the move could die in the US Congress if
India did not vote against Iran at the February 2 IAEA meeting.

The Indian Express, which supports the deal, cautioned: "India and the
US are raucous democracies. Public statements from either side quickly feed
into the domestic politics of the other and complicate the negotiations
between the two governments. India and the US have made much progress in
the last few years because they have learnt one hard lesson from the wasted
decades of the past: avoid hectoring each other in public. Mulford's
remarks are an awful deviation from that sensible rule."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government is already under considerable
pressure from the Left as well as sections of the Congress to reverse its
IAEA vote, the Express wrote. "By linking the implementation of the
nuclear pact and the Iran vote, Mulford has undercut the prospects of India
moving forward on both."

The Hindu said: "In publicly warning India, on Republic Day eve, to
vote against Iran or else, (Mulford) has outrageously crossed the line of
diplomatic propriety, inviting condemnation from political players ranging
from the Left to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"But he has also done India a service by letting the cat out of the
bag, if it was ever fully in. In his interview to the Press Trust of India,
he has spotlighted the pitiful terms of the bargain struck by the Manmohan
Singh government with Washington under the signboard of civilian nuclear
cooperation," The Hindu said.

"Who can, after Mr Mulford's egregious forthcomingness, doubt that the
bargain requires India to behave like a marionette - forced at every turn
of major international events to go against its own national instincts and
interests for fear of offending Washington? Today it is a fatwa on Iran,
tomorrow it will be a diktat on India's plan to separate its civil and
military nuclear facilities, which Mr. Mulford has found to fall short of
'minimum standards'."

The Asian Age, commenting on Mr Mulford's faux pas, observed:
"Sometimes when you say something often enough, you start saying it in
your sleep. This is what appears to have happened to US Ambassador to India
David C. Mulford who stunned his own, and definitely Manmohan Singh's,
governments with his recent interview to a news agency."

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