Ackerman warns India on ties with Iran

Congressman Gary Ackerman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, who visits New Delhi next week, has made it clear that India's relations with Iran and New Delhi, particularly the resurrection of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline deal could jeopardise India's relationship with the US.

There is also anger and suspicion among senior administration officials over India resurrecting the pipeline deal and the upcoming visit to Teheran by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Mukherjee is seen in Washington and among Indian American leaders as not being committed to the Indo-US nuclear deal as he fears the Left withdrawal could cripple the government. There is also a growing resignation that the deal is at best on life-support if not already dead.

Ackerman made no bones about his loathing for India's ties with Iran, saying, "Before anyone leaves this hearing with the idea that the United States and India will go riding off into the sunset and live happily ever after, if I can mix movie endings, there are some areas of disagreement that need to be mentioned and if left to fester could cut off our burgeoning relationship at the pass."

Ackerman said, "I have heard about and understood from a wide variety of Indian government officials about India's historic ties to Iran and its domestic political need not to alienate hundreds of millions of its Muslim citizens. I have also heard and understood arguments about India's ever increasing needs for energy."

"But I hope that India's officials will hear and understand the US view of Iran: that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and regional hegemony is a serious threat to international peace and stability in the Middle East and the vital national security interests of the United States," he said, and added: "I believe Indian officials understand the US perspective on Iran and I know that India shares US opposition to Iran possessing nuclear weapons. Their courageous IAEA vote demonstrates that."

"So, I have a very difficult time understanding why the government of India continues to pursue a pipeline with Iran and Pakistan at a time when other nations in the world are not just implementing UN approved sanctions, which is India's historic position, but are going further by cutting off access to banking services and discouraging other economic interactions with Iran."

Ackerman argued that "if the international community, India included, wants a peaceful resolution to the Iranian nuclear question, then joining the growing international efforts to isolate Iran that extend beyond the UN Security Council sanctions, is the way to go forward."

He warned that "continued pursuit of the IPI pipeline or other investments in Iran's energy sector will halt and potentially even roll back progress in bilateral relations over the last several years."

Ackerman did issue a caveat that "I want to be clear that I am not suggesting that India abandon its historically independent foreign policy. What I am suggesting is that India join other nations who are doing more than just implementing UN sanctions in an effort to economically isolate Iran. It is an effort that I believe is fully consistent with India's historic support of multilateral institutions and cooperation."

And, if those in New Delhi didn't get the import of his blunt message, Ackerman spelled it out, saying, "There has been tremendous progress in US-India relations over the last decade and particularly over the last three years. There is every opportunity and very good reasons to advance relations even further, and future generations will consider us fools if we squander them."

Congressional sources as well as former senior US diplomats Teresita Schaffer and Walter Andersen -- who head the South Asia programs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Johns Hopkins University's School for Advanced International Studies respectively -- and others told rediff.com that Ackerman and others in Congress were unwilling to compromise on India's relations with Iran and some even warned that the deal would be a definite no-go in a new Democratic administration if Senator Barack Obama is elected President and India goes ahead with the Iran pipeline deal.

Schaffer said, "Many Americans see Iran as a serious threat -- a dangerous country, and a supporter of terrorism. Many in the US government and Congress believe that India's relations with Iran undercuts their preferred strategy of working with other countries to isolate Iran until it shelves its nuclear program and stops supporting terrorism."

She said, "US Congressmen have heard India's prime minister say that India does not want to see any additional nuclear armed powers in India's neighborhood and they know India has serious concerns about terrorism. Since the US has these same concerns, they had hoped that India would be able to work with them (on isolating Iran)."

"I believe that India and the US have many of the same concerns but disagree on what to do about them. This is an issue that cries out for serious discussion between the two governments," Schaffer added.

Andersen told rediff.com that Ackerman for all the experts' explanations that India was between a rock and a hard place on its relations with Iran, was unconvinced and was adamant that if the pipeline deal were to go through, would make the blossoming US-India relations untenable.

He said Ackerman as well as other lawmakers just couldn't comprehend that while other nations were in sync with the US in further isolating Iran and tightening up the economic sanctions, India was "seriously thinking about a pipeline that would benefit Iran."

"I answered that it was highly unlikely that a pipeline would be built because the pricing was wrong and the Indians had informed the Iranians. Also, I argued that it was highly unlikely that the pricing would get right anytime soon because of the poor infrastructure in Iran, which makes extraction more expensive and that the Iranians have insufficient funds to modernise because of the highly populist programs of its present government."

Andersen said, "Moreover, I added that Pakistan land transshipment prohibitions against Indian products for Afghanistan and beyond to the Central Asian countries, makes it absolutely essential for India to use Iranian ports and the Iranian highway and rail systems for such trade, which is significant."

"I told him that the US should put pressure on Pakistan to lift these restrictions on Indian transshipments, which by the way would be a positive factor in improving Indo-Pak relations."

But he said Ackerman was unmoved and "wanted something stronger and more explicit from the Indians."

"I told him that the Indians walked a fine line as they need energy from Iran -- where 10 percent of their oil imports come from now -- and have strategic interests with Pakistan and Afghanistan in mind -- while they also know the importance of the issue to the US. As part of that cautious approach, the Indians voted twice against Iran in the IAEA, despite the domestic uproar at this."

But, Andersen said, "He still wanted India to come out stronger and he argued that it was surely not in the India's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons," and was not convinced by "my answer in the abstract -- that India does not support the idea of anyone else having a nuclear weapons capability and has, in fact, been rather firm in protecting its own nuclear weapons technology and nuclear material, but that at the same time, participating in sanctions would cause a major economic blow at home, and Iran would almost certainly find other buyers for its oil and gas."