US foreign policy takes a battering

It was a week that was meant to showcase President Clinton to an admiring world: he commemorated the Berlin airlift to grateful Germans and took his rightful place as leader of the most powerful country in the world at the G-8 economic summit in Birmingham.

Instead it has been a foreign policy nightmare for the US as first the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, spurned an ultimatum to accept a US proposal on the Middle East and Indonesia descended into anarchy in the streets. But above all, Indian nuclear tests shattered American designs for stability in South Asia.

By the end of the week, President Clinton and his advisers were scrambling to persuade Pakistan not to go down the nuclear road to get even with its old antagonist and praying that Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, did not dissolve in chaos.

In addition, there was the humiliation for the US intelligence services of failing to detect the preparations for the Indian underground nuclear blasts.

Billions of dollars have been poured into updating the latest technology for the National Security Agency spy satellites and listening network. The CIA is supposed to be adapting to the post-Cold War situation and watching for signs of nuclear weapons being sold or developed outside of the five declared nuclear states.

For years, the US has been preoccupied with India and Pakistan acquiring nuclear weapons and upsetting tenuous stability in the Asian sub-continent. US pressure has been applied to North Korea and China to prevent sales of technology to Pakistan which would help it to go nuclear.

While India has been on the verge of full nuclear capability for decades, the US spy satellites have until now warned Washington of any unusual activity at the desert test site at Pokharan. In 1990, as India got ready to explode a nuclear device, the US intervened to halt it.

Later this year, President Clinton had planned to visit India and Pakistan as part of an Asian tour in which he would preach the merits of stability in the region. He was to promise more US economic support as an incentive for the rival states to accept international controls by adhering to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Instead, he has had to impose economic sanctions on India which could severely damage its economy and threaten Pakistan with similar treatment if it ignores the American warning to desist from its own nuclear tests.

A decade ago, the US stopped the export of 28 F-16 combat jets to Pakistan (for which it had paid $600 million) as punishment for embarking on a nuclear programme. Now to dissuade Pakistan from moving to developing nuclear-tipped missiles, the US is considering releasing the planes or paying back the money.

But some US officials seem resigned to the inevitability of Pakistan now developing nuclear weapons. The prospect of two hostile countries in an unsettled region confronting each other across a common border and armed with nuclear weapons has led to a search for scapegoats in the US establishment.

Former US ambassador to India, Senator Pat Moynihan, is scornful of what he sees as the State Department's failure to read the obvious intentions of the new Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi. All the American diplomats had to do was read the newspapers, Senator Moynihan said sarcastically.

After a secret hearing on Capitol Hill by the Senate intelligence committee, the CIA is not seen as blameworthy as first thought for the failure to forewarn President Clinton of this week's tests. The Indians had learned how to conceal their preparations from the US spy satellites - thanks to information they have gleaned from American sources.

The State Department now says that it was persistently lied to in recent months by Indian officials in meetings which discussed the possibility of nuclear tests.

But non-Government experts on India have come forward to criticise US policy in the region as too patronising towards India, and as ignoring the effect of Washington's concentration on wooing China (which has been supplying Pakistan with nuclear technology and a missile capability).

With hindsight it is seen that India's feeling of insecurity with former foes, China and Pakistan, on its borders, has been a huge incentive for India to become a nuclear power and thus gain added respect in the regional power game.

President Clinton this weekend is hoping that he can persuade the G-8 summit to agree on a strong statement dissuading Pakistan from going down the nuclear path. But it is already clear that countries such as Russia, France and host country, Britain, are not ready to threaten Pakistan with the kind of economic sanctions which the US must impose by law if a non-nuclear weapon country steps over the fateful threshold.

For President Clinton the most urgent foreign policy goal for the remaining 2 1/2 years of office has been a long-term Middle East settlement. He can point to successes in Bosnia and Northern Ireland.

Southern Asia has now forced itself onto his Administration's foreign policy priorities. President Clinton and his advisers will have to decide if his planned tour of the region in the autumn can go ahead in the new circumstances.

Would he even be welcome as the leader of a country which is punishing poor but proud nations for asserting what they see as their right to defend themselves?