HOW HE SEES IT U.S. appears two-faced on nuclear proliferation

By BILL FERGUSON
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The consensus opinion on America seems to go something like this:
"America is a great country and Americans do a lot of good in the world. But Americans also tend to be arrogant and high-handed. When it comes to foreign policy, your government does what is expedient and then claims to be serving a higher morality. You guys aren't fooling anyone."
I was reminded of this sentiment when it was announced that our president intends to put us in the business of exchanging nuclear technology with India. This is a country that has developed a nuclear weapons program despite our vehement objections and despite a well-documented nuclear non-proliferation policy that is supported not only in the United States but by a vast majority of nuclear and non-nuclear nations around the world.
However, they have the bomb, have had it for a while in fact, and their government is not openly hostile to the United States. So take our uranium, please.
Iran is another story. We don't like their current government, not one little bit. Thus we have all but guaranteed them that we will resort to military force if necessary to derail their nuclear ambitions unless they open themselves up to monitoring that will ensure their nuclear activities have no military applications. And it isn't a bluff -- it may very well come to that.
The United States makes a great deal of noise about nuclear nonproliferation, but we deal very differently with countries we consider friendly to our interests (Israel, India) than we do with countries that we consider to be a threat (Iran, North Korea).
Political cost
I think there is a lot more concern in Washington about the possibility of an Iranian nuke going off in Israel than there is about an Indian nuke going off in Pakistan. The casualty count might be the same, but the political cost (from our perspective) is far more frightening in the former case. That would explain the difference in our level of commitment to the spirit of non-proliferation, depending on who is doing the proliferating.
My purpose here is not to criticize the current administration and their inconsistency of enforcing the non-proliferation policy. In the real world, foreign policy is incredibly complex and a certain amount of pragmatism is always required.
I do believe, however, we should be a little more honest with ourselves in recognizing that it is self-interest, and not idealism, that drives our relationship with the international community. America is a great country, but a little more humility wouldn't hurt us a bit.
After all, we aren't fooling anyone. Except maybe ourselves.
X Bill Ferguson is a columnist for the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.