Here's a new book that, besides being relevant to the ongoing civilian nuclear energy deal between the U.S. and India, has the added link of being written by my blogmate Sree's dad, Ambassador T.P. Sreenivasan (more on him at the bottom). From The Telegraph:
In Words Words Words: Adventures in Diplomacy, Sreenivasan provides a fascinating narrative of how the Bush administration deprived India of its due role in the UN nuclear watchdog and how Pakistan got away in the IAEA with the A.Q. Khan black market business in nuclear material as a result of the American stand.
The review also delves into the backroom work of Ken Brill. Brill was the acting U.S. ambassador to India at the time that India's appointee, Anil Kakodkar, was set to assume the lead role in the International Atomic Energy Agency, prior to the Iraq war.
Brill “was quite forthright in saying that it was the considered decision of his government (Bush administration)... that they would not like India to have any leadership role in the IAEA because of (the) 1998” (Pokhran tests), Sreenivasan says in his memoir.
<snip>
History may have been different if Kakodkar had been elected. The U.S. supported Kuwait for the post and the latter went along with whatever the Americans wanted in the run up to the Iraq war in 2003 and on the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market.
For more on Words, Words, Words visit the publisher's site, Pearson Education.
More on the book's author, from the Telegraph article:
India’s Governor to the IAEA Board and permanent representative to UN organisations in Vienna for three years from the end of 2000. Before Vienna, Sreenivasan held the post of deputy chief of mission at the Indian embassy in Washington and had a ringside view of critical American punitive actions against New Delhi following the Pokhran II nuclear tests in 1998 and the subsequent rapprochement between the two sides during the Clinton administration.
