The decision by the BJP and Left parties to attack Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the monsoon session of Parliament beginning tomorrow, for alleged ‘‘backtracking’’ on the trilateral pipeline project with Iran and Pakistan under American pressure is breathtaking in its disregard for facts.While the American concerns on the project are real, it is by no means the central theme in Indo-US relations. Sources familiar with the official interactions of Singh in Washington last week say President George W Bush did not even raise the issue of Iran pipeline.Any one who takes a moment to look at the record of the BJP and the Left will find their new found passion for the Iran pipeline a political dissimulation.Throughout its six years in power (1998-2004), the BJP-led coalition under Atal Behari Vajpayee did not have the political will to put the pipeline on the Indo-Pak bilateral agenda.BJP leader Jaswant Singh, who presumably will lead the attack against the government, knows more about the history of the pipeline project than any one else, other than Mani Shankar Aiyar. Both of them were associated with a Track Two initiative on the subject in the mid 1990s.When a small group of experts outside the government was pressing for the project over the last decade and challenging the bureaucratic opposition, the Left never lent its political support. But once the Americans began to object, the Left finds the Iran pipeline an ‘‘acid test’’ of India’s ‘‘independent’’ foreign policy.It was Manmohan Singh, who in his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in New York last September, chose to put the pipeline project on the Indo-Pak agenda against the prevailing conventional wisdom within the government and outside. And in February this year, the UPA cabinet approved pipeline talks.Jaswant Singh, as External Affairs Minister, put the pipeline project on the bilateral agenda with Iran in May 2000 when he travelled to Tehran. But he could not get the reluctant Foreign Office to overcome its reservations on working with Pakistan on the pipeline.Brajesh Mishra, the master of realpolitik, had no ideological objections to the pipeline. But he wanted something in return from Pakistan: the most favoured nation status and transit rights to Afghanistan. Pakistan balked.When there were few takers in the system for the pipeline, it was Manmohan Singh who was bold enough to remove the preconditions for pipeline talks with Pakistan and initiate the trilateral engagement with Tehran and Islamabad.All that Singh said in his interview to Washington Post was that the talks on the project are in a ‘‘preliminary’’ stage and there are many ‘‘risks’’ that remain be addressed. In other comments during his visit to Washington, he had also stated that the all the issues relating to the pipeline were essentially for Iran, India and Pakistan to solve. Taken together, Singh’s comments constitute a comprehensive reaffirmation of the positive Indian approach to the pipeline that was initiated by the UPA government.Indian political support for the project, however, does not mean that a whole host of problems that affect the commercial viability of the pipeline project have been sorted out. These include the growing Tehran-Washington tensions, the US law (Iran-Libya Sanctions Act) which mandates sanctions on commercial entities which engage in certain type of petroleum-related activity in Iran, Pakistan commitments on the security of the pipeline, the unfolding trouble in Baluchistan where there is strong opposition to the pipeline, the price Iranians want to charge India and Pakistan for the gas, and the transit fees that Pakistan would demand to name a few.
