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Money Meltdown Enables India Nuclear AgreementCrisis Keeps Congress Working Long Enough to Pass Landmark Deal
The most important effect of the credit crisis is not a bailout. It's the U.S.-India nuclear pact that Congress passed only because Wall Street kept it from adjourning.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. What had been the Chinese Communist Party’s wildest dream became its worst nightmare with the passage of the U.S.-India nuclear pact. The Wall Street panic was supposed to be America’s lowest hour, and the CCP’s finest. Western capitalism was at its ebb, clearing the way for the world to consider the “stability” of the Party’s model as an alternative. Equally helpful for the regime, with everyone watching the apparent American meltdown, the Communist melamine scandal received far less attention than it normally would have. For the Communists, it was the best of all worlds, made even better by the rejection of the rescue package by the House of Representatives on Monday afternoon. Yet amid the panic in New York, Washington, London, Tokyo, and all the other financial and political centers of the free world, the U.S.-India nuclear deal – the one event that was supposed to be delayed deep into 2009, and possibly forever – was given unexpected life as Congress was forced to remain in session past last Friday. Or, as David Sands of the Washington Times put it: "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said Tuesday he was close to an agreement to let debate proceed on the controversial pact, which U.S. officials see as the centerpiece of new strategic alliance with one of the world's emerging economic and military powerhouses. "'I'm quite sure that we can finalize [an agreement] so that there can be a vote on that tomorrow,' said Mr. Reid. (Note: the vote did come down Wednesday night – the agreement passed 86-13). "Over the objections of opponents who said the pact would undercut global efforts to restrain nuclear proliferation, the House passed the India agreement in a 298-117 vote Saturday. But it was not clear that the Senate would have time to act until lawmakers were kept in session to deal with the Wall Street credit crisis." What Sands doesn’t mention is that without the crisis, the House wouldn’t have been in session to pass the agreement anyway. The original adjournment date was Friday, September 26, before Wall Street and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson led Congress to change their plans. No one can accurately predict what the effect of the bailout will be, but it will likely pale in comparison to the aftershocks of this deal. The world’s most powerful democracy and its largest just rewrote the book on nuclear non-proliferation. More to the point, the two nations most likely to thwart Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions (whether they want to do so or not) just wedded their nuclear programs (including weaponry). Thus, it may very well be that the biggest loser from the Wall Street fiasco is the Chinese Communist regime that’s half a world away.
The copyright of the article Money Meltdown Enables India Nuclear Agreement in India is owned by D.J. McGuire. Permission to republish Money Meltdown Enables India Nuclear Agreement in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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