The news media reported last Friday 18 June 2010 that India successfully test-fired its indigenously developed, nuclear-capable, ballistic missile Prithvi-II with a range of 350 km.

Yet the news wire failed to report any condemnation by any western power. The American silence was deafening.

This comes as reminder on the Western-Russian-Japanese rush and competition to build 16 nuclear reactors in India. Yet when Pakistan and China announced the construction of two nuclear reactors in Pakistan, the western, most notably the American, protesting noise was very loud and clear.

Instead, the American administration has been actively involved in luring the Indian establishment with the carrot, but no stick, policy of nuclear technology cooperation, as per the agreement signed by the Bush administration with India in 2005. At the time, the American administration took it upon itself to obtain a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to allow nuclear cooperation with India; the American congress did its part by lifting the three-decade U.S. moratorium on nuclear trade with India. This move effectively opened the floodgate for other powers in France, Russia, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and Japan all to claim a share in the lucrative Indian nuclear market.

All of which comes in stark contrast with the announced American policy toward Iran, which is made as scare crow, although Iran does not have nuclear capability, and, unlike India, has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Still America has decided to make a good use of the alleged Iranian threat to develop and deploy its missile defense system in Poland and Czech, willing to risk the alienation of Russia.

This latest testing of the Indian nuclear capable missile has blasted away the western, most notably the American, hypocrisy. The International conference which we will hold in Beirut will expose the naked truth behind the western colonial policies both as pertinent to the nuclear file as well as a host of other critical regional and international crisis.

Osman Bakhach

Director Central Media Office

Hizb-ut-Tahrir