Democracy as an "Internal Problem"

Yet another clear example of how the Foreign Policy establishment's conception of democracy is at best a complete travesty. The hypocrisy was recently revealed in official Indian and American reactions to the failure of the Indo-US nuclear deal which failed to gain enough support in India. I've commented on the numerous problems with the deal earlier here.

Although the Indian Congress Party tried its level best to implement the agreement (with little public debate, of course), the Leftist party in India has been opposed to the deal from the start by contending (correctly) that the benefits of signing such an agreement would be limited to the Indian Elite, Arms Dealers and Nuclear Businesses and would have a minimal impact on India's energy needs and more importantly, the extreme poverty that has pushed India down to 127 in the UN Human Development Index (HDI) of 2003 (was at 115 in 2001). Additionally such an agreement would violate India's long-standing Non-Aligned policies by essentially being an offshore arm of US-led imperialism. Failing to win full support for the passage of the bill, the Congress was forced to back down.

Now to anyone who is not a complete hypocrite, this would be considered as the healthy functioning of the democratic process with checks and balances working as they were intended. But, as has been evidenced recently, it is clear that the United States has no such system although it pretends that it does. The most obvious recent example (there are numerous other examples) being that after a year of the American populace voting the Democrats into a majority in the House and Senate, the war in Iraq continues unabated with virtually no intention of any real withdrawal. The system of checks and balances seems to be complete fiction. Both parties are accountable only to corporate power. When the American establishment thinks that the current system is indeed democratic, it comes as no surprise that they wouldn't recognize a real democratic process even if it slaps them in the face. This is evidenced by the reactions of both establishments to the failure of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

India's ambassador to Washington, Ronen Sen, who appears to think that such deals can be passed without approval of parliament says (speaking for the Indian establishment elite and claiming that democracy is a problem of 'insecurity')

"It has been approved here by the president, and there it's been approved by the Indian cabinet, so why do you have all this running around like headless chickens, looking for a comment here or a comment there, and these little storms in a tea-cup."

"I can understand such a debate over the deal immediately after India's independence. But sixty years after independence! I am really bothered that sixty years after independence they are so insecure ­ that we have not grown up, this lack of confidence and lack of self-respect."

Not to be outdone, the usual suspect Henry Kissinger spouts more rubbish (basically saying that functioning democracy is an INTERNAL PROBLEM and that the deal getting signed or not is a matter of "prestige" of American leaders)

"Does it reflect an immediate Indian internal problem or does it reflect the fundamental choice which makes it difficult to cooperate with India on these issues"

"It (failure of the deal) would certainly, in an intangible way, affect calculations because when an American leader goes down a certain road, he stakes his prestige on the ability to get it executed. So in that sense, it would undoubtedly be a setback"

References:

Ronen Sen apologises for calling MPs "chicken"
The Nuke Deal is DeadFall of n-deal will affect US outlook on India: Kissinger