New Delhi, Sep 21 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday said New Delhi would not be able to lead the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) if the India-US nuke deal and strategic partnership define the country's foreign policy.

"If the pressures of the Indo-US nuclear deal and those of an Indo-US strategic partnership were to define India's foreign policy positions, then, unfortunately, India would not be able to play the leading role the world expects in the NAM," the CPI-M said in an editorial in its weekly People's Democracy.

"Neither would India be true to its own declared objective in reaffirming the principles of NAM," said the party, which along with three other Left parties support the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government from outside.

The editorial said any talk of combating terrorism without condemning US imperialism's brazen violation of national sovereignty through the use of military force - as in Iraq, the continued threats of sanctions against Iran, the support of Israel's military aggression in West Asia etc - would not yield positive results.

"India went thus far and no further. The very internal logic of the prime minister (Manmohan Singh)'s address (at the 14th NAM Summit in Havana last week) should have led him to positions of unequivocal opposition to US imperialism's global designs," the editorial said.

Taking note of the fact that Manmohan Singh had called for the setting up of a high-level group for West Asia and addressed the international community's responsibility to resolve the issue, the CPI-M said: "Bemoaning and offering sympathy to the sufferings of the Palestinian people alone cannot resolve the crisis. This requires the unambiguous identification of who is responsible for the crisis, who is the aggressor in the war against Lebanon."

"However, a mere declaration of intent, laudable as it may be, needs to be backed by unequivocal positions on crucial issues."

Pointing out that the recently held NAM summit in Havana had reiterated its commitment to peaceful word order based on equality, the mouthpiece said individual terrorism could not be combated while permitting the exercise of state terrorism.

"Any struggle against terrorism cannot be successfully carried on without a strong opposition to US imperialism's unilateralism in the name of its self-proclaimed doctrine of pre-emptive action.

"Neither can terrorism be combated without waging the struggle against US imperialism's effort to impose its hegemony in international relations," the editorial said.

It said Israel's "illegal and unjust occupation of Palestinian and Arab lands" was the source of the West Asian turmoil.

"Once these lands are vacated, if any terrorist attacks take place, then the whole world will join Israel in not only condemning but also in combating such menace.

"Obfuscation rather than clarity often reduces a potentially powerful movement into inaction," the editorial said.