The (Ex) Washington Realist

The U.S.-India nuclear deal received the endorsement of the House International Relations Committee, but even though the various amendments proposed failed, they do reflect real concerns and anxieties in Congress about the deal.

But, the devil is in the details, as Arati Jerath noted.

It does seem that enough members of Congress have taken Bob Blackwill's advice that he laid out last year in TNI:

"In my view, the United States should now integrate India into the evolving global non-proliferation regime as a friendly nuclear weapons state. We should end constraints on assistance to and cooperation with India's civil nuclear industry and high-tech trade, changing laws and policy when necessary. We should sell civil nuclear reactors to India, both to reduce its demand for Persian Gulf energy and to ease the environmental impact of India's vibrant economic growth."

As well as his caveats about what to expect from the emerging rapprochement:

"Let me hasten to add that this does not mean that Washington and New Delhi will always agree on specific policies or tactics. That will not happen. The Indian bureaucracy can be as maddeningly slow and recalcitrant as that in the United States. India's colonial history makes it particularly sensitive to what it perceives as overbearing policies from abroad. Some remnants of the Cold War-era "non-alignment" movement still exist within the Indian government. India has its own strategic perspective based importantly on its geographic location. And Indian domestic politics will sometimes constrain the actions of governments in New Delhi. But in spite of this, the United States and India will always eventually be pulled back together again by these common fundamentals."

The next step--how to secure and stabilize the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.