Natural allies? Manmohan Singh and George W. Bush
"Change can bring apprehension and there is big change afoot in US-India relations as President Bush arrives in Delhi. His administration has expressed its determination to move beyond decades of coolness, mistrust and false starts to forge an enduring strategic alignment with India. The vision for this strategy is captured in the July 18, 2005 joint statement between President Bush and Prime Minister Singh and its centrepiece is the agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. But the US goal is even more ambitious than what is articulated in that statement: Washington has essentially decided that it is in long-term US national interests to support India’s ambitions to be a global power. For the administration this new direction is a “no-brainer”, but for many members of the US Congress and the bureaucracy this new vision threatens time-honoured practices and policies. There is the visceral fear of globalisation and out-sourcing among the representatives of the rust-belt states. There is anxiety about the impact of the US-India civil nuclear agreement on the Non-Proliferation Treaty among arms controllers. There is doubt in the human rights community about India’s real commitment to putting shared values into practice in dealing with regimes like Burma or Iran".What this trip amounts to actually is George Bush is
going to India to tell them we are going to lighten up on our 'mistrust' of their nuclear ambitions if we can continue, or even increase the number of jobs we outsource to them.
He could have told Singh that over the phone and saved the air-fare.
The Indian Express
