WASHINGTON, March 22 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush's visit to India earlier this month highlights a strategic partnership in evolution, say analysts.
"India is going to be a world power in the 21st century, no two ways about it," said Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington.
However, a somewhat elusive nuclear deal between the two countries has currently stumped Washington as to what the right relationship route will be concerning a country valuable to future American foreign policy interests.
"Without the deal, the Indians will feel a sense of grievance," said Hathaway. "Therefore, they will be asking what sort of relationship-partner is the United States."
Analysts are raising questions about whether Bush will be able to get congressional approval for the agreement, supplemental changes to American law, a modification of nuclear policy towards India and also persuade the International Atomic Energy Agency to go along with the deal.
Hathaway expressed the problem of both achieving and failing in this as being, "is India going to be a power that feels comfortable with the United States?"
The closer relationship between India and the United States is relatively recent. Although former U.S. President Bill Clinton had identified India as a potential power, the Clinton administration did nothing significant to further the association.
"No U.S. president has ever articulated U.S. commitment to assist India's emergence as a world-class power," said Dr. Subhash Kapila, a consultant in strategic affairs with the South Asia Analysis Group, based just outside New Delhi, India.
"President Bush has given a significant new direction to a U.S.-India strategic partnership by setting the record straight in South Asia as to American strategic preferences," he said.
According to a March 7 article by David Frum, former special assistant for economic speechwriting to President Bush and current resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, the U.S.-India relationship is very important for two related reasons.
Frum, in the article published in Canada's National Post newspaper, said the nuclear deal woild slow India's consumption of coal and natural gas and thus strategically arranges India against Iran. New Delhi has been negotiating construction on an $8 billion natural gas pipeline from Iran to India, via Pakistan, set to begin later this year.
"To balance China, the democracies will need new friends -- and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate," said Frum in his article.
However, without assured bipartisan agreement on the somewhat secret facets of the deal, the relationship may be inclined to slack, according to analysts.
"The U.S. Congress has to revise its attitudinal approaches toward India," said Kapila. "India is not a confrontational power to U.S. national security interests, as are China and Russia."
According to Kapila, "If the U.S.-India relationship goes off the rails in the future, it would be in large part due to U.S. Congress' insensitivities toward India."
Hathaway said the nuclear deal signed by Bush can go through if the president makes it a part of his own personal agenda.
If the nuclear agreement is not approved by Congress, there "won't be nearly as vibrant or extensive a relationship as there would be if the deal goes forward," he said.
"India is clearly on the rise and therefore India will have a much greater ability to thwart American desires and block American objectives," said Hathaway. He also added that the United States needs a good relationship with the country in order to advance its own political, economic and security needs.
The groundwork has been laid, say analysts; it is just a matter of how Congress chooses to follow it through.
Additionally, the minority Indian opposition to the relationship with the United States facing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be of interest to the evolution of the strategic relationship between the countries.
"Objectively, it will be very useful to have an India which is well disposed toward the United States," said Hathaway.
