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N-deal fiasco will hit ties, warns Rice
Ashish Kumar Sen writes from Washington

Urging members of Congress to support legislation that would enable a nuclear deal with India to reach fruition, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday warned the US-India relationship would suffer a "significant setback" if this agreement fails.

By the end of Miss Rice's marathon sales pitch in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee for the civilian nuclear agreement on Wednesday, prospects for its approval looked brighter as two key Democrats voiced their support.

Former presidential candidate Senator John Kerry and Senator Joseph Biden, the co-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, indicated that they would be inclined to support the agreement. Mr Biden conceded the agreement was a "big deal" and said, "The deal may not be one we like. But the downside of failing to ratify are. Sometimes further down than any downside of the mistakes that it may embody. I am probably going to support this."

"This is not a leap. But a step of faith," he added.

In the House International Relations Committee, Democratic co-chairman Tom Lantos said he too intended to support to deal. India and the USA stood at the "hinge" of history, he said, adding, "The door could swing open toward the new era of cooperation and joint action, or, if we fail to seize this opportunity, the door could slam shut and undo much of the good work of two American administrations, one Democratic, one Republican, to strengthen the bonds between the world's oldest democracy and its largest democracy."

But Mr Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, reiterated his concerns about India's relations with Iran, which he described as "a terrorist state whose current regime strives to develop nuclear weapons."

"Any military cooperation with the present terrorist regime in Iran will certainly derail this deal in the Congress. And I hope that will not happen," he said, referring to recent reports of Iranian navy ships making port calls in Kochi.

In a sharp exchange in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer raised questions about India's military relationship with Iran. "There have been and probably will be Iranian port calls in a number of countries in a number of countries in the world," Ms Rice said.

Ms Boxer replied: "No, no, this isn't port calls, this is training of their military. Did you make this part of a deal, yes, or not, because the reason I'm asking is I think some of us would like to make it condition."

Ms Rice said: "The assertion we understand that they train Iranian sailors, is not right."

Ms Rice pointed out to members of the House panel that the Bush administration had been "very clear with the Indians when we've had concerns about any of their policies, most especially their policies toward Iran."

But, she added, India was not the only country in the world that had relations with Iran. "Italy is Iran's largest trading partner. Japan is a very large trading partner of Iran. The truth of the matter is that we are the ones that have no relationship with Iran; most of the world does have relations with Iran," she said. "To be fair, the Indian's have a long relationship with Iran. They'll tell you that it goes back thousands of years."

While diplomats in Washington and members of the community are optimistic the deal will pass the Senate, but face a tough challenge in the House, congressional sources caution it would be premature to assume this will go through either chamber in a hurry. A similar agreement with China took 13 years to come fully into force.