A Presidential Passage to India

After reading endless articles about President George W. Bush's maiden three day visit to India starting today with many important agreements to be signed, not least our strategic civil nuclear cooperation deal with the United States, one obviously cannot help being impressed by the massive turnaround in our bilateral relationship since our nuclear tests in 1998, when the Americans were publically threatening to bury us in the grave we supposedly were digging for ourselves. though as Jaswant Singh our foreign minister at the time amusingly pointed out, Indians dont bury rather cremate their dead.

While its nobody's argument that the sanctions imposed on us at the time by the international community, especially by those that already proudly possessed nuclear weapons and those that blissfully lived under its nuclear umbrella wasn't condescending hypocrisy in the extreme, the fact is that never mind the previous circumstances and barring further technical details yet to be ironed out, the nuclear deal is still an incredibly generous gesture towards India.

For this, full credit obviously has to go George W. Bush and his Republican administration, though i still have many major and minor issues with dubya like kyoto and the Iraq war, the nuclear deal has transformed my perception of them to a reasonably favourable one, especially in comparison to their democratic opponents which had done virtually nothing for India apart from the occasional browbeating when they were in office.
When President Clinton paid a state visit to India in 2000, during his last year in office, i remembered India being completely bowled over by his airy fairy mouthing's, which stands in stands in stark contrast to the substance and business like approach to the Bush visit.
While one may well say that the world has changed irrevocably since 9/11 which has helped propel India closer to the U.S, Bush nonetheless needs to be applauded for finally doing something right in regards to America's foreign policy.

P.S. As for India's leftist and muslim enemies who are conspiring together (suprise, suprise) to protest against your visit, I wouldn't worry too much about them, India alway accords its honored guests a warm welcome.
Its the former two traitors who've overstayed any welcome they might have ever enjoyed in India.