The other American argument about potential opposition in the US Congress to Indian reprocessing is equally unconvincing. Neither the US Atomic Energy Act nor the Hyde Act on nuclear cooperation with India bars reprocessing. The US has also allowed other countries like Japan to reprocess. Above all, there is a strong bipartisan support in the US Congress for a transformation of bilateral relations. That brings us back to the original purposes of the nuclear deal — to end the Indo-US atomic dispute that has persisted for more than three decades and build a genuine strategic partnership. That far-reaching vision of Bush is now in the danger of being lost amidst his administration’s unreasonable position on reprocessing. As he has done so often in India’s nuclear dialogue with the US since 2001, President Bush must now rescue the nuclear

deal with India from bureaucratic pettifogging in Washington.