The stormy proceedings and final outcome in parliament on Tuesday were ample evidence, if needed, of the importance attached to the nuclear agreement in India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh risked his government to gain political support for the deal. Washington bureaucrats and Congressional leaders had often expressed frustration with the Indian government for not having done enough to sell the deal at home. The political turmoil and the ultimate result of the trust vote underscored both the political difficulties of enabling the deal in New Delhi, as well as the government’s resolve in pursuing the agreement to its end.

Yet given the importance of the deal to India and the international community more broadly, its importance has been largely overlooked in the United States. In the week leading up to the trust vote, there were only six mentions of the deal in major US newspapers. That the agreement’s significance has been lost on the general public and mainstream media is, in part, understandable. The deal does not affect the average American directly and its complexities render it hard to explain.

More surprising, however, has been the failure to appreciate the deal by members of the American foreign policy community, academics and the elite press: basically those who comprise much of the non-governmental portion of the US policymaking community. Few aspects of the agreement have been discussed in detail other than its supposedly damning effect on the arms control agenda, whose adherents naturally approach the deal from a narrow and unforgiving perspective.

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