Congressional approval of the 123 Agreement remains the last step needed to enable bilateral civilian nuclear commerce between the United States and India, but the majority of work on the nuclear deal can be considered done following the unanimous waiver granted by the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The agreement will be linked closely with both Manmohan Singh and George W. Bush, two leaders who exerted considerable will and effort to see this deal through despite significant political hurdles in both their countries, as well as vociferous objections from others. For both, the nuclear deal will likely be seen as a major part of their legacies.

For Bush, the nuclear deal with India could well prove the most significant foreign policy success of his eight year tenure as president. Many of his countrymen would of course disagree, seeing the deal as a disaster for international non-proliferation efforts. Yet the Bush administration has few foreign policies that can be judged unqualified successes.

Bush’s 2003 plan to substantially increase resources to tackling global HIV/AIDS is sometimes cited, but even that scheme has drawn its critics. The president has made other attempts that could in time be considered successes, including the creation of an Africa Command for the US military, consolidating relationships with several East Asian powers, the management of potentially adversarial relations with Russia and China, and his engagements with Libya and North Korea. Some Bush supporters, perhaps over-optimistically, believe that Iraq and Afghanistan could be considered major achievements. Yet most of these scenarios remain hypothetical, while other endeavours, such as the opening to Libya, are unlikely to have a global impact.

... contd.