Slicing through layers of informed American scepticism, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made the strongest pitch so far on why the nuclear deal with India needed to be signed by Washington in Washington.

Rice stood her ground against persistent demands from opponents of the deal in the US Congress to impose new conditions such as limiting the size of India’s arsenal or linking the nuclear agreement to such issues as India’s relationship with Iran.

Rather than wait for the now well-rehearsed arguments of the non-proliferation community against the deal, Rice took each of those arguments head-on.

Whether it was the implications of the nuclear deal for the non-proliferation regime or misperceptions about the potential US support to India’s nuclear weapons programme, Rice set out American positions with clarity. And, in the process, appears to have generated the much-needed political momentum in favour of the deal in the United States.

The enthusiastic banter from both Republican and Democratic Congressmen and Senators about her much speculated bid for the White House in 2008, underlines the high political standing that Rice enjoys in Washington today.

Deploying her credibility to great effect in back-to-back hearings in the Senate and the House of Representatives that lasted more than six hours, Rice never once flinched from the basic framework of the deal that President George W. Bush had agreed with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

After he returned to Washington from his trip to the subcontinent early last month, Bush had ordered a full court press on moving the nuclear agreement with India through the Congress.

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