Whether it was policy or procedure, Rice was respectful in articulating her differences with the critics of the deal. But she has made it amply clear that no re-negotiation of the deal is possible.

Nor would she modify the sequence of implementing the nuclear deal, that would also involve the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Whatever might be the eventual outcome in the US Congress and the NSG, Rice’s defence of the nuclear deal, running into more than 100 printed pages of single space text, would be remembered for long in New Delhi for one simple reason.

By any measure, it is the strongest public defence of India’s policies by any foreign leader since the nation’s independence nearly sixty years ago.

‘If they wanted to build more nuclear weapons, they can do it. The incentives are on the other side’

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

• NO CAPPING INDIA ARSENAL: India would never accept a unilateral freeze or cap on its nuclear arsenal...We’re far more likely to be able to influence regional dynamics from a position of strong relations with India and, indeed, with Pakistan

• INDIA CIVIL N-PROGRAMME NEEDS HELP: If they (India) wanted to build more nuclear weapons, they can do it. The incentives are on the other side. But the constraint is actually on the civil side, because you need more material on the civil side because it takes much more material

... contd.