As she prepares to sign the 123 agreement in New Delhi on Saturday, the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice has every reason to celebrate the successful conclusion of the historic civil nuclear initiative that she had launched during her first visit to India three and a half years ago.

Cheer it as we have all these years, the Indo-US nuclear deal is now history. A very different agenda, equally bold and consequential, now beckons New Delhi and Washington. It is about the potential Indian contributions to the current international effort to stabilise Pakistan and Afghanistan.

When Rice came to India in March 2005, Pakistan was indeed at the top of her ‘talking points’ with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. For one, she informed Dr. Singh about Washington’s decision, already made by President George W. Bush, to resume arms sales to Pakistan.It was a move that India would normally have protested given New Delhi’s habit of objecting to US arms sales to Pakistan since 1954. But Rice also told the PM that the US was prepared to dramatically expand strategic cooperation with India as part of a new commitment to assist India’s rise as a great power.

While Pakistan would get its F-16s India would stand to gain from the transfer of advanced conventional weapons, including more advanced F-16s, civilian nuclear and space cooperation, and support on missile defence.

In 2005, Rice promised to reverse traditional US policy towards the subcontinent — Washington would no longer put India on par with Pakistan, but treat it as a rising power that could make a difference to the outcomes on most global issues. The India-US nuclear deal was a mere consequence of this paradigm shift.

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