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 • My guest today is Strobe Talbott. We’re meeting for the second time on the show but with one big difference: last time, you came to India to promote your book, which was about what you did under the previous U.S. administration, with a previous Indian government, after the nuclear tests; now we might talk about your new innings with the new U.S. administration and with, who knows, a new Indian government, handling a situation after the Indo-U.S. treaty, whether it is done by then or still on the table. There’s going to be a big change in a couple of years. The last time (on the show), you spoke about having come here 30 years ago and riding a motor-scooter here. Now you see the change?

Oh, you bet. The change you see in this country is as important for the world as any change taking place anywhere. And I say that because I’ve seen the Soviet era. The change that is happening here is of spectacular importance.

• Just the other day, three of your senior-most Senators were here and they said that so many of them in the Senate turned up their noses and voted for the deal. This was a group of intelligent, powerful and very difficult Americans who were voting for something that they fundamentally didn’t believe in. They did it because they see something special in Indo-US relations. What do you think they are seeing?

What they see, first of all, is an agreement that was brilliantly negotiated by the Indian government. There were some defects from the American side and we’ve talked about this before. As much as India deserves special treatment, there is a need to keep the global non-proliferation regime alive, creating an exception for India There will be other countries who will seek such treatment; they might not be reliable custodians of nuclear weapons. But here’s what: the deal from our side, the American side, is done. I was relieved when it went as smoothly as it has on the American side, because I want us to turn the page and get on to the next chapter. And it blows my mind when I see the kind of difficulty it has got into on the Indian side.

• Senator Joe Biden said something that I should repeat here. He said a new Democratic administration would re-negotiate the deal. Is it possible to negotiate such a deal, because that could be the case?

I doubt that very much. If you have a Senator (Barack) Obama or a Senator (John) McCain or a Senator (Hillary) Clinton assuming the office of the President of the United States, any of those three administrations will be dealing with a new mood in the U.S. with regard to the nuclear issue. That mood is likely to translate into the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an important four-letter-word in the Indian language.

• There’s one more four-letter-word — the FMCT, the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty.

There you go. My guess is, and it can only be a guess, that whether a Democrat or a Republican is in the White House, those two treaties are going to be on a faster track, from the American standpoint. And that in itself will change the context within which the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation deal will be addressed. That doesn’t mean going back and re-negotiating it. But what it does argue for is the Indian side doing what I think Prime Minister Manmohan Singh wants to do — get the thing done, get the implementation begun. Because if India does that, the next administration, the next U.S. Senate in Congress will be dealing with a fait accompli (rather) than inherit something that is in limbo.

• So it’s not just a question of re-negotiation. It’s a done deal and it’s going to be tough to re-negotiate. It’s what the BJP is saying here in India.

Part of the strange dynamic of the story that I followed is that there has been a tendency on the Indian side to look at Acts that have been passed in our Congress as the adding of new conditions to the deal. I’ve heard more about the Hyde amendment in India than I have ever heard about it in the U.S. I think it’s misunderstood in India. The Hyde Amendment says something so simple and so self-evident: that the implementation of this deal must be in accordance with the U.S. law. It’s kind of a no-brainer, what’s the controversy about that? But if you listen to some of my Indian friends, it constitutes reopening certain issues that have been closed and so on.

• So it’s about a change in the entire proliferation environment in Washington.

Yes, and by the way, the U.S. bears its share of responsibility for the “fraying at the edges” of the non-proliferation regime around the world. You notice I’m saying the non-proliferation regime, and not the three-letter-word, the NPT, which needs to stay in effect. Everybody recognizes that India is not prepared and will not be prepared to join the NPT in its original terms, because among other things, you crossed that bridge a long time ago — 1974 to 1998. But I do think that if the U.S. were to commit itself to a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and if India can see that and say the U.S. did it (and) we will seriously consider it, that would greatly help. If the U.S. pushed hard for an FMCT and India pushed harder for the same, alongside, then all kinds of things would be possible in dealing with whatever situation the government in India faces when the next president comes to the White House.

• But frankly, I don’t see a problem with that. That might create a new window, those who oppose the nuclear deal now say it’ll make it impossible to test. But India’s position on the CTBT has always been that if everybody signs it, we’ll also sign it. And everybody is mostly American.