India nuke deal moves forward in senate

Washington Post:

The Bush administration won initial support from Congress yesterday for its plan to create a broad nuclear cooperation agreement with India that reverses decades of U.S. policies and requires changes in laws aimed at limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.

In a 16 to 2 vote, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved outlines for a deal the administration is negotiating with India. On Tuesday, the House International Relations Committee approved similar guidelines, in a 37 to 5 vote, after the White House backed down from an effort to prevent further congressional involvement in the deal. After consultations with key lawmakers last month, the administration promised that it would submit the final agreement to Congress for a vote.

The strategic accord between Washington and New Delhi, designed to accelerate India's rise as a global power and regional counterweight to China, is far from complete. But the congressional approvals signaled that the White House had won over Republican and Democratic skeptics while successfully countering a heavy campaign by arms control advocates who oppose much of the deal.

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This is very good news. This deal will be one of the biggest achievements of this administration outside of its war efforts against Islamic biggots. If they can make both India and Pakistan frieds of the US and partners in the war on the Islamic biggots that is a foreign policy triuph of huge proportion. Don't expect much credit from the main stream media on this since there is no blood or pink mist around the deal.