George W. Bush and Manmohan Singh - nuclear soulmates?

(Brahma Chellaney is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. The views expressed in this column are his own.)

By Brahma Chellaney

They were certainly not made for each other. Yet the trigger-happy George W. Bush found a soulmate in diffident Manmohan Singh.

When the Indian prime minister publicly told the little-loved Bush that the "people of India deeply love you," he was expressing his own deep-seated admiration of a U.S. president whose just-ended term in office constituted a nadir from which it will take America years to recoup its losses.

Singh's fulsome praise for Bush stood out at that September 25, 2008 White House news conference. The Indian leader had actually timed that visit to Washington so that it coincided with the expected congressional ratification of the controversial U.S.-India nuclear deal.

But the Senate clearance of the deal got delayed because of the new congressional and executive focus on a bailout package to rescue sinking U.S. financial institutions.

Almost every paragraph in the prepared statement Singh read out at that press conference ended with a sappy tribute to Bush:

•"And the last four-and-a-half years that I have been prime minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection, your friendship. It means a lot to me and to the people of India."

•"And Mr. President, you have played a most-important role in making all this happen."