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ShareNEW DELHI: Barack Obama is better known here for trying to obstruct the Indo-US nuclear deal with a "killer" amendment to the Hyde Act.
The Hyde Act, passed by the US Congress in 2006, is a legal provision that enables the US Administration to negotiate and conclude an agreement for nuclear trade with India. Obama was one of the 17 Democrat Senators who proposed amendments that would have struck down the Act if any of them had been passed.
His amendment opposed giving India the right to build strategic fuel reserves for its imported nuclear reactors. As it turned out, the Obama amendment was rejected along with the other "killer" proposals and the Hyde Act passed into law.
With Obama's star rising, the pro-deal lobby in India has yet another reason to worry. The Indo-US nuclear agreement has already lost momentum in the wake of strident Left opposition and a string of recent electoral defeats for the Congress.
After the Iowa caucus result, the government can be expected to show even less enthusiasm to proceed as it goes into "wait-and-watch'' mode for the outcome of the US presidential race.
Historically, the winner of 5 of the past 7 competitive Democratic caucuses in Iowa has gone on to become the party's presidential candidate. Bill Clinton was one of the exceptions. He lost in Iowa but won comprehensively in New Hampshire, which comes next, and then went on to become President.
The field is thus open still, although Obama's huge victory margin and the fact that he pushed his main rival, Hillary Clinton, to third place, have given him a strong lead.
As election fever mounts in the US, the government here will find itself walking the tightrope between adopting a cautious approach and maintaining the tempo of the bilateral relationship.
This is precisely what pro-deal lobbyists feared as they pushed to hurry the formalities through by end-2007 so that the agreement would not run into the complications of the US election calendar.
Although Indian negotiators are expected to come back this weekend with a safeguards agreement from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the document may remain just a piece of paper as it becomes the subject of lengthy discussions with the Left.
"Obama's foreign policy views are unknown," acknowledged former foreign secretary Lalit Mansingh who has been supporting the nuclear deal. "He's been saying that it's time for a review of domestic and foreign policies.
But it would be unwise for us to go slow now because the Bush Administration will assume that we are searching for excuses to back out of the deal. After all, we will have to deal with the present Administration for one more year."
