Even as scores of protesters angrily awaited George W. Bush's arrival in India on March 1, 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh breached protocol to meet his guest at the airport-giving many reason to believe that Indo-U.S. relations would very soon undergo a dramatic makeover.

Eleventh hour wrangling over the separation of India's firmly entwined military and civilian nuclear programs has resulted in a momentous U.S.-India civil nuclear deal, strongly endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as the "cornerstone of global non-proliferation efforts." The pact ensures "full civil nuclear energy cooperation between India and the United States and between India and the international community as a whole." Under the provisions of the agreement, India will permanently reclassify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities and will make them available to international inspections. The remaining eight reactors, however, will not be subject to inspections and will continue as military installations. After much haggling, India has also managed to retain the right to develop future fast-breeder reactors for military use-astonishing critics of the deal, who described the country's willingness to subject only some of its nuclear programs to inspections as "meaningless." Meanwhile, most proponents of the pact view it as the panacea for India's burgeoning energy needs, with France describing it as a crucial step toward curbing climate change.

While the accord is no silver bullet for India's energy requirements, symbolically, it certainly provides a shot in the arm to the country's reputation as an emerging international power-terminating its five decades of nuclear isolation and acknowledging its growing strategic partnership with the United States. That being said, India is not the only one that stands to benefit from the deal. Cozying up to India is critical to the Bush administration's strategic interests since the country is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world and sits squarely between the Middle East and China, making it a prime U.S. ally in the region. Needless to say, as a rapidly growing emerging market, it is also a major destination for American businesses. Undoubtedly the proverbial "China Factor" also plays a vital role as the United States seeks to foment ties with India; but the pundits are unconcerned about enraging China. They believe that the recent surge in Sino-Indian economic relations is more than sufficient to eclipse any deal that India might strike with the United States.

Yet, hysteria over creating an exception for India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and rewarding [India] for "bad behavior" abounds. Critics fear that the accord, which is yet to be ratified by the U.S. Congress, offers too many concessions to India and could jeopardize non-proliferation efforts.

They fret that India will launch into a frenzied expansion of its nuclear arsenal and use its domestic uranium supply to mass produce weapons, thereby signaling the death knell for the non-proliferation regime.

Such panic is surely unwarranted. Unlike other non-signatories to the NPT, India is a stable democracy with a proven track record of being a legitimate, responsible nuclear power, having never indulged in proliferation. More importantly, India is also unique in that its military is so fiscally and politically dependent on and accountable to civilian oversight that civilian power prevails in all matters of national security, from policymaking to planning and implementation. The country is also mending fences with Pakistan and has been involved in a formal peace process for the better part of two years. Furthermore, India's relationship with China is seeing good days as New Delhi and Beijing focus on fostering a flourishing economic partnership.

A robust U.S.-India relationship has certainly been a long time coming; and while the nuclear deal may be the centerpiece of the brand new strategic partnership, a series of fresh initiatives in other sectors ranging from jointly combating terrorism to supporting trade and investment and cooperating on space exploration demonstrate the breadth of the latest collaboration. There is hardly a chance that the U.S.-India nuclear pact, if approved by Congress, will end up putting more weapons in the hands of terrorists; but there is definitely a glimmer of hope that other nuclear-armed nations might follow India's example and clean house in anticipation of landing a similar deal.

(The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the Mansfield Foundation.)