LONDON — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's response made perfectly good sense. If his allies in Parliament were willing to bring the government down to block the nuclear deal with the United States that he had spent two years negotiating, he would drop the deal. "One has to live with certain disappointments," he said last week. "We are not a one-issue government. The deal not coming through is not the end of life."
Much odder was the response in Washington. State Department spokesperson Tom Casey was the very soul of discretion, saying that while the U.S. would like the agreement to be ratified as soon as possible, he would not tell Indians how to manage their own internal affairs.
But others with strong links to the strategic and foreign policy community in Washington were more outspoken.