Eyes of the India

  Senators in both parties briefed recently by senior Biden administration officials on negotiations with Iran say they doubt Tehran will agree to any new deal to limit its development of nuclear weapons.   Lawmakers say the administration has an offer on the table, but that Iran is showing little willingness to reestablish the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which placed significant restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.   Former  President Trump  unilaterally withdrew the United States from the 2015 deal, which was one of former  President Obama’s  biggest foreign policy accomplishments.   Biden officials said in January that they were on the cusp of restoring the agreement but cautioned at the time that it would be up to Tehran to accept it.   Four months later, Iran still hasn’t shown any serious interest in accepting the offer from the United States and its European allies, which means...

 U.S.-India bilateral relations for decades had more form than substance. Gauzy rhetoric about “shared democratic values” papered over tensions rooted in differences over the Cold War. The U.S. wanted India to choose sides; Indian leaders, fresh from an anti-colonial struggle, preferred charting an independent course to being trapped in the slipstream of others’ disputes. But if India’s leading role in the Nonaligned Movement — and its arms deals with the Soviet Union — put a ceiling on the bilateral relationship, the American public’s generally positive view of India’s struggle for freedom and commitment to democracy established a floor. As a result, even when political tensions arose, the U.S. provided development assistance to India, people-to-people exchanges expanded, and scientific cooperation grew. The collapse of the Soviet Union signaled an opportunity for a new chapter in the  bilateral relationship. The respective governments in the 1990s in Washington and New Delhi...

  The lawmakers were back; the masks were (mostly) gone; and the partisan banter that typically accompanies the president’s annual update on national affairs returned in force to the House chamber. But as  President Biden  delivered his first State of the Union address to the nation Tuesday night, there were signs everywhere that the customary speech had found extraordinary times: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the first conventional war in Europe since the Second World War, and no one knows how it will end. That somber reality hung over the outer fanfare of the occasion like an anvil dangling over a Macy’s parade. And even Biden’s allies acknowledged that the breach of peace had raised the stakes — and expanded the audience — of Biden’s address.  “It’s really a state of the world speech, more than a state of the union speech,” said Rep.  Brad Sherman  (D-Calif.).  A number of lawmakers, to show solidarity with the outgunned Ukrainians, wore the bl...