Posted on 11/20/2009 10:08:20 PM PST by cold start
Barack Obama says he regards India and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "as part of his family." "This is the reason why I decided to invite Manmohan Singh, who I admire a lot, on the first state visit of my presidency on Thanksgiving Day," Mr. Obama told prominent Indian-American leader Sant Chatwal recently. Indian media prominently carried this statement, and given the importance Indians tend to attach to family connections, much is being read into the symbolism of Obama's invite.
As the Indian prime minister prepares to be the first state guest of the Obama presidency on Nov. 24, both sides are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that the visit lives up to the hype. Will all the pomp and ceremony be sufficient to gloss over widening policy differences between the two states?
The visit comes at a time when there is a real concern that Indo-U.S. ties are adrift. Even a year after Mr. Obama's victory, Indians have yet to gain comfort with his presidency. India continues to pine for George W. Bush, whose single-handed reversal of the entrenched U.S. hostility towards India on Kashmir and nonproliferation makes him one of the most important U.S. presidents for India.
Indeed, the strengthening of U.S.-India relations might turn out to be one of the most significant achievements of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Whether he was preventing the non-proliferation lobby from wrecking the hugely significant civilian nuclear energy cooperation pact, or using his clout to bring recalcitrant nations in the Nuclear Suppliers Group around, Bush was ready to spend any amount of political capital to build a new partnership with India. For eight years, India occupied a pride of place in the strategic calculus of the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I didn't think Singh was Muslim... /sarc>
Cheers!
Obama wants to suck up to the chicoms, not support a republic like India
Or the "I will stand with blow them, should the political winds shift in an ugly direction"...
Cheers!
I must be getting sleepy to have missed that one.LOL
Obama invites Indians to the White House on Thanksgiving. Because he didn’t grow up in the United States, he doesn’t realize that the “Indians” of the first Thanksgiving were “Native Americans,” not people from India.
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