Sadanand Dhume criticizes Indian foreign policy:

Arrayed against this view are those who say nonalignment has outlived its purpose, and seek to strengthen mutually beneficial ties with the West. Former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra declared it “impossible” for India to remain nonaligned between the United States and China. According to K. Shankar Bajpai, a former Indian ambassador to the United States and China, “Reviving that concept is all too likely to drive our people back to something that is not only long outdated but — and this is its dangerous legacy — which we still fail to recognize as having done us more harm than good.”

Who wins this debate has profound consequences for India, Asia, and the world. If India slips back into measuring its independence by its ability to thwart Washington, it risks fatally undermining the argument it made while lobbying for the 2008 civilian nuclear deal — that the rise of a large, pluralistic, English-speaking democracy in Asia is in the West’s interest. Why squander valuable diplomatic capital on an unreliable partner, skeptics in Washington already argue.

Let’s assume that it is impossible for India to remain nonaligned between the U.S. and China, and let’s also grant that the U.S. and India are more natural partners than India and China. Why then would advocates of a closer U.S.-Indian relationship keep harassing and annoying India over its economic ties with Iran? If the U.S. imposes sanctions on India for continuing to do business with Iran, despite the importance this trade has for the Indian economy and Indian interests in the region, does that make it more or less likely that proponents of “Non-Alignment 2.0” will prevail in internal Indian debates? Obviously, it makes it more likely. India isn’t the one undermining the relationship in this case. India is viewing its foreign policy in terms of national interest, which is why it isn’t cooperating with the embargo of Iranian oil, because India needs that oil to continue fueling its economic growth. It is the U.S. that is demanding that India sacrifice its concrete economic interests for the sake of enforcing a non-proliferation regime to which India doesn’t even belong. What could represent more of an “attachment to abstract doctrine” than that?

Dhume unintentionally confirms my point:

For India’s unreconstructed Cold Warriors, America’s closest friends in the region — Japan, South Korea, and Australia — should be pitied as U.S. lackeys rather than emulated as successful free-market democracies that have brought both security and prosperity to their people.

In other words, Indian advocates of non-alignment see close relations with the U.S. in terms of becoming America’s lackey, and Dhume is arguing that India is risking its chance to have a close relationship with the U.S. because it is not being enough of a U.S. lackey on Iran.

The disagreement between the U.S. and India over Iran need not be a major problem in the U.S.-Indian relationship, but Washington seems intent on making it into one. As Dhume writes:

Lawmakers in Washington, however, don’t see Iran as merely another issue where friends can agree to disagree.

It doesn’t seem to occur to Dhume that this may be the Washington lawmakers’ mistake. India isn’t privileging its ties with Iran over the U.S.-India relationship. The two don’t have to be in conflict, but the U.S. is insisting that India throw away concrete interests that it has right now for the sake of possible gains that it might receive in the future. Not many governments are going to make that sort of gamble. This doesn’t even touch on legitimate reasons for India to be wary of the U.S. because of our ties with Pakistan. I can imagine that many Indians would laugh bitterly when they read complaints about Indian unreliability. If India is supposed to look past historic U.S. support for Pakistan, which is a nation that is far more directly threatening to India than Iran is to the U.S., surely the U.S. should be able to overlook longstanding Indian ties with Iran. Besides, how can India credibly oppose Iran’s nuclear program when it doesn’t even adhere to the NPT and has developed its own nuclear arsenal despite international sanctions and condemnation?

The advocates of “Non-Alignment 2.0” have no better unwitting allies than Iran hawks here in the U.S. that are placing unreasonable demands on India to cooperate on a policy that does nothing for India and imposes significant costs on India in the process. After all, what could be a more useful for the advocates of an independent, non-aligned policy than to point to the very real costs to India that aligning closely with the U.S. on Iran would require? The obsession with Iran’s nuclear program is harmful in many ways, not least of which is the danger that it will get the U.S. into a large-scale war, but one of the least appreciated consequences of this obsession is the wedge that it is driving between the U.S. and some of the most important states in Asia. If the U.S. wants India to align itself with us, we need to provide it with incentives and cease making demands on India that it cannot realistically accept.