So long, Europe; hello, India

So long, Europe; hello, India By JAY AMBROSE Scripps Howard News Service March 02, 2006 Thursday It's hello, India, and goodbye, Europe, as the United States seeks out a strong new partner in world affairs, one that is growing, bold and confident instead of one that is hiding from the future and in steep decline. If that assessment of President Bush's meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh puts too sharp an edge on something that will take years for history to chisel into something so definite, it is nevertheless the case that a lot more was going on than a deal on nuclear energy and closer bilateral trade ties. If Congress approves the treaty, the United States is embracing an India that, during the Cold War, frequently sided with the Soviet Union's evil ambitions. For decades, some observers note, India was a haphazardly governed bureaucratic nightmare and an impoverished economic flop that got that way because of the socialist stupidities furthered by long-term leader Jawaharlal Nehru. But something remarkable happened. Free markets happened. India today has a 7 percent to 8 percent growth rate, an innovative entrepreneurial class, highly efficient corporations and the prospect of becoming one of the largest economies in the world in the years ahead. It is already the world's largest democracy. It wants to be a major world player, and it will be. There are those who think this nuclear deal is a way of the United States winking at India's nuclear weaponry while it wrings its hands over Iran's plans to acquire nukes. But wise commentators point out that India possesses WMD at this very minute and is not a rogue state run by wacko fascists - not to get the difference is not to get much of anything. India is likely on its way to being a hugely important ally, a check against China as it emerges into a superpower, and a crucial trading partner that can help us grow more wealthy as we help it grow more wealthy. Europe, meanwhile, is heading downward, or at least much of it. This is no small or wonderful thing for the United States. Our country is a European-British offspring. We share the same cultural heritage. But today, much of Europe thumbs its nose at us. Many there seem to see our liberty as a subjugation of the weak and our energy as having purely materialist objectives. Meanwhile, the Europeans are wrapping their own liberties and energy in the blanket of a protectionist, welfare state with a rule for every business occasion.

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India will make a fine ally in the WOT. India has experienced for 100's of years the terrorism that is Islam. India also anchors the southern flank of Asia as the sub-continent of India has long proved a stumbling block for Islam.