It can be easy to forget that the hot air spewed in America has real consequences elsewhere. While Obama and Clinton wrestle over lapel pins, policy-makers in New Delhi and Tehran are calculating the future of their bilateral relations in large part on the outcome of the US elections. Indian and Iranian efforts to build a joint 2,775 km gas pipeline (through Pakistan), which would bring much-needed energy to India, remain in the doldrums, with the Bush administration running interference. So, too, has the White House driven a fissure between Iran and India on nuclear energy; the US-Indo nuclear deal not only soured India's domestic politics - with the government's Left allies making a fuss - but broke New Delhi's age-old solidarity with developing countries in last year's IAEA Board of Governors' vote on Iran's nuclear program.
Writing in The Hindustan Times, Amit Baruah argues that any change of presidency will lead to "more diplomatic dexterity when it comes to dealing with Tehran."
After years of shunning North Korea, and repudiating Bill Clinton’s policies, President George W. Bush had to engage Pyongyang in a bid to resolve the nuclear issue. Iran may be a different cup of tea, but a Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or even a John McCain is unlikely to do a Bush on Tehran.
That may be true, in so far as Obama has pledged to talk to Iran's leaders. At the same time, McCain seems ready to adopt much of the Bush administration's hard-line, while Clinton recently promised to "obliterate" Iran were Tehran ever to attack Israel. But even "talking to Iran" won't change Washington's zero-sum approach to the region. India will remain a piece on the chessboard, to be shifted against Iran and China. There's no reason to believe that any of the three candidates will trifle with strategic re-evaluation or conceptualise America's interests in south Asia and west Asia very differently from their predecessor.