A new ally: the nuclear deal cements our relationship with India.

JOE WILSON, a Republican congressman from South Carolina, is a former co-chairman of the House India Caucus and a strong supporter of President Bush's nuclear deal with India. But he says that he was "really very pessimistic about this when it first came at the International Relations Committee." He had good reason to be.

The deal opens India's civilian nuclear facilities to inspection and formally binds India to continue its previously voluntary practice of not transferring nuclear technology to other countries. India would also drop some trade restrictions on American exports. In return, the U.S. would lift its ban on selling nuclear technology to India. It's that last part of the deal that requires congressional approval.

Bush and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh announced the deal on March 2. News stories about the deal's prospects in Congress included phrases such as "tough sell," "bruising fight," and "political headache." Influential Democrats came out against the deal, or voiced skepticism. Jimmy Carter, speaking for the party's dovish wing, called the deal "just one more step in opening a Pandora's box of nuclear proliferation." Ed Markey, a smart and hard-working liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, vowed to lead the opposition in the House. Former representative Lee Hamilton and former senator Sam Nunn, considered foreign-policy heavyweights by moderate and conservative Democrats, wanted Congress to modify the deal substantially if not reject it outright.

The New York Times editorialized against a "very bad nuclear deal." Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote in opposition. Hans Blix, the former U.N. weapons inspector, said that the deal "risks fueling an arms race in Asia." Richard Lugar and Henry Hyde, respectively the chairmen of the Senate and House foreign-policy committees, were said to be lukewarm about the deal. They agreed to help enable it only as a favor to the administration. Even John Bolton, Bush's own ambassador to the U.N. and formerly his point man on nuclear proliferation at the State Department, was widely rumored to think the administration should have driven a harder bargain with India.

Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House committee and a longtime friend of India, generally supported the deal. But in mid-May, even he was sounding defeatist. He said that action should be delayed, because there wasn't enough time to build support in Congress this year.

Yet in late June, the House committee voted 37-5 in favor of the deal and the Senate committee voted 16-2 for it. If the congressional schedule permits, a bill should reach President Bush's desk in the next few weeks. And the deal's supporters have suffered no bruises.

What happened? In part, the deal's success reflects the fact that it had influential supporters as well as opponents. William Cohen, the former Republican senator and Clinton defense secretary, supports it. So does Mohamed ElBaradei, Blix's successor. In part, the success is a testament to the growing influence of Indian-American organizations and their allies. The U.S.-India Political Action Committee and the United States-India Business Council have both lobbied for the deal. So have companies with interests in India, such as Boeing, GE, and J.P. Morgan.

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But more important than either of those factors was the fact that there is now a bipartisan consensus in America in favor of an alliance with India. That consensus, a decade in the making, is proving strong enough to overcome the objections of the old arms-control establishment.

The Cold War pushed the U.S. and India apart. Republicans, especially, resented the way India postured as the leader of a "non-aligned movement" while tacitly allying with the Soviet Union. India had both ideological and strategic reasons for acting as it did. Its ruling class was leftwing. It also shared the Soviets' interest in containing China. The U.S., on the other hand, was allied with China against the Soviets from the early 1970s on. The same sort of logic caused China and the U.S. to ally with Pakistan against India.

But India has been moving in a free-market direction for two decades, in fits and starts. The Soviet collapse, as well as China's rise, has changed U.S. interests. Now we see India as a power that can balance China in the region. India also shares our interest in fighting Islamist terrorism. As the promotion of democracy has moved toward the center of American foreign policy, India's democratic credentials have grown more attractive to American policymakers. After Bush took office, the first foreign minister with whom he met was India's. Tom Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute argues that Bush's foreign policy is heading toward the creation of a "Big Four" global partnership between the U.S., Britain, Japan, and India.

The criticisms of the deal, meanwhile, are pretty weak. When the deal was announced, the leading complaint was that it undermined our efforts against nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea. By giving India but not those two countries a pass for its nuclear program, we were applying a "double standard." But as foreign-affairs writer Robert Kagan pointed out, double standards are inevitable in any non-proliferation regime. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty attempts to apply a double standard that allows the existing nuclear powers of 1968 to keep building weapons while stopping other countries from doing the same thing. Better to have a double standard that distinguishes between regimes that pose a threat to international order and those that don't.

Besides, it was impossible to maintain that Iran and North Korea would slow down their nuclear programs if only the U.S. refrained from accepting India's. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may be useful in generating international pressure against aspiring nuclear powers. But it can't stop a determined state from getting nukes. The countries that are inclined to abide by it are, by definition, not big threats in the first place. (Iran and North Korea have violated the treaty, while India never signed.) These considerations diminish the force of the second criticism of the India deal: that it weakens the non-proliferation regime. Some of the critics seem to have succumbed to treaty worship.

Other critics complained that we had not forced inspections of India's military reactors, imposed limits on its production of nuclear material, or demanded that India take a tougher line with Iran. Perhaps the deal could have done some of these things. But India was going to continue its nuclear program whether or not we offered our approval. And forging an alliance with India may be a prerequisite for its adjustment of its policies on Iran and other hot spots. In any case, these are arguments for second-guessing our negotiating strategy, not for rejecting the deal it produced.

The biggest problem for the deal's opponents, however, is that their objections look picayune in comparison with the strategic opportunity of an alliance with India. The opponents have been reduced to arguing that we can have friendship with India without approving this deal. But the alliance has to take account of what India wants, not what the American arms-control lobby thinks it ought to want. Having themselves accepted the strategic premise of the deal, the critics have no way to defeat it.

The two dissenters on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer, both liberal Democrats. But other Democrats, including most liberals, have come around. Some of them hung back at first. Perhaps they were waiting to see how the politics would play out: Would voting against the deal help score anti-Bush points? But starting a partisan fight over this issue would hardly help Democrats make the case against Bush the Alliance-Wrecker.

Whatever their calculations, John Kerry and Joe Biden eventually came on board. After the committee votes, Hillary Clinton, the co-chairman of the Senate's pro-India caucus, announced her support as well. Even Republican congressman Dan Burton, a longtime India skeptic, is supporting the deal. We have a new bipartisan consensus, and it is going to outlast the Bush presidency.

Mr. Ponnuru is an NR senior editor and the author of Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life.