The nuclear deal between the US and India that President George W. Bush welcomed as a strategic coup when it was announced in 2005 appears to be as good as dead.

If current last-minute efforts to resuscitate the agreement fail, nobody should lament its passing. The motivation behind the deal – a closer relationship between the world’s richest democracy and its most populous – was laudable. But the costs it entailed to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons were far too high.