India’s decision to continue importing Iranian oil is a slap on the face for the United States and a major setback for its attempt to isolate Tehran over the nuclear issue, says former US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.

The Indian move also raises questions about its ability to lead, Burns argues in an article, noting: “For all the talk about India rising to become a global power, its Government doesn’t always act like one. It is all too often focused on its own region but not much beyond it.”

The former top diplomat who steered the US-India civil nuclear agreement during the Bush administration also faulted New Delhi for ‘stonewalling’ implementation of the landmark deal.

“Presidents Obama and Bush have met India more than halfway in offering concrete and highly visible commitments on issues India cares about,” Burns said in his article, originally written for a Harvard Kennedy School blog and reproduced by The Diplomat magazine.

Making a pointed reference to Obama’s announcement of US support for India’s bid for permanent membership of UN Security Council during his New Delhi visit in November 2010, Burns commented: “Unfortunately, India has made no corresponding gesture in return for the big vision that Obama and Bush have offered the Indian leadership.”

While several US lawmakers have come down hard on India’s stance on Iran in recent days, Burns is the first top former official to go public with such a pointed attack of New Delhi on both this and the nuclear deal.

As he put it, the Indian Government, with its “unhelpfulness” on Iran and the nuclear deal, was “actively impeding the construction of the strategic relationship it says it wants with the US”. Hitting out at India’s reported plans to go for barter deals and rupee payments to ‘circumvent’ the US-led sanctions and continue its oil imports from Iran, Burns wrote: “This is bitterly disappointing news for those of us who have championed a close relationship with India. And, it represents a real setback in the attempt by the last three American Presidents to establish a close and strategic partnership with successive Indian governments.”

While the European Union has decided to implement an oil embargo on Iran and even China has imported less Iranian oil in recent months, New Delhi seemed “so out of step and out of touch with the new global determination to isolate and pressure Iran to negotiate in order to avoid a catastrophic war,” he commented.