If all those decades of diplomacy and cajoling India were terrific…then why were they able to be undone in a week?

Because it is very easy to break things, and very hard to build things. Especially when dealing with fraught international relationships. That's why "diplomatically" also means to deal with things in a sensitive, nuanced, and careful way.

You can't be surprised that imposing among the largest tariffs in the world on India - for failing to do something they literally could not do - would undermine our relationship with them. Or lead them to search for other, more dependable friends?

…or maybe you might consider that Modi knows he’s been caught dead to rights and that he’s trying to send a signal knowing that there’s a sympathetic audience here who in their zeal to bash Trump would bend America over at every turn for the chance.

What on earth do you mean, "caught dead to rights"? He wasn't hiding his oil purchases. His country depends on Russian oil for a huge part of their energy needs. Has for a long time.

This isn't about "bashing Trump." It was a dumb policy to try to impose a massive secondary sanction on India. It did not work.

Why do you keep struggling to try to find ulterior motives here? We keep telling you what we believe. We believe that the current package of military support and economic sanctions are the best chance of freeing Ukraine from the invasion, and have a good chance of success. We believe that there are no "$20 bills lying in the street" - all of the feasible efforts to impose punishments on Russia for the invasion have been implemented. We should keep doing what we're doing. We thought that the proposal for secondary sanctions was counterproductive.

We're not secretly motivated by a desire to see Ukraine continue to suffer or to allow Putin to win. We're not opposed to secondary sanctions because we have a "zeal to bash Trump." We genuinely believe that it was a bad idea and one that would have negative consequences.

If you have any ideas for how to help Ukraine win faster, I'd love to hear them. Secondary sanctions are not an idea that will help Ukraine win faster.