India, Italy, Saudi, Colombia, Ethiopia haven't had a US ambassador for a year or more

Shashi Tharoor, an Indian politician and former United Nations diplomat, recently fulminated on the Biden administration’s seeming insouciance about its lack of an ambassador to India. Mr Tharoor suggested that it showed the US didn’t care enough about India, one of the United States’ most important partners in its strategy to counter China.

Joe Biden has been in the White House two years, he pointed out, and still there is no permanent occupant of Roosevelt House. (That’s the residence of the US ambassador in New Delhi — as an aside, it’s in the showy style that some call Gulfie!)

It’s true that President Biden’s pick for India envoy, former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, is still being held up by the Senate, more than a year and a half into his nomination.

But Mr Tharoor’s complaint that the stand-off is incomprehensible because the Senate was (and still is, after the November midterms) controlled by the President’s Democrat party, is not wholly accurate.

It is comprehensible if you u…