Imtiaz Gul
In an opinion article for the US Institute for Peace (USIP), former US ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson says that the challenge for the Biden administration will be to find a way to work productively with Pakistan without oscillating between peaks of enthusiasm and depths of cynicism. Olson identifies Afghanistan, China and India as other factors influencing the Pakistan US relations. Yet, he too , puts the onus of a “reset” largely on Pakistan.
The reality on the other hand is the inter-play of brute geo-politics. Much will depend on whether the Biden administration can reframe various issues that loom large over the bilateral relationship.
1: Will Joe Biden continue President Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy? If yes, then there are no signs the new administration will even tweek this strategy because of the US-state focus on China – which enjoys a broad national consensus, it seems. The confrontation with China is only likely to intensify.
2: Will the Administration even try to balance its relations with Pakistan by offering a fairly critical review of India, the way it has evolved under a fundamentalist RSS-BJP regime that craves a pure Hindu state (and has thus far also shunned all reconciliatory overtures by Islamabad)?
3: Will the Administration continue to look at Pakistan through the Indo-Afghan prism? Most likely yes (because , as Indian Chronicles explains, India has heavily invested in poisoning minds abroad against Pakistan). And if so, the relationship promises no real normalization
4: To what extent, if at all, will the Indo-US strategic alliance remain oblivious to the ongoing human rights violations in India – Kashmir, non-Hindu Indian minorities and the ongoing farmers’ protests. Mike Pompeo hailed the Indian democracy standing in New Delhi on Oct 28/29 last year at end of Indo-US 2+2 Dialogue at a time when entire Kashmir was under physical and digital lockdown. The joint declaration made no mention of Kashmir or the multiple mob-lynchings by RSS/BJP goons all over India in the last five years or so
His successor – Antony Blinken has picked up the thread where Pompeo left it. Two back to back recent tweets from Blinken gave us a good glimpse of where the new Administration will place India and Pakistan
These tweets also show how disrespectful and discourteous Antony has been from the word go as far as Pakistan is concerned.
Spoke with @SMQureshiPTI
on ensuring accountability for convicted terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and others responsible for Daniel Pearl’s murder. The Foreign Minister and I underscored the importance of continued U.S.-Pakistan cooperation in supporting regional stability.
But the one on his phone talk with Dr.Jai Shankar (was all about how dear India is to the US). It only further highlighted the Indo-US synergy of view on Pakistan:
Here is what Blinken said:
I was delighted to speak today with my good friend @DrSJaishankar to discuss U.S.-India priorities. We reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-India relationship and discussed ways we can better seize new opportunities and combat shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific and beyond,” the Secretary of State said on Twitter.
While the US state department has been crying hoarse over the Russian treatment of opposition leader Nawalny, they have rarely made any mention of the censure that TV channels/anchors/ analysts exercise out of fear of reprisal and sedition charges.
In the words of Sameer Yasir in New York Times, “ On television channels, critics choose their words carefully to avoid making an offensive statement. A stand-up comedian remains in jail, denied bail, for a joke the police have yet to prove he made. Journalists and opposition politicians have been taken to court because of tweets that the authorities label “misleading,” or for reporting accounts that challenged the government’s version of events.”
If the Biden administration remains stuck in the past, continues to cherry-pick on fundamental human rights, condones on the one hand whatever India does, and condemns Pakistan without much ryme or reason, then there is hardly any promise for even the slightest long-term improvement in relations.
Unless the US administration starts treating Pakistan as a country much different from what it was, say, where President Obama left it, it will make its own job in Afghanistan and the rest of Asia difficult. Cuddling one country even for the wrong reasons, and poking the other however rightful that other may be is not likely to work in either’s favour.
As far Afghanistan, Pakistan did its bit the best way it could. Taliban are on their own to a great extent because all regional players including China, Russia, Iran, and Turkey support them too as legitimate stakeholders. And hence the onus for getting them on board is not entirely on Pakistan. Washington shall have to stop this one-way demands or expectations off Pakistan for breaking the stalemate in Afghanistan. The only regional obstruction to the Taliban role is India. Will Biden administration allow New Delhi to subvert the peace process?
If geo-politics remains the primary determinant in the US policy on Asia and Pakistan, it will make any bilateral convergence as harder as it has been under the Indian influence that runs deep in the US government machinery as well as the academia and the think tank community.
As the Indian Chronicles by EU DisInfoLab revealed, all the aforementioned players have all been toxically poisoned against Pakistan. India’s heavy investment in this disinformation/fake news campaign has put Pakistan unfairly at the receiving end.
Unfortunately, those in Washington don’t seem to realise that the onus for a reset is meanwhile on Washington and not on Pakistan any more. Unless those in Washington extricate themselves from the influence of the Indian Chronicles as well as from their skewed preferences.
Pakistan doesn’t want to be seen through the Afghan, Indian or China prism any more. Will the Biden administration be able to do that? Probably not.
Under the influence of China, Pakistan it has gradually shifted its focus from geo-politics to geo-economics. And for that it of course needs to worker harder at home, regardless of how kind or unfair outsiders are.
But it is important to note that every nation cannot dance to the tunes of Washington. Geostrategic realities have changed quite a bit. AS Prof. Scot Lucas of UK rightly pointed this out multilateral alliances such as NATO, QUAD (India, Australia, Japan and US), the 2+2 Indo-US Dialogue and Indo-Pacific strategies are outcomes of years of work and will not go away. They are the faultlines that will continue to rock bilateral relations off and on.
Note: This is a commentary published on Taliban’s official website in response to the US congressional report which has proposed a review of the Feb 29 , 2020 US Taliban Deal at Doha
