The American Presidential election-2020 marked an unprecedented turn. Joe Biden, a Democrat elected as the 46th President of the United States of America (USA) defeating incumbent Donald Trump, a Republican.
What’s dumbfounding is that it is for the first time since 1993 that a president couldn’t clasp his second tenure. Prior to this, George Bush couldn’t continue his second term reigning from 1989 to 1993 and was also a Republican. Billion dollars question is how is or would be the relationship of Biden with Pakistan?Biden is very unlike Trump. Biden is in politics since 1973 and has huge political acumen in contrast to Trump. Biden has massive cognizance of foreign policy and knows about it like the back of his hand.
After the 9/11 trauma, Pakistan was only seen via a security lens or more specifically via Afghanistan’soutlook. The US-Pak cooperation was only interned inthe Afghanistan dilemma. Biden worked hand in glove with Pakistan for counter-terrorism when Biden was Vice President,but he incessantly used the mantra “Do More”for Pakistan. Biden is an internationalist while Trump was a Protectionist and an isolationist. Biden believes in multilateral cooperation and pledged to back-pedalthe majority of Trump’s unintelligent decisions. For instance, he opposed hasty and favored a gradual withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and Pakistan also warned of this action.Joe Biden and Imran Khan’s preferences and priorities converge on various junctions such as Biden inscribed in his article “Why America Must Lead Again” of fighting corruption, money laundering, tax havens, increase trade, security, and the Afghan peace process. Imran Khan too spotlighted these things in his felicitation tweet to Biden.
There was a lacuna in Pak-US relations especially after Musharraf’s regimeand Pakistan was predisposed towards China neglecting the US. The subsequent governments also didn’t care much aboutrekindlingrelations with the US.Pakistan should develop a balanced reciprocal relationship with both China and America.
In parallel, Pakistan should be prepared for one more thing which is whenever Democrats have embraced office, it never proved affable for Pakistan. American influence has always persisted heavily on us. For instance,in the Kargil episode, Pakistan had almost wrested Kashmir from India butthe intervention of Bill Clinton changed the course which exacted a high tollonPakistan in form of Kashmir.History testifies that in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton’s era, Muslims have suffered a great deal whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan.
Interestingly, philistine Trump’s policies were not very Pakistan-concerning rather Trump was more interested instamping out and hampering China. Though Trump took a jibe at Pakistan on his very election campaign, he never embarked on any new war just like Obama, and Bill Clinton. He attacked rhetorically but never initiated any war just like he is having a personal grudge against China. It is self-evident that in the absence of Pakistan’s support to the US to encumber China in this region, the US was in extreme need of an ally – which is now India – in this region to counter Chinese rise as a global power.
So, there are proportionate chances that Biden – being a Democrat – can initiate any sort of war against Pakistan and just as he did as a Vice President using the mantra “Do More”, can be seen once again as well as extrapolating based on historical baggage, there is also a probability of resuscitation of Pak-US strategic dialogue. Pakistan too needs to understand the global paradigm and try to rehab the pre-Trump course of action keeping in view its trade with America which is now $3.6billion exports to the US and $2.9billion worth of imports. Both the countries – Pakistan and the US – should develop bilateral relations eroding hegemonic unilateral relations.