What Could Pakistan Hope to Get from President Biden?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

 

The American people have spoken, and spoken in favor of Joe Biden, to lead them.

However, in the words of President-elect Biden, it remains an “embarrassment” to him, and to the American people’s friends all over the world, that the curmudgeon in occupation of the White House still adamantly refuses to concede to Biden. He’s, as yet, behaving like a purblind man who can’t see the writing on the wall.

But while US begins the delicate task of rediscovering its soul, America’s friends and foes will be keen to know how they would fare under President Biden.

Pakistan didn’t get much attention from Trump. He was too occupied in his flirtation with soul-mate Modi, next door to Pakistan in India. The two, more than any other trait common to them, shared a congenital hostility to the world of Islam and hatred for Muslims. The first act of Trump as president, in January 2017, was to impose an entry ban into US for seven Muslim states. Modi has replicated that banality with his audacious gobbling-up of Indian Occupied Kashmir, for which he received not a murmur of protest from Trump.

Much as we, in Pakistan, may not like it—and may in fact feel dismayed over it—but US-India relations have already become as much a bi-partisan thing as America’s mentoring of Israel has been so for so many decades.

The molly-coddling of India began, symbolically, back in 1962 when China had given Pundit Nehru’s supposedly non-aligned India a bloody nose in the Himalayas, the area known on the maps as NEFA. Nehru was so non-plussed by that drubbing at the hands of China that he went running to President John F. Kennedy with a begging bowl for arms and military hardware. Nehru was so desperate that in a letter to Kennedy he even hinted at his willingness to enter into a defense ‘arrangement’ or pact with Washington in order to secure long-term military aid to beef up his defenses.

But the process of binding India with US, in military and nuclear cooperation, was kicked off in fervor with the induction of Narendra Modi and his fascist government in India.

In four years since August, 2016—when India and US signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA)—two more agreements, both under Trump in the White House, have been sealed between Delhi and Washington. A Communication & Information Security Agreement (CISA) was concluded in 2018, while the latest agreement, named as Basic Exchange & Cooperation Agreement (BECA) was signed in the closing days of October, barely a week before the US presidential election, during a much-hyped visit of US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary, Mark Esper. Incidentally, Esper was fired on November 10 by a piqued and fuming Trump. It still remains a mystery, as of writing of these lines, why Esper lost his boss’ trust and fell so precipitously from grace.

Friends of India in US Congress have a ready alibi that Washington’s growing interest in closer defense cooperation with India is China-specific and fits into the US decades-old policy plank to build up India as a counter-weight to China.

However, Pakistan has every reason to feel concerned over this rapidly spiraling camaraderie between its supposedly oldest ally and its sworn enemy. BECA, which was signed with so much fanfare in Delhi, by the beaming-duo of Pompeo and Esper, has all the elements in it of targeting Pakistan as much as China. It provides for exchange of super-sensitive geo-spatial photographs, maps and maritime surveillance data between the Pentagon and Indian Defense apparatus.

So, Pakistani policy planners and leaders can’t afford to be complacent or gullible to put their faith in any American assurances, if given, that India wouldn’t be using the US-supplied satellite feed against Pakistan or that Pakistan will not be on the radar as far as their enemy India’s designs are concerned.

It’s highly unlikely that there will be any dilution in the warmth injected over the years in US relations with India. In fact, Indians feel overly elated that Biden’s Vice-President Elect, Kamala Harris, has Indian roots from her mother’s side. That may not count much as a factor in Biden’s policy projections to India but gives a psychological boost to the Indians that in his number two they have one of ‘them’ in close proximity of Biden.

Pakistanis have a psychological factor of their own perception of Democratic administrations in Washington which, over decades, have been ideologically more favorably disposed toward India than Pakistan. By contrast, Pakistan has fared better under the Republicans in control of US policy.

So, devoid of the kind of psychological crutch that India has to lean on with the incoming Biden administration, and with their history of rebuffs from the Democrats, Pakistan has hardly any room to feel comfortable with Biden. Pakistan’s policy planners—at least those not burdened with any baggage of romanticism—have known for long that Washington has never treated Pakistan with the respect that should be associated with an old ally.

Pakistani pundits have long known the fact that they have, more often than not, been treated as partners in transaction, whenever Pakistan’s need has been felt in Washington, rather than as a loyal or trusted ally. This transactional relationship has gone through loops, more as a roller-coaster ride than a smooth passage that should be the hall-mark of an equation of equals. But Islamabad has rarely, if ever, been seen as an equal by Washington gurus and pundits.

As recently as the Obama presidency—2008 to 2016—in which Joe Biden was Obama’s deputy, Pakistan remained constantly in Washington’s cross-hairs. Pakistan’s tribal belt was regularly attacked by US drones, which led to thousands of lives of innocent civilians lost. But the loss of these Pakistani lives was justified in Washington as just ‘collateral damage.’

For years, in its policy of carrot-and-stick with regard to Afghanistan, Washington planners tried their best to keep Pakistan out of the loop, while all efforts were pegged on trying to weave India into the equation, at Pakistan’s expense. In the end, Washington was, reluctantly, convinced that its chestnut couldn’t be pulled out of the fire in Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help.

Afghanistan is one trump card in Pakistan’s hands to play, with finesse, of course, in its early dealings with the Biden administration. Trump signed a deal with the Taliban, in Doha, last February 29, under which Washington committed to pull its troops out of Afghanistan by May, 2021. Trump may still want to bring US troops home by Christmas, according to his campaign rhetoric. But any precipitous withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan—where US has been mired for nearly 20 years in what’s arguably the longest American war in history—could be catastrophic for prospects of long-term and lasting peace in that war-torn country.

A hasty American retreat of forces from Afghanistan will not be in Pakistan’s interest either. Much as some in Pakistan’s neighborhood may not like it, but Afghanistan is Pakistan’s backyard and its own tranquility and harmony is intricately linked with peace in Afghanistan.

That’s where Pakistan, subject to its policy planners playing their cards well, will have the heft and gravitas to deal with Biden and his team on a footing of confidence. Biden, unlike Trump, has shown no symptoms of being impetuous or flippant. Pakistan has good reason to believe that Biden would much rather prefer a steady and well-studied withdrawal of his troops from Afghanistan so that the Taliban aren’t tempted to raise their own stakes.

There’s much less room for optimism in regard to Modi’s bluff being called by Biden. US has never been a keen player on seeking an end to the long-festering dispute between Pakistan and India on Kashmir. It has, routinely, hawked the line that the two parties seek a negotiated end to their dispute. But Modi’s brazen bravado of August, 2019, has completely changed the complexion of the dispute. That Modi has managed to get away with murder, literally, in Kashmir, is evidence that Washington has no intention to question his temerity or intercede with him on behalf of the incarcerated and disenfranchised Kashmiris. Pakistan has virtually zero leverage to impact the situation and zero prospect of convincing Biden to change Washington’s inertia on the issue.

But Pakistan may, in all likelihood, get some heat from the Biden administration in regard to China, Pakistan’s all-weather friend and closest partner in CPEC. Biden may not be as openly hostile to Beijing as Trump but US-China tussle for one-upmanship could catch Pakistan on a wrong foot.

Likewise, Pakistani policy planners’ mettle will also be tested on Iran, which remained in Trump’s cross-hairs all through his four years in power. Biden is expected to repair the damage done by Trump’s whimsical and impetuous renunciation of the nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration—of which Biden was an active part—had painstakingly built. That should be of salutary effect on the region in Pakistan’s neighborhood. It’s significant that, as these lines are being written, Iranian Foreign Minister and one of the architects of the nuclear deal, Jawad Zarif, is in Islamabad. The incoming Biden administration must be on top of his agenda for talks in the Pakistani capital.

To sum up, interesting, but delicate, times ahead for Pakistan in the context of Biden taking up the reins of power in Washington. There’s no room for jubilation on the demise of Trump who didn’t do any favors to Pakistan but, by the same token, did little harm either. But there’s ample room for caution in welcoming a Biden presidency whose foreign policy performance will be on hold for quite some time, until the mess Trump is still adding to on the domestic front is whisked away.

K_K_ghori@hotmail.com

(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)