Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Rapidly changing geopolitical ecosystem, the need to recalibrate bilateral and multilateral relations to fit into it, and hedge the stakes, has forced America to rethink all its friends and enemies—and frenemies—to keep them guessing.
Washington is now running with the hare and hunting with the hound!
It is following a carrot-and-stick policy for its frenemy Pakistan, as his administration cajoles and select officials condemn Islamabad, to have it both ways and keep the American records clean.
Soon after re-engaging Pakistan and resuming aid, US President Joe Biden said the South Asian country is one of the “most dangerous” nations in the world as it has nuclear weapons without cohesion.
His remarks came during an address to a Democratic Party congressional campaign committee reception on Thursday.
“And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion,” Biden said.
He made these remarks at the reception of the governing party in the rapidly changing geopolitical situation globally.
The US President said the world was changing rapidly and countries were rethinking their alliances, the media reported on Saturday.
“And the truth of the matter is, I genuinely believe that the world is looking at us. Not a joke. Even our enemies are looking to us to figure out how we figure this out, what we do.”
There was a lot at stake, Biden said, emphasizing that the US could lead the world to a place it had never been before.
“Did any of you ever think you’d have a Russian leader, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons that would only kill three, four thousand people and be limited to make a point?”
In a recent televised speech, President Vladimir Putin said he would certainly use all the means at his disposal to protect Russia and his people. And he said he was not bluffing.
Biden asked: “Did anybody think we’d be in a situation where China is trying to figure out its role relative to Russia… to India… to Pakistan?”
He termed his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping as a man who knew what he wanted but had an enormous array of problems.
Earlier this month, the US urged its citizens to reconsider travel to Pakistan, especially its restive provinces, because of terrorism and sectarian violence.
But things have changed since. Now, Pakistan has a foot, again, in the US revolving doors. After the US sorted out issues with the grounded F-16 fighter aircraft, Islamabad is awaiting a fresh package of aid and arms from Washington.
The warm US-Pakistan relations had frayed because of Islamabad’s support to the Taliban in Afghanistan and large numbers of Jihadi militants on its soil. Americans have been distraught with Pakistan since 2011 when Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was found and killed there.
After a hiatus of a few years, Pakistan and the US have now started re-engagement. Over the past few weeks, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa met with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
In the past, the West was concerned over the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, fearing the Muslim country’s weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists or jihadi elements.
“Ever since May 1998, when Pakistan first began testing nuclear weapons, claiming its national security demanded it, American presidents have been haunted by the fear that Pakistan’s stockpile of nukes would fall into the wrong hands. That fear now includes the possibility that jihadis in Pakistan, freshly inspired by the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, might try to seize power at home,” Marvin Kalb, a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy program at Brookings wrote last year.
The top US general, Mark Miley, had warned that a rapid withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan would pose an increased risk to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
But the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year, and its global fallout, has completely overturned geopolitics.
Pakistan is an unintended beneficiary of this change.
This saber-rattling will continue: the US will aid Pakistan and warn others against it!!