Biden’s globalism is a threat

While democracy is a man-made system intended to allow maximum people to have a maximum role in the running of state affairs, it still works better when treated as a natural phenomenon. It’s a system designed for the maximum fingerprints of people, literally. In reality, however, democracy is like wild plants, which grow better and farther when devoid of human hands. Sadly, we have witnessed the erosion of democracy around the world owing to the same dirty footprints of few powerful hands.

Joe Biden is soon going to take charge of the most powerful country in the world. And I always emphasise that while he may smile more and appear sympathetic toward the diversity of people, he also belongs to the same class of traditional presidents that like to wage wars in distant lands. We did not hear much about invasions and wars around the world under Trump. That is soon going to end. There is a self-congratulatory tone in the American liberal class about the return of a globalist America that respects alliances and treaties. Many writers and influential people in the United States and Europe are hailing Biden’s arrival as a return to normalcy. However, what is that normalcy?

The kind of democracy the US likes to install around the world is a code word for furthering US interests. Respecting alliances in the real world means a smooth path for the sale of war machinery and a combined pressure on whichever nation decides to look out for its own interests. Amid all this rhetoric, there is something getting ritualistically confused. They are getting things backwards. The self-congratulatory rhetoric goes that democracy would now grow around the world with an interventionist America under Biden.

However, American intervention actually murders democracy. American intervention and democracy are mutually exclusive, both in the host nation as well as in America. If a country’s leadership decides to protect its own interests, then threats and pressure campaigns are tailor built to bend the will of such a leadership. Furthermore, a country’s belligerent behaviour toward its own citizens becomes more vivid if that nation’s leadership is in an alliance of convenience with Washington. Therefore, to be in awe of a globalist America strengthening democracy around the world is to confuse the suppression of people and the elevation of the leadership of any given US-allied country with democracy.

For example, there is no just cause or the support of democracy in propping up the Mubarak regime in Egypt or now the more brutal Sisi dictatorship or the blind support given to the Saudi monarchy and the Emirati leadership. If America gets its h ands off the promotion of democracy around the world, there are chances that democracy would actually flourish very well. It is rather that interventionist hand of America that has not allowed the strengthening of democracy around the world. Rest assured, President Biden would promote democracy around the world, if you take my meaning.

Under Biden, peace in Afghanistan could be delayed. More possible sanctions over North Korea and Iran. More aggressive postures toward Russia. Complete ignorance of the rights of Kashmiris and Palestinians and the embrace of racist and ultra-nationalist terror regimes in Tel Aviv and New Delhi. More ritualistic bashing of Pakistan and the discarding of Pakistan’s legitimate national security interests.

Let us hope that Biden remains busy fighting the virus and stopping the bleeding of American people. The pandemic has battered the US more than any other nation. Perhaps, this virus is a blessing in disguise for the defenceless nations around the world that would otherwise be on the receiving end of an American invasion. Let us pray that the Biden administration stays focused on fighting the pandemic and climate change and finds no time and the will to indulge in foreign wars.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2020.

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