Would Biden’s strategy to counteract China through Pakistan succeed?

Before we become too excited about President Biden abolishing Trump’s Muslim travel ban, Muslims should be asking whether America is even safe to visit let alone live there. President Trump left a legacy of broken communities and division by unleashing historical forces rooted in a past founded on systematic ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples and slave labour.

Like him or hate him, Trump should be credited for exposing the ugly face of America and the disdain of white America for Third World countries which Trump tactfully called “shitholes”.

Compare this to the Obama-Biden administration that was voted in power in 2009. One of their first actions was to make conciliatory gestures to Muslim countries. In a carefully orchestrated speech made from Egypt, titled “New Beginnings”, Obama said he was “reaching out to the Muslim world”. What took place after that speech was the worst onslaught on seven Muslim countries from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan. According to Council on Foreign Relations’ Micah Zenko, just in 2016 alone, Obama dropped at least 26,171 bombs.

It is the same conciliatory gestures Biden made in his inaugural speech wanting to “heal” the nation and “repair” international relations. But if his past is anything to go by, US foreign policy under Biden can expect an escalation of conflict. His “dream team” are the same neo-con advisors including Anthony Blinken, the new US Secretary of State; Samantha Power, former ambassador to the UN; Jake Sullivan and Susan Rice, former national security advisors — almost all of them served under President Obama.

Scott Ritter, a former UN weapons inspector and Marine Corps intelligence officer, tweeted, “All it took was 48 hours, and Trump is looking better already. More troops to Iraq, regime change in Syria and an expansion of NATO that knowingly triggers conflict with Russia. Biden has been and will always be a warmonger.”

Biden’s Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin has already indicated that US foreign policy under Biden can expect an escalation of conflict and turmoil for the South Asian region, especially China, Pakistan and Iran. He warned that the main US target is China, because it wants “to be a dominant world power” and “we have to make sure that we begin to check their aggression”.

No country has started as many wars or has as many military bases as the US. According to estimates there are 4,800 in nearly every corner of the world.

The main US target is China’s growing economic power, and worse still, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project which is aimed at building Pakistan’s infrastructure and strengthening its economy. The new Silk Road is aimed to stretch to Iran and change the geopolitical balance of power in the region, thereby strengthening China and weakening the US hold on Pakistan and other countries in the region.

It is for this reason that the Biden administration will be paying close attention to developments in Pakistan, aiming to rein in the country’s close ties with China. The worst-case scenario is an Asian bloc of countries allied to China.

The US has learnt by now that the best way to subjugate and weaken a country is to label it as a “terrorist state”, a ploy Trump also used when he said: “We have been paying Pakistan… billions” while “they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting”.

The same rhetoric is repeated by Biden, only he goes a step further by wanting to continue using Pakistan as a base to carry out clandestine activities. During a debate last year, Biden said that in order to “prevent the United States from being the victim of terror coming out of Afghanistan” the US must insist “Pakistanis provide bases for us to airlift from and to move against what we know”.

Blinken also reiterated the same narrative: that the US would work to prevent terrorism stemming out of Pakistan by “continuing to build relationships with Pakistan’s military” which will “provide openings for the United States and Pakistan to cooperate on key issues”.

General Austin inadvertently outlined an age-old covert strategy of creating US puppets when he states they would be focusing on “shared interests which include training future Pakistani military leaders through the use of International Military Education and Training funds”. He also said that the US needs “to work with Pakistan to defeat Al Qaeda and the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-KP) to enhance regional stability”.

However while he was busy pointing fingers, many in Pakistan still remember how it was CIA operatives like Blackwater (Xe) who carried out human rights violations in the country, while another CIA operative, Raymond Davis, in 2011, was caught for not only killing two Pakistanis but also found to be supplying information and funds to sectarian terrorist groups linked to India’s RAW.

Meanwhile, Israel is comfortable that Biden and Blinken will carry on with Trump’s legacy when he assigned Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and also pressured Muslim countries to officially recognise Israel. Netanyahu also knows he can rely on the US to keep up the pressure to isolate Iran, which incidentally is another reason why Pakistan is important: because in case war does break out with Iran or China, Pakistan, a nuclear power, needs to be on the side of the US.

However, needless to say that India’s Modi and BJP are rejoicing that their fortunes may change because an Indian-origin, Kamala Harris, is at the helm of affairs and is assured to be the next US president as Biden is facing serious health issues. Also, Biden is facing impeachment after he is heard on tape admitting to a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government threatening to withhold foreign aid if they refuse to do his bidding.

International journalist and broadcaster Caleb Maupin, who is a scathing critic of Harris, argues that putting “Harris into power will almost certainly result in a renewed Clintonian foreign policy nightmare”. He believes she lacks ethics and moral character and as a public prosecutor was notorious for penalising poor people. At one time she sent many parents to jail for their children being truant from school.

As Biden and Harris gear up for an aggressive foreign policy to counter China’s power, they will be mistaken to not focus on internal issues. It can’t be ignored that 74 million voted for Trump and it is these 74 million who believe the election was stolen. This may be the reason why 25,000 US Army personnel were drafted; they weren’t brought in to keep the peace but rather to protect the new administration from disgruntled voters labelled by Biden as “domestic terrorists”.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th, 2021.

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