In a recent interview with CNN's Larry King, US Vice-President Joe Biden has said the security situation in Pakistan worries him more than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran's nuclear programme. "You heard me say this for the last 10 years," said Biden, who headed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before becoming Vice-President in the 2008 presidential elections.
His reasons for worrying about Pakistan include its being a big country, having deployable nuclear weapons, a significant minority of radicalised population (isn't it courtesy the US?), and that it is not a fully functional democracy by the US standards (though fully backed by the US). Seemingly, for diplomatic reasons, he fell short of calling Pakistan a powder keg because the US diplomats also don't tire of calling Pakistan a 'strategic' US ally.
The real reason why the US calls Pakistan its biggest worry is Pakistan's nuclear capability; whatever happens to its people, its economy and its future. Isn't a US concern? The brand of democracy, being practised by the PPP hasn't, at least, overtly been faulted by the US, although it knows fully well that in a federation, claiming to practice parliamentary democracy, the President and provincial governors cannot have political leanings.
But the President and provincial governors not only have political leanings but manifest it blatantly giving the impression that they came into power, courtesy a conquest via the ballot box. Isn't it amazing that while Joe Biden finds the "significant minority of radicalised population" one of his Pakistan-worries, he doesn't openly criticise the PPP's governance style; he merely calls it "not fully functional democracy". Doesn't that ring a bell?
Because of the US focus being limited to its 'preferred' interests, the only minority it worries about is the Taliban. What Joe Biden can't see is the far bigger reality; that the controversies, surrounding the PPP, have turned Pakistan's majority against the government. And this didn't happen overnight; for nearly two years during which the PPP ruled Pakistan, the number of controversies multiplied to dangerous levels.
Precisely what role did the US play in bringing around General Pervez Musharraf to agree to 'reconcile' with his opponents via the highly controversial NRO. But going by Musharraf's track record of accepting the US advice on every matter, the US did play a role in advancing the NRO as a 'good' mechanism, though the fact that it was a concession bound to be questioned could be sensed even by the ordinary donkey-cart driver.
Yet, the US never considered advising President Zardari that his adoring the presidency and his 'friends' (the Punjab governor calls them the "PPP Jiyalas") adoring the Governors' houses in the provinces was bound to create the feeling of Pakistan being 'conquered' by the PPP. Some columnists go to the extent of opining that this advice was knowingly withheld to multiply the chaos in Pakistan for a specific purpose - its break-up.
In its February 14 edition, a pro-PPP and pro-US Lahore-based English news daily revealed that, to handle the latest SC-Presidency conflict, Senator John Kerry (part author of the infamous Kerry-Lugar Bill) is flying into Islamabad on February 15. The move conveys the message that Joe Biden was being 'economical with the truth'; the US had already realised that parliamentary democracy had been messed up in Pakistan.
So much for the concern, the US has for stabilising Pakistan; its visible deficiency is to limit the US concern for transparency only when it comes to using the US aid and grant funds, nothing else. It is an utterly dumb to hope that a regime, which practices transparency only to this extent, can survive in a country of 180 million of which 85 percent live virtually hand to mouth, and two of whose provinces are battling against organised terrorism.
Joe Biden's views (courtesy the quarters he represents) expressing 'primarily' the US views reflecting Zionist fears about Muslim countries acquiring nuclear capability. The powerful Joe Bidens in the US administration go by this blinkered view reducing the rationality of every other help - assisting in the fields of education, building social and physical infrastructure, and improving transport, communication and industry - to zero.
For a change, commenting on the Goldstone Report, Congressman Keith Ellison, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee member, said that the Arab-Israeli conflict remained unresolved because the US failed to act impartially. Instead, the US chose to "pick a side" in the conflict. Keith Ellison also has the distinction of being the first Muslim to be elected to the House of Representatives.
Alongside his criticism of the US over "picking sides," he expressed the hope that the Obama administration had begun a new chapter in American diplomacy, citing the President's famous Cairo speech as the indicator thereof. We all wish President Obama success but so long as the administration remains in the hands of the likes of Joe Biden, Keith Ellison can only hope for a change in the US diplomacy, not much more.
Joe Biden claims success for the US in Iraq because on his 'seventeen' visits to Iraq, he was impressed with how the Iraqis had decided to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences. How credible he sounds making such a claim is for Keith Ellison to decide because media networks keep reporting on how serious are the Iraqis about allowing a 'political process' to take the better of their senses.
Joe Biden claims "it can be one of the great achievements of this administration. You are going to see 90,000 US troops come marching home by the end of this summer. You are going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving towards a representative government." How much of his dream materialises remains to be seen. But Afghanistan, which the US invaded well before Iraq, is a continuing and worsening mess.
Joe Biden knows who transformed Afghanistan and Pakistan into a battle ground for over three decades and that the credit for what Pakistan portrays today goes to two super-powers of the recent past; one descended into the just-a-power state and the other is fast descending into one. Both tried to conquer a land that neither the Persian nor the Greek nor the Roman nor the Ottoman, and nor the British Empire found worthwhile.
If Joe Biden is really worried about Pakistan and (hopefully) realises the criticality of political stability in Pakistan as the key to achieving all other US objectives, should he be talking some sense into the heads of the PPP leaders, or should he be pushing Pakistan into opening a fresh military front in North Waziristan? Hopefully, his colleague John Kerry knows better.