Does Biden epistle mean post-cipher aloofness ending?

KARACHI: US President Joe Biden’s letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is a nod to Pakistan that all is well between the two countries after months of post-cipher coldness, say foreign policy experts. The last few years have seen Pakistan grapple with the poly-crisis of economic, political and security challenges. Major developments especially during the last year have been quite testing for Pak-US ties.

Just four days ago, on March 26, Washington refused a request by Islamabad to exempt the Pak-Iran gas pipeline project from sanctions. Knowing well the relief this pipeline can provide to the people of Pakistan facing record inflation, the US, quite categorically, said it does not support the project going forward and warned Pakistan of possible sanctions if the project went ahead. This is pretty much what Donald Lu, the US State Department’s assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, testified earlier at the congressional hearing on Pakistan.

After such a brusque response, Biden’s letter reads more as a consolation than anything new. Pakistan’s relationship with the US has always been transactional in nature and more to do with the geopolitics of the time. That’s why perhaps some netizens consider the letter to be a largely routine matter for the US.

However, Biden’s letter is conspicuous for its lack of congratulations to the newly formed government in Pakistan. South Asia Institute Director at The Wilson Center, Michael Kugelman tweeted: “Notably, (the letter) offers no congratulations and instead focuses on the importance of bilateral partnership. Highlights the themes we’ve been hearing from the administration -- economy, rights, climate. Though no mention of counterterrorism, interestingly.”

This is even though last week at his congressional hearing, Donald Lu mentioned counterterrorism as a priority in Pak-US ties.

Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the US, and currently a scholar at Washington DC’s Hudson Institute and the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, says it more succinctly, “President Biden has affirmed the US policy of maintaining ties with Pakistan, without wading into the falsified narratives of Pakistani domestic politics. The letter is matter of fact. It does not promise the warmth of the past but it represents an improvement on the absolute coldness in ties over the last 3-4 years. Now it is up to Pakistan’s leaders to rebuild ties with the US in Pakistan’s interest taking into account a diminished role for Pakistan in the US global strategy.”

The timing of the letter does imply that the prolonged phase of uncertainty between the two countries that started with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan has ended.

Former ambassador Abdul Basit, too, finds it noticeable that Biden chose to skip the felicitation part, “On the other hand, his focus on building inter-state relations and working together to address regional and global challenges is encouraging. The question, however, remains how far can the US go to push India on Jammu and Kashmir. In any case, Pakistan needs to tread carefully lest we end up chasing illusions. Pakistan would be well advised to not repeat the mistakes of the cold-war era.”

Even though Pak-US relations continue to face geopolitical constraints in the face of intensifying US competition with China and hostilities with Russia, recent months have seen a series of high-level diplomatic engagements between Washington and Islamabad on matters of mutual interest like trade, energy, education, climate and defence.

Mushahid Hussain Syed, chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, believes that President Biden’s letter is an expression of positive symbolism, aimed at sending a message that Pakistan still figures in American calculations in the region as a friendly country, but no longer a strategic or special partner.

“He carefully chose the language about ties between the ‘two nations and peoples’, made no mention of democracy and avoided giving legitimacy to the elections by not offering congratulations. Biden also chose his words carefully to underline the non-security & non-military ingredients of Pakistan-US ties, focusing on social, economic and developmental issues, including human rights. At a time of growing intimacy with India in the context of a developing cold war with China, Washington is telling Pakistan that it doesn’t want to put all its eggs in the Indian basket,” says Mushahid Hussain Syed.

The writer is the executive producer of Geo News.