I’m assuming there must be a problem with my search function since I can find very little out there about Pakistan and the U.S. primaries. After all, everyone was happy to mock George W. Bush for being unable to name the leader of Pakistan in his own campaign. And that was before 9/11. Surely this time around it will be different?
Well, no (unless it really is the search function). The financial crisis has driven American foreign policy out of the media coverage of the primaries. Even the blogosphere is quiet.
I did find one or two good pieces. The Moderate Voice says Super Tuesday neglects Pakistan at America’s peril. None of the presidential candidates, it says, seem to be aware of the dangers for the United States of the situation in Pakistan, and of the risk of China filling the gap where U.S. policy has stalled. ”Beijing will undoubtedly move quickly to profit from American discomfiture in the region. Then Washington’s political establishment and media will cry “Surprise” although all the signposts are there right now. The US is already losing Africa to China; it will then lose Central and South Asia as well,” it says.
In the Philadelphia Inquirer, Trudy Rubin says the Feb. 18 election in Pakistan “may be as important to Americans as Super Tuesday”. But the column is about Pakistan rather than what the presidential candidates are going to do about it.
The best I could come up with was an op-ed by Hillary Clinton in India Abroad where she promises America’s partnership with India will be one of the most important in her foreign policy. She also says she will work with India to ”foster a stable and democratic Pakistan”. But that left me puzzled too, since Pakistan is not known to appreciate being told what to do by its much bigger neighbour.
So am I missing something? Is there stuff out there that joins the dots? Or has nothing really changed since Bush’s 1999 admission of ignorance?
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Myra, nothing has really changed. Pakistan is an electoral instrument, not an issue. Similarly, in Pakistan politicans campaigning are utilizing Musharraf’s association with the U.S. to leverage anti-American and/or anti-U.S. policy sentiment to their favor.
Politics is politics. But the hollow campaigning does neither country any good.
- Posted by Arif Rafiqmyra — you right there’s been a conspicuous silence on pakistan, but don’t forget the flurry obama sparked back in August with his comment that if he found al-qaeda sites in Pakistan he’d bomb them. Singularly quiet since then, but it may be an indication of policy in the making. (see item below)
Sparks Fly Over Obama’s Pakistan Speech
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August 07, 2007 10:03 PM
ABC News’ Teddy Davis Reports: For the second presidential debate in a row, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., came under fire for an Aug. 1 speech in which he said he would go after high-value Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan if the country’s president was not willing to act.
Watch the video HERE.
“You can think big but remember you shouldn’t always say everything you think when you’re running for president because it could have consequences across the world and we don’t need that right now,” said Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
Clinton’s criticism of Obama, which was echoed at Tuesday’s Democratic forum by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and added to by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., came two days after the Illinois Democrat was hammered for his policy towards Pakistan by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at a GOP debate sponsored by ABC News.
Obama, who had the bulk of the Chicago crowd with him during the tense exchange, fired back at Clinton and Dodd by contrasting his early opposition to the Iraq war with the pro-war votes cast by his Democratic rivals in 2002.
“I find it amusing,” said Obama, “that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.”
The back-and-forth over Obama’s Pakistan speech, which took place at an AFL-CIO forum televised by MSNBC, amounted to the fiercest clash thus far in the 2008 Democratic presidential race.
August 7, 2007 in Vote 2008: Democrats | Permalink | User Comments (14)
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- Posted by mike rThe bottom line seems to be that Americans take very little interest in other countries, especially those with a markedly different culture, and international news certainly doesn’t seem to win votes.
- Posted by Mary Walder