Ubaidullah Nasir
President elect Biden has many gigantic tasks ahead when he with his vice President Kamla Harris finally took over from incumbent President Donald Trump.He will take the helm of the nation devastated by a health crisis reeling from an economic downturn and divided over every political matter of the day. Climate change racial injustice to baseless questions from Trump and his supporters about the very legitimacy of free and fair election results. Mr. Biden has declared corona control as his first priority and to invest in infrastructure and to promote economic growth. He has released a series of policy plans around all those issues and has clarified that a national emergency calls for urgent and ambitious action.
Not only at domestic front new American administration under Mr. Biden has to face many tough challenges at foreign policy front also. America’s relations with China are worst in forty years. America’s ally in Europe are alienated. Nuclear nonproliferation treaty with Russia is about to expire Iran is flexing muscle by amassing enriched uranium and North Korea is brandishing nuclear arsenal. Global warming refugee crises famine in some most poor countries of the world all amplified by the pandemic. He is inheriting so many challenges and ill will towards the US in countries opposed to Trumps’s America first policy his unpredictable behavior embrace of autocratic rulers and resistance to international cooperation. He has also to deal with countries who were expecting re election of Mr.Trump India included,Saudi Arab,Israel UAE too were hoping his return as they shared Trumps dislike for Iran. Many experts are of the opinion that Mr. Biden should give top priority to reversing the downward trajectory of relations with China which has emerged as an economic super power and a geopolitical rival. Iran is another country which deserves new president’s immediate attention. He had earlier vowed to reverse what he called the dangerous failure of Trump’s Iran policy>Trump has repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement and enforced tightening sanctions that caused great economic damage to Iran but left US largely isolated on this issue.Biden has offered to rejoin the agreement but his good will gestures towards Iran may annoy not only Israel but many Arab countries particularly Saudi Arabia. He may also be more tough to Russia than Trump because as vice President earlier had pushed for tight sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukarine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014. He might seek extending those sanctions and other punitive steps also. Renewal of nuclear arms proliferation treaty, and arms control is an area where Biden and Putin agrees. Biden has shown desire to negotiate strategic arms reduction treaty which is scheduled to expire when Mr. Biden will take over American Presidency.
The defeat of Donald Trump in a bitterly fought American Presidential election is the end of an era that will be known for bad politics, bad health services during Pandemic, bad economy due to pandemic and financial mismanagement. He was the only President who was asked by a police officer to either speak good or keep his mouth shut, he was also the only president whose lies were counted by media and to whom media warned to mind his business and not poke his nose in the field which is not his. Donald Trump will be known in American history who brought disrepute to the great office he held. He used his popularity with the loyals to bring the party leadership to its knees and so many party loyalists prayed for sweeping victory for democratic candidate Joe Biden. In the last thirty years he is the only president who could not get the second term. But as he has promised earlier that in case of defeat he will not easily leave the office and will challenge the results. Now he has started doing what he has hinted.” Beginning Monday our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure elections laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated. He claims that tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 pm on Tuesday changing the result in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states. A supreme court judge issued an order that late arriving ballots in Pennsylvania be separated by all country boards pending further order of the court.Though all this is not gloing to change the election result but it is clear that Mr Biden is starting his inning with acrimony which is not good for a country facing so many domestic and international challenges.