In an interview with CBS television in 2006, General Pervez Musharraf, disclosed that the threat was delivered by the Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, while speaking to Pakistan’s intelligence director. But one thing is clear the US-Pakistan relationship from the Musharraf era is not making a comeback.Īfter the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Bush administration threatened to bomb Pakistan” back to the stone age” if the country did not cooperate with America’s war on Afghanistan. Keeping such developments in mind, it appears that redefining US-Pakistan relations isn’t going to be easy. On the other hand, Biden has proved to be in no mood to talk to Prime Minister Imran Khan, although US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Pakistani counterpart, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of UN meetings, and thanked Islamabad for help in evacuating Americans from Afghanistan. In a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Modi, Biden said the relationship between the world’s two largest democracies was “destined to be stronger, closer and tighter,” for the benefit of the whole world. While ignoring Pakistan, Biden has called for strong and stable relations with India. In fact, Pakistan’s arch rivals India and Bangladesh were not only invited, but Biden’s Special Envoy for Climate Change John Kerry also visited the two countries to personally invite them. Pakistan was the only nation among the world’s 10 most populous countries to not receive an invitation. In fact, Pak-US relations hit a roadblock, when Prime Minister Imran Khan did not receive an invitation from President Biden to attend the Leaders’ Summit of Climate held on April 22 and 23 this year. The Biden Administration denounced the court’s decision, calling it an “affront to terrorism victims everywhere, including in Pakistan,” adding that the US expected “the Pakistani government to expeditiously review its legal options to ensure justice is served.” US-Pakistan relations nosedived when on January 28 this year, Pakistan’s Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s judgment acquitting Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man convicted of kidnapping and murdering the Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Commenting on this decision, a senior Chinese official commented, “US President Joe Biden’s planned democracy summit next week will be a joke and the American political system doesn’t represent a real democracy.” The White House has extended an invitation to Taiwan, but ignored two very important countries, China and Russia, which has drawn a strong reaction from Beijing. Out of over 100 countries, only four South Asian countries have been invited – India, Pakistan, Nepal and Maldives. There is no comment whatsoever from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the summit convened by US President Joe Biden this week, probably because Pakistan’s most trusted ally China has not been invited. To attend or not to attend the virtual US-led ‘Summit for Democracy’ is the question.