How Pakistan Viewed the US Election Campaign

Abstract

Perhaps no presidential election campaign in the United States in the recent past was a source of as immense interest to the people of Pakistan as the one that was carried out in the year 2008. The whole world took a great interest in the critical election campaign of Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama and the candidate of Republican Party John McCain. However, in Pakistan the situation was different because of the periodic US drone attacks on the tribal areas and the collateral damage caused as a result of these attacks, the Bush administration’s rhetoric that Pakistan should do more to eliminate what Washington alleged were “safe heavens” for Taliban/al-Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and the serious concerns in the Western circles about the deepening of chaos, disorder, and insecurity in some parts of Pakistan because of violence, terrorism, and unabated political unrest.