Imran Khan believes Washington wants him gone because he insists: "Like India, my foreign policy will also focus on the people of Pakistan."
This means continuing to defy the US and EU over Ukraine. Some speculate his days may therefore be numbered. We shall see.
Dhaka gets what is in the pipeline.
This is the time to define its own national interest, not by looking back at the world of the 1990s and 2000s when America ruled the roost, but ahead to the 2020s and 2030s.
Does Dhaka fall over at the lightest of touches or does it stand its ground and refuse to ditch China (and, by extension, Russia)?
Might Modi do a Nixon one day?
Wang Yi and Jaishankar will be starting a series of meetings with an objective of nothing less than the normalization of relations between China and India.
Modi, emboldened by recent electoral victories but facing severe economic headwinds, could revisit the most pro-American foreign policy orientation in decades.
Delhi desperately desires respect for its potential greatness to come.
Severing ties with China by reneging on joining RCEP, cutting vital technological ties ups with China, and toying with the Quad and Taiwan has brought into the frontline. And for what?
If a right-wing Republican like Richard Nixon could make peace with his ultimate communist enemy, why not do a deal over the Himalayas among free trade loving neighbours today?
Rahul Gandhi would object, but who is he anyway?
It is high time for India and China to bury the hatchet over the barren rocks in the Himalayas this decade.
What is possible is not necessarily probable. But when the foundations of a world order have been so shaken, players will look at that chessboard from different angles and discover new strategies.
Indeed, Delhi is already showing an independent streak.
David Goldman explains that India may be executing the "first open departure from the dollar based system of international trade financing."
According to the veteran Asia Times analyst from America, this is "a clear statement from New Delhi that it will pursue its own foreign policy backed by its own financing arrangements."
In short, India is bypassing the dollar and buying Russian oil with currency swaps in rupees and rubles. The Saudis are considering accepting yuan instead of dollars.
All baby steps but soon enough a new financial order will grow up.
Eurasia in tatters or re-configured?
China's BRI "Silk Road" has been temporarily blocked by German capitulation to Nato exigencies.
But this does not mean the end of the Eurasian project. Not at all.
While Russia now demands rubles for its gas exports to Europe, it is preparing to divert gas to China by 2025 via the Power of Siberia pipeline. It is also looking south towards the sub-continent, as is China.
With Iran coming in from the cold, the International North-South Transport Corridor will now take off. Delhi has been courting Dhaka to join this new trade route from Mumbai via Baluchi Chabahar (in Iran) and north, linking the Caspian Sea to Moscow.
This incidentally always was designed to avoid Ukraine.
To the east, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is quietly purring away.
The BRICS should get a new lease of life. South Africa and India have come closer to China and Russia in a matter of weeks. Brazil awaits the return of Lula for the ultimate boost.
Washington will certainly chip away at the 70% of the world population which is behaving as the Global South in the face of a battle within the Global North.
The US has secured Europe, but could it lose India eventually? Expect a bitter struggle.
Ultimately, neutrality is not an acceptable option. This is so much more than about Ukraine. This revolves around outdated concepts such as Rimland and Heartlands which unfortunately still drive US foreign policy in Eurasia.
Bangladesh wonders what it receives for aligning with America, and thus ditching Russia and China. It will not gain any transfer of new industries in any large volume. It will not obtain the large scale infrastructure or inward capital. It will kiss goodbye to the dreams of 2041.
Friendly relations with all is a laudable goal, but things have changed now. This is war (hot, cold, hybrid, and permanent).
For Dhaka, if things get really vicious, and they will, then diversification of markets becomes crucial for national security.
How do we find another seven billion dollar export market for garments?
Can the EAEU, East Asia, or Latin America compensate? How does Bangladesh plug in to East and Southeast Asia if it remains outside Asean and RCEP?
These are the questions Dhaka should be utilizing its scarce diplomatic resources to find answers to.
A storm may be coming, but so are boundless opportunities.
Dhaka's highest moral commitment must be towards the economic uplift of its people.
Farid Erkizia Bakht is a political analyst. @liquid_borders.
