Robert D Blackwill, former US Ambassador to India, also said India has to accept that the US role in Afghanistan will be diminishing as it prepares to completely withdraw its troops by 2014 end.
Addressing a seminar here on "The Next American President: Foreign Policy Differences Between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney", Blackwill said "Pakistan today has almost no friends in Washington on either side of the aisle."
On India, he said, "the American political elite support an ever stronger US-India strategic partnership, not alliance of course, but a partnership and to make it ever more muscular and substative," he said.
"Even if the situation in Afghanistan changes the US will still be withdrawing its troops by 2014 end as the war has become very unpopular back home. India has to accept that US role in Afghanistan will be diminishing," he added.
However, he said that US-India relations are not figured in the current Presidential campaign in a big way as it shows a continuity of this policy in both candidates.
Former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said that there is a commonality between the two parties as far as relations with India are concerned. "The two parties seem to have a commonality with respect to relations with India", he said.
On Iran, Blackwill said that both the Presidential candidates have indicated that they would use force against Iran if the need arises.
"Although both agree to a point but there is a slight difference. While Romney says that they want to prevent Iran from acquiring the capability of building nuclear weapon, Obama says that they want to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon," he said. "There is a big difference in these two stands", he added.
Highlighting the differences in foreign policies of both the candidates he said that not much can be done by any candidate to counter the anti-US sentiments in the middle-east. "There is not much US can do about it. Dealing with middle-east is an enormous challenge " he said.
"Major challenges in the next four years for the United States are domestic and not international," he said.
"Putting the ideological differences aside the success of the next President would be highly determined by the simple competency of the administration. Presidents can have visions and policies for better world but what matters a lot is the quality of administration. The day to day management of administration matters a lot," he said.
The next United States presidential election is to be held on November 6, 2012. President Barack Obama is running for a second and final term during this election. His major challenger is former Massachusetts Governor, Republican Mitt Romney.
