Islamabad
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
Pakistan is in a disadvantageous position to play any role in the fast-changing geopolitical and geostrategic dynamics at the regional and global levels.
With the plunge of Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon in chaos, and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Shia rule in Iraq facing imminent threat of de-stabilization while Gaza is being reduced to rubble by the relentless Israel, the Arab states are individually engaged in a frantic and desperate exercise for survival. I feel a strong repulsion to see the ever-shrinking role of the OIC in the Muslim world and the Arab League and the GCC in Arab affairs. All these organizations have been rendered redundant at the global and regional levels by the mutually harmful Arab hostilities and the ever-deepening vulnerability of the wealthy Arab states to the machinations of global power politics.
Being bogged down in endless intrigues to undermine each other, triggering coups, civil strife, sectarian proxy wars, and bloody conflicts in their region and beyond, they are forced to outsource the security of their thrones and oil wealth to the globally and regionally powerful states which, to a large extent, control their foreign and security policies too. Nations shackled by fear, insecurity, and over-indulgence in easy living cease to create men of dazzle and courage destined to change their direction. The Muslim world is muddling through such a barren phase of history.
Over a century or so, the Arabs have been living with foreign support from the Ottoman Caliphates to T.E. Lawrence and the British and French Protectorates. The nascent kingdom of Saudi Arabia struck an alliance with the USA in 1945, conceding the American control over their oil exploration and trade. In tandem with the US policy, the Saudi monarchs were at loggerheads with the Arab nationalist and radical states. The Middle East remained divided into so-called moderate and radical states until Egypt veered to the Western stables after the Camp David Accords. Iraq, Libya, and Syria were reduced to the pale shadows of their erstwhile political stability and power.
The most suffering country in the Arab world has been the impoverished Yemen ever subjected to mutually disastrous Arab intrigues for decades. In the 1960s, the civil strife supported by Saudis and the radical states divided it into two states – the nationalist South Yemen and the monarchist North Yemen. The country reunited just a few decades ago with Ali Abdullah Saleh, an anathema to the Saudi monarchs, at the helm of affairs. The wave of public protests in the Arab world in the so-called Arab Spring also overwhelmed Yemen - fuelled mainly by Arab monarchs to get rid of President Saleh and to bring into power Abdu Rab Al-Mansoor, the Vice President and a favorite of the Saudis.
President Al-Mansoor, challenged by the rebellion of the Shia population, particularly Houthis, who were living a subdued and deprived life in both Yemen and Saudi Arabia, could not hold onto the slippery pole of power and had to flee to Riyadh, where he had been staying in past many years. The rest – the formation of a coalition force of many Arab countries to thwart the takeover of the country by the Houthis - is too recent to warrant any elaboration. However, the war in Yemen has exposed many foreign and security policy weaknesses of the Arab countries.
The Arab Spring would have culminated in functional democracies in some Arab countries like Tunisia, where the US-led Western states resisted the machinations of the wealthy Arab states to settle their old scores in Iraq, Libya, and Syria. They were also complicit in the military coup d’état against the elected President Muhammad Morsi in Egypt, giving a carte blanche to the new Egyptian military leader for a crackdown against the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimin. The Ikhwans are spread over almost all the Arab countries, including Turkey. All Arab states, from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain to Turkey, are over-obsessed with the fear of Ikhwans. The Ikhwans reflect the deep division of the Arab societies into secular and liberals and ideologically motivated Islamists.
The wealthy Arab countries were apprehensive about President Obama’s ambivalent Middle East policy during his second term. The rhetoric of the candidate Donald Trump on his election trail, blowing hot and cold about the intractability of the Middle Eastern problem and his threats to pull out of the messy region, only added to the Arabs’ fear, forcing them to look for other reliably powerful states, for strategic partnership. We may recall that French President François Hollander and British Prime Minister Theresa May were particularly invited to the GCC Summits before the US presidential elections. Prime Minister May went to reassure the Summit and help push Iran away from the Middle East.
Faced with the escalating civil war in Yemen, they explored the possibility of Pakistan making military contributions to crush the rebellious Houthis in 2015. The year also witnessed the conclusion of the comprehensive nuclear deal between the US and Iran, exacerbating the fear of Israel and Saudi Arabia. We maintained our long-held neutrality in intra-Arab conflicts. The Arab brothers vented their anger by according a red-carpet welcome to Narendra Modi at the heel of the visit of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Chief, General Raheel Sharif. The Foreign Minister of the UAE had also issued a veiled threat to Pakistan for defying their ‘command.’
Pakistan could have done better in the Middle East than merely begging for economic aid from the Arab countries.
They had taken Pakistan for granted for strategic help after its willing contributions to the security of Saudi Arabia in 1979 and the deployment of over 20,000 soldiers on Saudi borders in the 1990s. However, we assured the Saudis that Pakistan would be willing to help defend Saudi Arabia. Later, the Saudis played an essential role in getting Pakistani retired soldiers employed by Bahrain in the thick of the Shia uprising in that country. They made it a point to ensure that the soldiers were Sunnis. This was not lost on Iran, which was being contained by the Arabs.
Russia bogged down in the Ukrainian war, acquiesced in the fall of Damascus on a guarantee for the safe passage of the Asads and the security of its naval facility in the Tartus. China remained indifferent to the new complex situation evolving in the Levant, which apparently had no direct impact on its new-found geopolitical, economic, and strategic interests. The capture of power by the ideologically driven militias in Syria had made the geopolitical and geostrategic chessboard in the Middle East more complex and unpredictable. As a policy, China avoids wading into unchartered waters.
Israel carried some 500 air raids on strategic positions in Syria during the turmoil leading to the regime change in Damascus. It destroyed over 80% of the military capability of the Syrian National Army, including the defense hardware of the country. These attacks were premeditated and well-planned. Israel wanted to make sure that the new rulers would not be able to use the defense capability of the Syrian National Army, whatever was left behind, to resist its expansionist advances.
In his first term, Donald Trump aimed to create equilibrium between the Arab Sunni States and Israel through the Abraham Accords to contain Iran in the Middle East. Now, the balance of power has tilted to Israel. However, the balance of power, as elaborated by Henry Kissinger, is never static, and its components remain in constant flux. The US has been the balancing power in the Middle East, and it is very much the dominant power even today, as shown by the events in Syria, forcing Russia and China to beat a quick retreat. For some time, these powers would not be able to retrieve their lost position in the Middle East, with Arabs going deeper into the US orbit.
Earlier, the fluid Arab Spring and the apparent US fatigue in the Middle East impelled wealthy GCC states, including Saudi Arabia and UAE, to deepen their covert security relations with Israel and turn their labour-export-oriented relations with India into a strategic partnership. However, the fact remains that these Arab States have more security threats from the Jewish state than Iran or any other state. Soon, there would be new subscribers to the Abraham Accords in a bid to live in a perceived peace with Israel. However, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Lebanon would be in a precarious security situation. The balkanization of Syria is a given fact, especially when the Arab League and GCC are reduced to wheelchairs, and the OIC is long dead and buried.
Pakistan is in a disadvantageous position to play any role in this game. Our rulers live in a delusional world of businesses, plazas, palaces, properties, and iqamas in Dubai. The right move at the right time is the sine quo non for success in diplomacy. The chessboard of diplomacy needs constant focus and clever moves. We could have done better in the Middle East than merely begging for economic aid from the Arab countries. We will be as vulnerable to de-stabilization as any Arab country. It’s better to come out of our chronic complacency. The fast-changing geopolitical and geostrategic dynamics at the regional and global levels would not wait for us.
The author is a former member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and has served as Ambassador for seven years.
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