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Thursday March 28, 2024

The Yemen conundrum

While the possibility of Pakistan joining Saudi-led and US supported air campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen is up in the air and marked by mixed signals, the pronouncements by international media are disquieting. Al Arabia, the Saudi-owned channel in a broadcast on Thursday claimed that Pakistan would provide air

By our correspondents
April 02, 2015
While the possibility of Pakistan joining Saudi-led and US supported air campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen is up in the air and marked by mixed signals, the pronouncements by international media are disquieting.
Al Arabia, the Saudi-owned channel in a broadcast on Thursday claimed that Pakistan would provide air and naval support to the Saudi-led air strikes in Yemen. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation commented this past Sunday that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had entered into a tacit agreement with the Saudi king, assuring Pakistan’s full-fledged military support. Against this backdrop the high level (not high-powered) delegation’s dash to Riyadh is more in the fashion of theatrics.
However, the issue is too serious to be left alone to the ruling party as a blindfolded plunge into the increasingly tangled web of intricate war mania is fraught with long-term negative consequences. The pay-cheque diplomacy of Saudi Arabia has its tantalising fruits but with very lethal ripple effects. Clearly the paymaster demands, and rightly so, that its payback time. Nevertheless, Pakistan needs to grow up now and defy the rule that one who pays the piper sets the tune.
There are lessons galore if you want to learn from recent history . The memories of the US-sponsored and Saudi-funded war against the ‘infidel’ Soviet Union are fresh in the people’s mind. Pakistan – a darling of the west then – was suddenly abandoned and thrown on the dump heap of history. The people of this country are still paying a heavy price for going down that road. Joining forces with a Saudi adventure particularly at this point in time is not going to enhance our status. Unfortunately Pakistan’s global standing is nowhere on the Richter scale of movers and shakers. Yes, the House of Saud would just dash off a fat cheque but that would eventually leave us in the lurch and with an avalanche of problems for the next generation to address.
With a history of close relations through the rough and tumble of regional and global politics, Pakistan’s standing by the Saudis at this critical juncture is understandable. However, their courting it for the war in Yemen deserves a dispassionate review. Pakistan’s military is already overstretched. There is an omnipresent war-like situation on the eastern border with India and Pakistan locked in a permanent state of Armageddon. The ongoing fight against terrorism, insurgency in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan and the sectarian divide in the country leave a lot on its plate.
Pakistan’s aspiration of assuming the role of a regional policeman on the strength of its nuclear prowess may be justified only after it puts its own house in order. Any attempt at climbing that high horse until then is nothing more than a pipedream with huge attending dangers. On the other hand, the Saudi action looks designed and tailored to curtail Iran’s expanding influence and crushing the Shia uprising in Yemen. Though it’s half the truth yet it’s bound to rile Shias across the region.
Pakistan, therefore, has its own painfully precarious fault-lines and jumping again into unchartered waters would tantamount to writing its own epitaph. However, any existential threat to Saudi Arabia would push Pakistan to move its forces. While making our position clear, we should visibly stay away from becoming a counterweight to our powerful Shia majority neighbour. This might make us seem like an ungrateful ally since Saudi rulers have bailed us out of financial quagmire umpteen times. Pakistan too has never lagged behind in helping them out when the circumstances so demanded. In 1969 it helped repulse the South Yemen incursion into the kingdom. In the 1970s and 1980s about 2000 Pakistani troops were stationed to protect the Saudis. We have also been providing military expertise to Saudi Arabia for decades. Pakistan effectively checkmated a possible retaliatory attack by Iran during the Iran-Iraq war at the cost of earning huge displeasure.
The fact is that Iran is not foolish. It gave a tough time to Saddam Hussain during the 10-year war. It has kept the US on the tenterhooks forcing it to come to the table. It appears that the Middle East is being pushed, by design, dangerously close to wider regional conflagration. That can conveniently spiral into an all-out war between Iran and Saudi Arabia choking and consequently disrupting the world’s major oil supply routes. This will kick the oil prices upwards: and Iran and Russia gain from that.
In Lebanon the Iranian-backed Hezbollah holds sway. In Syria President Asad is still calling the shots despite western efforts to dislodge him. And in Iraq militias backed by Iran wield more power than the Iraqi army. The Saudis, on the other hand, are trying to send a message to Iran that they no longer tolerate its expansion in the region. In this scenario two otherwise unlikely bedfellows emerge: Israel and the custodians of the world of Islam on one page. The subject is very convoluted, and seeing it through the Shia-Sunni prism or Iran’s attempt to establish a Persian satrapy in the heart of Arab world would be a mistake. If the issue is Iran’s expanding influence then we need to read the writing on the wall: Iran is unstoppable.
The timing of the confrontation is intriguing. With a blueprint of a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions on the anvil which promises to lift decades old sanctions, Iran stands incapacitated to stick out its neck for Yemen and may not retaliate. The complex nature of the talks will force the negotiators to go past the deadline. Hezbollah Chief Hasan Nasrallah’s recent statement raises flags: “There is still time, there is still a chance. Arab countries – instead of spilling blood – should go for a political solution”.
The role of the US is quite mysterious with the State Department announcement that it is providing only “logistical and intelligence support”. The British Foreign Office comments are indicative of a much deeper and long-term strategy: “ We support the Saudi Arabian military intervention in Yemen by all means and measures”. It is difficult to believe that the leadership of the kingdom decided to plunge into the vortex without approval of both the US and Britain.
Apparently the US is engaged in a fantastic Metternichian master plan surrounded by strategic manoeuvring. It has aligned itself alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq but in Yemen it is igniting disruption and has seemingly given the Saudis a black document, a carte blanche. There is a marked paradigm shift in its Middle East policy from Pax Americana to what they call Offshore Balancing Strategy. The central piece of this doctrine seeks to create deliberate confusion and sets a stage for the regional powers already reeling from the deadly jolts of the Arab spring to outmanoeuvre one another. Uncle Sam assigns itself a general overseeing role taking direct action only when the balance of power tilts against its interest.
What Pakistan needs to understand is that Yemen is just the testing ground for future course of action. It’s a long haul and not just about Yemen. The strategy is being handled with utmost dexterity and does not exclude the option of redrawing the erstwhile territorial boundaries that gave birth to present-day royals. In such a splendid but confusing configuration the Arab leadership does not need an enemy. The Saudi desperation is further enhanced by the fact that it’s long honeymoon with the US is over.
The writer is a former information minister at the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC.
Email: malikzahoor@gmail.com