Yemen stance

The whole issue of Pakistan’s support to the Saudi coalition for its Yemen intervention has been handled in a very ham-handed manner by our parliament, media and government spokespersons. First, the Saudi wish list was advertised in full glare of media publicity and then rejected summarily through a parliamentary resolution. The Saudi king is rightly incensed; the whole episode will cast a deep pall on our future relations with the Arab world.
If a radical paradigm shift in our Middle East alliances was kept in mind while taking these decisions then the language of the resolution is perfectly understandable. If intervention in the Yemen conflict through the deployment of troops is not in our national interests and if this is the considered opinion of our civil-military decision-makers then we should be ready to absorb the Arab ire with aplomb. Contrarily, if we still feel that we need Arab alliances as economic imperatives and need to stay on their side as reliable allies then we have messed up big time – and the Arabs never miss a slight.
Brig (r) Raashid Wali Janjua
Rawalpindi