Fumbling with friends

Published May 10, 2015
The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.
The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

Pakistan's relations with Saudi Arabia and its GCC allies have been damaged significantly by Islamabad’s refusal to join the Arab coalition formed to push back the Iran-linked Houthis in Yemen. The Saudis were ‘jolted’ by Pakistan’s position and the manner in which it was reached.

For several decades, Pakistani leaders have professed bonds of brotherhood and solidarity with the Saudis and other Gulf states. They have vowed eloquently to defend Islam’s holy places. They have treated the Gulf’s rulers with extraordinary deference. Many Pakistani political leaders are personally and politically indebted to these rulers.

At the state level, Pakistan has frequently relied on the financial largesse of the Gulf states, especially during times of crisis. Millions of Pakistanis work and live in these states, annually remitting close to $10 billion back home. The Pakistan armed forces have provided extensive security support and training to these countries. There was even a widely held assumption that Pakistan has extended a ‘nuclear umbrella’ to Saudi Arabia in case it faced an existential threat.

Read: Parliament insists on neutrality


The erosion of Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia will weaken, not enhance, our leverage with Iran.


The fumbling manner in which Pakistan’s response was evolved added insult to Saudi injury: endless and inconclusive cabinet meetings; the defence minister’s public announcement upon return from consultations in Riyadh that the Saudis had asked for “ground, air and naval forces”; the reference of the request to parliament, designed to provide a thinly disguised alibi for the government’s negative response, subjecting the Saudis to unprecedented and gratuitous public criticism in the process; Islamabad’s reception of the Iranian foreign minister while the parliamentary debate was under way, creating an impression that Pakistan’s negative response was the result of Iranian intervention; the offer to ‘mediate’ between Saudi Arabia and Iran after such a maladroit performance was considered ‘laughable’.

Though seething, the Saudi leadership preserved its characteristic calm, leaving it to the UAE deputy foreign minister to express the disappointment and anger of Pakistan’s ‘closest’ Arab friends. While the Pakistan Foreign Office discreetly refrained from responding, the interior minister did so, escalating the spat further.

According to Pakistani officials, the Saudis have ‘understood’ Pakistan’s position following the hastily arranged visit of the prime minister, accompanied by the army chief, to Riyadh. This seems highly unlikely. Politeness is often mistaken for acquiescence. A well-placed Saudi official believes that the damage to the relationship will be ‘long-lasting’ and take considerable time and effort to repair.

It is unlikely that the Saudis and other GCC states will retaliate by deporting Pakistani workers. But it could influence their future recruitment policies. Financial support and concessional oil supplies may not be forthcoming in future. Strategically, the Saudis and their allies may move closer to India.

This diplomatic fiasco could have been avoided if Pakistan had closely analysed the evolving strategic scenario in the Gulf and anticipated the Saudi request. The ill-considered US military interventions of the last decade have enabled Iran to enlarge its influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and, now, Yemen, virtually encircling Saudi Arabia. This has also contributed to widening the region’s sectarian fault lines.

Iran’s role will enlarge further once it concludes its nuclear deal with the major powers and frees itself of sanctions. Indeed, it may be able to play this larger role in collaboration with the US, whose first priority now is to battle the Islamic State, Al Qaeda and other Sunni ‘terrorist’ organisations, rather than contain Iran.

The advance of the Iran-backed Shia Houthis in Yemen and ouster of its elected president — made possible by US-Saudi mismanagement of former president Saleh — was the straw that broke the back of Saudi patience. The Saudis formed the Arab coalition to accumulate military capability that would compensate for the absence of US security support. They expected two countries in particular to fill the military gap: Egypt and Pakistan. The Egyptians immediately declared their support although the precise nature of their military contribution to the coalition remains uncertain. The Saudi expectation of Pakistan was even higher, given the battle experience of the Pakistan Army and the long tradition of military cooperation between the two countries.

Pakistan’s reluctance to support the coalition was reportedly due to its concern about Iran’s reaction. Pakistan’s relations with Iran are vital for several reasons: controlling insurgencies on both sides of the Balochistan border; stabilisation of Afghanistan; the sentiments of Pakistan’s Shia minority; prospects of mutually beneficial economic cooperation.

But several factors need to be considered in this context: one, Yemen is vital for Saudi security; it is a distant power play for Iran; two, international legality is on the Saudi side. It is defending an elected president. Its objectives, if not its tactics, have been endorsed by the UN Security Council; three, Pakistan’s support for the coalition could have been calibrated to conform to international legality, for instance, by stationing troops defensively on the Saudi side of the border; providing military advisers; deploying naval vessels to implement the UN embargo against the Houthis.

In any event, Pakistan-Iran relations are complex and multi-dimensional. At present, Iran’s relationship with India is closer than its ties to Pakistan. It is India’s largest oil supplier and a huge market for Indian goods, despite sanctions. India and Iran are building a port at Chabahar and a road link to Afghanistan and Central Asia that is designed to circumvent Pakistan. And, Iran continues to nurture its ‘friends’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The erosion of Pakistan’s relations with Saudi Arabia and the GCC will weaken, not enhance, Pakistan’s leverage with Iran. Equally, the erosion of Saudi influence in the Gulf and the Levant will skew the regional power balance further towards Tehran. Pakistan is an integral part of this power balance. It cannot sit out the game. It must play an active role to promote outcomes that are consistent with its national interest and international law and which do not allow any state to dominate the region.

To this end, it should engage in open-ended consultations with Saudi Arabia and other GCC states to identify possible areas for strategic cooperation not only in Yemen but across the region. Simultaneously, Pakistan should also engage Iran, not only on bilateral issues and Afghanistan, but to find common ground for cooperative solutions to the sectarian conflicts that rage today across the Gulf and the Levant.

The writer is a former Pakistan ambassador to the UN.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2015

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