For more than fifty years we tried to have the depth of the Muslim world behind us in terms of foreign policy, but then we seemed to have lost perspective. Any involvement in the Iraqi conflict now is bound to backfire
THIS was a few years before the break-up of the Soviet Union, but after Mikhail Gorbachev had launched the reforms of which he was to lose control later. About a dozen Muslim ambassadors, mostly Arabs, were discussing the Middle Eastern situation at a dinner in one of the Latin capitals. The Pakistani ambassador told them that now the Soviet Muslim republics would have more effective influence upon Moscow’s policies than was the case till then. The Muslim countries, therefore, needed to cultivate these republics directly, instead of depending solely on Moscow. The Egyptian diplomat cut in impatiently to say: “Yes, yes, all Muslim countries should help the Arabs,” which was certainly not what the Pakistani had said, at least not on that occasion.
Here we have what appears to us as the ambiguity of most of the Arab states towards the non-Arab Muslims. Arabs are not against non-Arab Muslims. But they regard them as a kind of reserve, which should be ready to jump to support whatever the Arabs may want, but not being of much interest otherwise. In fact, the difficulties of the non-Arab Muslims often seem to leave the Arab ruling classes indifferent.
This indifference can sometimes turn into antagonism, leading the Arabs to take actions which the non-Arab Muslims find distasteful. Ottoman Turkey had many weak aspects. But it was the only independent Muslim state at the time of the First World War. The Arab nationalists put a knife in its back, when it was fighting for its life. This has left an anti-Arab feeling at the popular level in Turkey, which has rendered the Turkish state free to be the first Muslim state to recognize Israel and to enter into a military arrangement with it.
Again, the Arab states ganged up on Iran in 1980 when it was trying to bring order after its revolution. The war caused the deaths of half-a-million Iranians, and inflicted a pain and loss upon Iran from which it has not yet recovered. An aspect of this war, which we sometimes overlook, is that an injury on such a massive scale has spread anti-Arab sentiments among the Iranian masses. This will find greater expression in the Iranian policies as the rule of the clergy wanes there.
Nasser leaned towards India in its differences with Pakistan, though not radically. The slant appeared steeper to us than it was because we had expected Egypt to be sensitive to our vital interests. The slant was ostensibly in pursuit of non-alignment, but the real reason was Pakistan’s refusal to recognize Egypt’s hegemony in the Arab East. Naseer did not acknowledge Pakistan’s strong and unconditional support to the cause of Palestine, in a way even criticizing Pakistanis ‘reasons’ for supporting the Arabs — religion. Yet he expected every Muslim country to support Egypt, presumably for religions reasons.
In fact, the Muslim world was mentioned by him as one of the three ‘circles’ in which Egypt moved, the other two being Arab and African. Of course, we could not predicate our Arab policy on a hegemony which had not been established.
Similarly, we told the Egyptians that we sympathized with their ‘anti-imperialism’. But the primary menace to us was from India which determined the priorities of our foreign policy.
The Arabs’ attitude to the non-Arab Muslim countries, including Pakistan, was a product of the Arab East’s immediate problems, but also of its geography and history. The region did not touch any non-Arab Muslim country (before the creation of Israel). So its conflict had historically been with other Muslims before the modern European expansion.
The ruling class of the Arab East, i.e. if we assign primacy to what the various national ruling classes share with each other, stretches from the tribal aristocracy to the commercial bourgeoisie. But, generally, it is an alliance of the landed gentry and the trading class, whose transition to indigenous capitalism has been thwarted. Nasser did not resolve this impasse.
This class had accepted the neo-colonial domination and adjusted itself to it. The only disturbance in this relationship was caused by the army officer corps which seized power in the fifties and the sixties, and tried to obtain concessions from the West in the days of military balance between the Soviet Union and the West.
These officers were of lower middle-class origin. They reduced the power of the old ruling class by land-reforms and nationalization of industries. However, these were carried out as purely administrative measures, and there was no hint of either class struggle on popular mobilization.
As a result, the old ruling class was mauled, but not eliminated. The officer corps directed its ‘revolutionary’ fervour into xenophobic acts, such as driving the Greeks out of Egypt, and the Indians out of Aden. However, it never freed itself from the political and cultural tutelage of the old ruling class, into which it was being assimilated economically.
The Arab nationalists, including the Nasserists continued to look up to the West even during the height of Nasserism’s collaboration with the Soviet Union after the Suez Crisis. They looked upon the Soviet connection as necessary, but somewhat less-than-respectable.
During this whole while, there was no Soviet cultural influence in the Arab East and the local communists continued to be persecuted. Nasser had many quarrels with pro-Western Arab governments. But none of them was marked by the degree of viciousness, which characterized his attacks upon Abdel Karim Kassem, whom he charged with accepting Soviet tutelage. His close collaborator, Hasanein Heikal, publicly defended the massacre of Iraqi communists by the Baathists after the overthrow of Kassem. Since the economic and cultural hegemony of the old ruling class had never been destroyed by the officer-corps, these states were able to revert to the old relationship with the West with ease, specially after 1967.
The attitude of this class towards Asia is one of superiority, since, according to it, the Asians are less Westernized than the Arabs. This in spite of the fact that, Asia, even without Japan, has far more technology than the Arab world.
The non-Arab Muslims are in an even more ambiguous situation. Notwithstanding the fact that ninety per cent of the world’s Muslims are non-Arabs, the Arabs look upon Islam as a sort of Arab race-religion, which leaves the non-Arab Muslims in the position of their clients and they are expected to conduct themselves accordingly.
The Arabs dislike the Turks because the latter ruled over them; they dislike the ‘Persians’ because they do not acknowledge the Arabs’ racial superiority. The rest of the non-Arab Muslims are beyond the Arab horizon, except when called upon to come to their aid.
The foregoing is not meant to condemn the ruling class of the Arab East, but to understand its outlook, because any policy must be based upon reality.
The Arab lands were colonized by the West only for a relatively short period. A semi-colonial relationship had been imposed upon them in the colonial period. Historically, it has been easier to evolve into neo-colonialism from semi-colonialism than from colonialism proper. This has been the case with most of the Arab East. The Arab countries that have oil are, if anything, in a deeper trough, because the oil income, being in the nature of rentier income, does not contribute to development.
Pakistan, though under different kinds of government, has had a consistent policy towards the Muslim countries. It needed the depth of this world, requiring its sympathy, if not its support, against the relentless Indian menace. It, therefore, conducted itself towards these countries on the premise that there were no major contradictions among them and none between them and Pakistan.
Afghanistan was the only member of the United Nations to vote against Pakistan’s admission to that body. Yet, the first Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, Marshal Shah Wali, was invited by the Quaid to stay with him until he found a house. We received the Shah of Iran on his first visit to Pakistan like a beloved relative coming after a long time.
And, if one may quote Abba Eban, “Pakistan has blindly supported every Arab move against Israel”. Indeed as we did the Turks on Cyprus. In this process, we put up patiently with the posturing of one Muslim leader or another, while keeping out of the quarrels between the Muslim countries. We showed even greater patience with the Afghan rulers’ foolish and mindless opposition to Pakistan.
This is not being recounted as either complaint or criticism. This was the correct policy — both in practice and in principle. Every state identifies the principal contradiction that it faces in its foreign relations. All other contradictions are then considered secondary and subordinated to it. Our principal contradiction being with India, the depth of the Muslim world behind us becomes essential to us and our contradictions with Muslim countries become secondary.
This had been our unswerving policy for about fifty years. But then we, all of a sudden, lost perspective and began to treat our interests in Afghanistan as somehow being in contradiction with interests elsewhere in the Muslim world. We pursued the chimera of acquiring dominant influence in that country, unmindful of our vital relations with Iran. This policy was faulty on two counts.
One, we have neither the economic nor the military resources to exercise control, much less hegemony, in Afghanistan. When we tried to do so by means of an alliance with the Taliban, we became hostages to them.
Two, our interests in Afghanistan can be secured in the sense of its providing depth to us only in cooperation with Iran. If the depth is sought in opposition to Iran, we will only create a second front for ourselves.
In the event, we alienated Iran in order to exercise unfettered influence in Afghanistan, and then reversed our Afghan policy under other compulsions. As a result, the policy is today in tatters. We have to identify afresh the factors in Afghanistan on which our relations with it are to be based.
If we accept the invitation to participate in the occupation of Iraq, under whatever cover, we will create another mess for ourselves. These troops will inevitably be drawn into confrontation with the Iraqi national resistance. The resulting use of violence by them will mean that the antagonism towards Pakistan, that is now present in the Iraqi ruling class, will spread among the Iraqi people, making it all the harder for a future Iraqi government, which may wish to adopt a more friendly policy towards Pakistan, to do so.
Further, the Pakistani soldiers may find it hard and trying to suppress a Muslim population. They did not have such inner conflict in East Pakistan, since the people there were perceived as trying to secede. The Iraqi resistance, on the other hand, would be seen by them as defending their national independence.
The safest course for us today would be to revert to our old policy of assigning primacy to our principal contradiction, and assuming that in our relations with every Muslim state, the positive aspects are greater than the negative ones.
For more than fifty years we tried to have the depth of the Muslim world behind us in terms of foreign policy, but then we seemed to have lost perspective. Any involvement in the Iraqi conflict now is bound to backfire 
