KARACHI: The dynamics of relations between Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the US were in focus during a talk by former senator and federal minister Javed Jabbar at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs here on Thursday.

Getting to the root of the matter, he reminded the audience that one-fifth of the world’s oil and one-third of all proven crude oil reserves were in the Gulf region.

The political development five weeks ago when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut ties with Qatar, he said, actually involved more states than just these five countries.

No crisis today remains regional, says Javed Jabbar

Mentioning the ultimatum issued to Qatar to face the consequences unless they carry out a list of demands such as curbing ties with Iran, staying away from ‘terrorism’, shutting down their news channel Al Jazeera, terminating the Turkish military presence in Qatar, consenting to monthly audits, etc, Mr Jabbar wondered how Qatar could agree to such things, especially the last demand mentioned, which would make Qatar look more like a department than a country.

He said the issue of cutting ties with Qatar would spread to Asia, Africa and even Europe and America. “No crisis today remains regional. There is no such thing as isolated or insulated regions,” he said.

He said there were several themes that could come out of this development, one of which was regional pacts. “And if one country in a pact of several countries is larger than the others it gets to have a bigger say in matters,” he said.

For military spending, he said, Saudi Arabia reserved 10 per cent of its GDP which was even more than the defence share of the US, Russia, China and India.

“It also signifies insecurity,” Mr Jabbar said, adding that Saudi Arabia and Qatar earlier jointly invested in a hedge fund with Israeli links. The US too had military presence in some 140 countries across the world. The US president, meanwhile, was busy cutting State Department budgets to increase its defence budget, he explained.

Meanwhile, he said that Iran was showing a lot of maturity in the matter of cutting ties with Qatar while there was scope for Pakistan on the diplomacy front, too, especially in the UN council. He said Qatar’s economy was fairly stable. The US and the UK also had a lot of Qatari investments in their country, he added.

Having said that, Mr Jabbar argued that Qatar was not entirely innocent as it had been throwing around its weight for some time. “Al Jazeera doesn’t report on domestic issues, as it has its eye on international developments,” he said, adding that it also contributed to hostile propaganda against the Jews instead of Israel and Zionism.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2017