Into the maze of global conflict

The view from Riyadh. The Saudi mission to topple Syria’s Assad has gone awry – instead Isis is now a force to reckon with, and is the new Saudi obsession. Isis, in turn, holds the Saudis in its crosshairs considering the House of Saud and their brand of Salafi Islam heretical.

The Isis threat emanates from the Saudi north through Iraq where Isis dominates large swathes. As the Saudis seek dominance of Salafi Islam to mitigate threats closer to home – in this case repressed Shias in Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia – the Shia Crescent too, from the Levant to Bahrain and Yemen, has become a reality in its riposte and an imminent threat to the House of Saud.

Shia Islam’s contention to the Saudi ideological offensive has brought Iran to a new eminence as centre for the Shia world. Iran and Saudi Arabia not only remain ideological competitors but are actively pursuing proxy wars from Lebanon to Pakistan. Bahrain remains latently restive, and the security of Yemen as an ally in the south is long gone – with the Houthi Zaidis now controlling the state and posing a direct threat to Saudi interests.

From the north to the east to the south, Shia encirclement of the Saudi peninsula is almost complete and rightly gives restless nights to the new Saudi King, Salman Bin AbdelAziz. If the fortunes seem to have reversed for the House of Saud’s strategy that to some is karma.

Additionally, Iran is almost on the anvil of going nuclear. The west finds the Ayatollahs pragmatic enough to ease the west and Israel’s growing concern of Iran’s nuclear mission. A rapprochement of sorts between the west and Iran is on the cards, shifting from under its feet Saudi Arabia’s traditional centre of gravity of alliance with the Americans. A nuclear Iran – only held back by the promise of the west’s support and good relations with Iran; and a shifting alliance – heretofore Saudi Arabia’s assurance against all threats to its regime and security – doesn’t only give sleepless nights, it is causing nightmares in Riyadh.

And then the fate of oil and how it has lost currency as an imperative of relationships especially between the US and Saudi Arabia; and inversely, how Iranian oil and gas still remains relevant to some European states now shorn of their Russian supplies with the politics changing rapidly because of Crimea and Ukraine is yet another determinant of the new international dynamics. The US is almost self sufficient in its home-grown oil and gas – and when need be through the Keystone oil pipelines from Canada – and can begin to exercise its freedom in pursuit of more innovative strategic partnerships that will give it the freedom to exploit the new global landscape to ever more gainful strategic ends.

In it the role that Saudi Arabia had by design or default slipped into also became a driver. Its blind ambition to dominate the Sunni world with its own brand of Islam and hence the consequence of how disruptive wars in Syria to Afghanistan and Pakistan have sustained over the decades; and how American interests as a consequence of such Saudi mission have been hurt, especially in Afghanistan and now Syria and Iraq, and in how Egypt derailed from its democratic journey, only means that the ruin is far more frequently now sourced to Saudi Arabia. In turn, and as a consequence, Saudi Arabia – shorn of its traditional support base – stands exposed and badly vulnerable.

In such a state, what does King Salman do? Cries from atop Riyadh for traditional friends to come help. Saudi Arabia displaced the Ikhwan, another ideological competitor in Egypt, with a return of the army under Sisi, and is now calling Sisi to help against Isis with force and support in recompense. Sisi was in Riyadh in the last two weeks receiving exactly the same message. How can Sisi not comply with the benefaction of his sponsors in Riyadh holding forth Egypt’s ailing economy with lavish grants? Sisi has since reacted and entered the war in Syria against Isis, though that was more in response to how Isis had maltreated Egyptian prisoners.

Turkey is the other Sunni bastion that Saudi Arabia has called upon for help. Spurred in their relationship courtesy our very own Nawaz Sharif and his intimacy with both the House of Saud and the House of Erdogan, the Turkish president too was on call recently in Riyadh ostensibly to felicitate the new king. He too received the message of how the Isis threat loomed large over the Saudi haven and how the world of Sunni Islam must get together in thwarting what clearly is ideological heresy. Don’t be surprised if President Obama had also urged the new king to stir some of Saudi Arabia’s close friends to action against Isis. This is yet another twist in what is being played out in Syria and Iraq.

Tired and enervated by its frequent military expeditions, the US now more than ever seeks allies who can do its dirty job in regions that have begun to largely spin out of control – such as in Syria against the Isis. Non-state actors like the Saudi proxy Al-Nusrah are bit players there and need real armies to intervene.

But it will not be the American armies. Someone else must do the job. The Turks will only do so much to ensure that their own borders remain secure as indeed the extended Kurd regions where Isis has frequently forayed. The US thinks countries like Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan can do more and, having failed to elicit a positive response in their own direct interaction, have simply nudged the Saudis into action to that end.

Nawaz Sharif was summoned too. Carrying a debt of a lifetime that he is now required to return, the call to help was sure but coated in courtesy and protocol. Isis was a threat; Zaidi Shias in Yemen were a threat; Bahrain has been controlled for the moment with avish Pakistani help – was it now possible for Pakistan to deploy a division or two in the south, as during the First Iraq War, to keep the Saudis safe from the south? Surely, Nawaz Sharif would have promised to look into it. Keep in mind that General Raheel Sharif too was recently the king’s guest! While Sharif was in Riyadh, US Secretary John Kerry made an opportune entry too – all in the garb of felicitating the new king.

So what did the two Sharifs tell His Majesty? That Pakistan was in its own existential war; that most of what Pakistan was suffering under had deep Saudi roots which have now compounded into a proxy sectarian conflict; and that public opinion is already asking its leaders to redefine its relationships, even with Saudi Arabia?

If not exactly in these words, but hopefully a sense of it needed to have been conveyed. Unfortunately, cheap oil means that falling for carrots of deferred payments may not be as attractive as before – and thus countervailing as a serious possibility. Will the Sharifs fall for more though?

Pakistan has only suffered and lost when waging its own future on foreign bidding. It is time to remain self-contained and centred in its own interests. The emerging geopolitical landscape is fraught with risks that Pakistan cannot afford to play with. It is time to look inwards and base one’s strength on its own resource. Deploying out anywhere is akin to diluting focus on Pakistan’s own internal war. It cannot and will not be done.

On Iran and its nuclear ambitions, another time.

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and served as its deputy chief of staff.

Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com