PM Sharif in a changing world

Four world events last week had deep and long-term significance for Pakistan. At the Education Summit in Oslo, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reiterated a promise he has made repeatedly since before taking office – that he will have Pakistan spending at least four percent of the national GDP on education by 2018. This will require not only a massive increase in federal spending on education, but also the creation of fiscal space for the provinces to increase their spending. It is certainly going to be an interesting challenge for the prime minister.

One way in which the country will be able to invest more in the children of the country – not only through education, but also through health, nutrition and improved cities – is by having sustained economic growth and stability. This is a principal consideration in the growing narrative of China’s centrality to Pakistan’s future.

A major milestone in this narrative was reached immediately after the Oslo Summit, as Pakistan was inducted into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Ufa, Russia. The Ufa SCO Summit was twinned with a Brics meeting that was probably, at least partially, designed to show smaller countries at SCO a glimmer of their potential: the gains of growing at warp speed, as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa had done in the past decade and a half.

As Pakistani education activists were celebrating the restatement of PM Sharif’s education spending promise, and foreign policy observers welcomed the addition of the SCO to the range of important fora that Pakistan is a formal member of, the news that Prince Saud Al Faisal has passed away came through the wires.

Of all the events taking place around the world, few have the significance for Pakistan than the changes taking place in Saudi Arabia do. Prince Saud Al Faisal was an institution in international affairs, not over several years, but over decades. He took office as foreign minister for his country in 1975, upon the assassination of his father and remained a principal informant of decision-making for his country, even after he gave up the office of foreign minister (in April 2015) till his death. Prince Saud was the epitome of the Saudi Arabia that Pakistan has known and loved for almost its entire existence.

That Saudi Arabia is dying, and the new kingdom is dramatically different. It is more aggressive in articulating and pursuing its interests, less reflective about its place in the world, more scared of the social and economic changes in its immediate neighbourhood, and most definitely less interested in sustaining the special bond that Prince Saud’s generation had cultivated with Pakistan. There is no better a proxy for the transition in Saudi attitudes to Pakistan than the contrast between the considered humility of the late Prince Saud and the assertive self-confidence of his replacement, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir.

Foreign Minister al-Jubeir is the first prominent Generation X member of the Saudi establishment. It is no accident that he succeeded Prince Saud as the primary articulator of Saudi foreign policy. First coming to prominence in his mid-twenties as a fresh member of the Saudi diplomatic corps, on his first posting to Washington DC under Prince Bandar bin Sultan, al Jubeir is as fresh and young as they come in the high altitudes of Riyadh’s decision-making infrastructure. He is also dramatically less enamoured with and less tolerant of the twists and turns of Pakistan.

The Saudi ‘Faisalites’ romantic perception of Pakistan, as a citadel of the ummah, is fading as fast as the generation that gave shape to that romance. Generation X Saudis are principally concerned with their survival in a region that has seen the greatest expansion of Persian influence since the Gulf region was vacated by colonial powers. As it happens, al Jubeir’s irritation with Pakistan, and particularly with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is no matter of mere speculation, but the subject of an incredibly insightful telegram from the US Embassy in Riyadh issued soon after Shaheed BB’s assassination – and brought to us via the wonders of Wikileaks.

While the Saudi Generation X grits its teeth, surviving any residual optimism of a democratic ‘Arab Spring’ and trying to endure the indignity of having to watch the P5+1 bend over backwards to find a way to end Iran’s isolation, another country’s new generation of policymakers is helping transition their nation from also-ran and under-achiever to major world power.

Perhaps the greatest sign of India’s global relevance is that it has not been allowed to behave according to its innate, insecure instincts with respect to Pakistan. Instead, the big world powers that it now stands shoulder to shoulder with have quietly but forcefully made clear to India that the price of admission to the big boys’ club is to keep up appearances and make sure Pakistan is not allowed to legitimately claim victimisation by the Hindu supremacist impulses of India’s democratically elected leaders.

This was the driving motivation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Ufa. Of course, the big bonus that awaited the Indian delegation in Ufa was a Pakistani foreign policy posture that is flanked by the much younger, more agile, and more worldly-wise team that PM Modi trusts and delegates responsibility to.

In contrast, PM Sharif does not have the management style, nor the nimbleness of mind and heart, to take either advantage of his strengths – namely, his own courageous commitment to South Asian normalisation, and the vast experience and wisdom of Sartaj Aziz and Tariq Fatemi. This also means that the opportunity available to Pakistan to press home the advantage from the bind India finds itself in is being lost. India has to make nice with Pakistan, out of courtesy to fora like Brics, SCO, Asean and most importantly, its growing comfort zone with Uncle Sam. This was a time for pushing the envelope. Instead, where do we find Pakistan?

In some ways, these four events, the Olso Summit, the induction into the SCO, the significance of the great Saudi transition and the re-initiation of talking to India all represent positives for PM Sharif. PML-N supporters could easily frame these as successes for the PM. He says the right things on education, he got Pakistan into SCO, he kept Pakistan out of the Saudi intervention in Yemen (much to al Jubeir’s chagrin), and courageously, he didn’t shy away from meeting with PM Modi.

However, to frame these as successes for Pakistan would be missing the forest for the trees. It would be myopic, and short sighted. It would be pretending that tactical efficiency and good fortune is the same thing as having a real strategy.

The reality is that Pakistan doesn’t have a credible plan for educating its children, which is why 25 million children are out of school, and Pakistan is among the lowest spenders on education in the world. The reality is that, unlike India, Pakistan has been included in the SCO not because of its own economy, but the potential of its economy as an enabler to broader Chinese growth into the MENA and Central Asian regions. The reality is that Pakistan has no plan to engage Saudi and other GCC leaders under the age of fifty who don’t have their fathers’ notions of ummah, nor any sense of romance toward the South Asian Muslim nationalist project. The reality is that Pakistan is a net receiver and reactor to Indian actions in South Asia, whether it is the alleged terrorism that India spawns in this country, or it is the hand of friendship India pretends to extend toward Pakistan.

To alter reality, Pakistan must invest in immediate reform. Prime Minister Sharif may feel like he is a hundred years old, but he is still barely halfway through this term. And compared to his favourite bureaucrats and advisers he really is a spring chicken. The democratic project isn’t going anywhere, no matter how desperate and outlandish certain columnists become in their appeals to General Raheel Sharif to get rid of it. Pakistan needs an angry, bull-in-a-China-shop prime minister who will clean house with his bare hands if need be. Saudi Arabia, India, indeed the whole world is changing. Can PM Sharif change too?

The writer is an analyst and commentator.

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