Taimoor Khan
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2016
- Messages
- 13,811
- Reaction score
- 4
- Country
- Location
What I make of the situation is that, The flag-bearers of the GCC foreign policy i.e UAE and Saudi Arabia, have come to realize, that Pakistan will be of little importance in the quickly maturing regional strategic balance of the Middle East.
The GCC has found cooperation with Israel very helpful to tackle the Iran problem because Iran is the only thing that is on their minds right now. After Pakistan excused from the Yemen assault, GCC did not work hard to find a way to neutralize the Iran threat : in the form of friendship and cordial relations with Israel.
It is surprising that the place that Pakistan had in the GCC is slowly being replaced by not India but Israel! and slowly more and more Arab countries are getting comfortable with it.
Israel is Pounding Iran backed militias based in Lebanon that were helping the Palestinians and guess what the foreign minister of Bahrain had to say : 'Israel striking Iran targets is nothing but 'self defence'. See for your self=
https://www.timesofisrael.com/appea...in-says-strikes-on-iran-targets-self-defense/
Netanyahu is visiting GCC countries left and right and the arabs are appeasing Israel more and more =
View attachment 576258
I am not sure whether we should have gone forward with the Yemen offensive but the effects of the Pakistan's 'Betrayal' (as they call it) are extremely evident in the form of their stance on Kashmir, and their plans of a long term alliance with Israel and pleasant relations with India.
Pakistan's foreign policy has reduced Pakistan to a backup plan for the GCC and the GCC have come up with a cunning plan that might even work for them better as compared to Pakistan.
The GCC has been a good friend to us from the very start, they have helped us with our nuclear program, bailed us out multiple times, and helped our relations with USA when the relations were cold, but this one time Pakistan had to excuse because our own internal security and neighborly relations were at stake. This excuse ,however, regardless of our own problems, will eventually lead to a divorce between Pakistan and the GCC for at least until Iran is neutralized.
THE WAY FORWARD: Pakistan needs not to initiate any reduction in ties with the GCC just because they are not as strong in their stance against Indian atrocities in Kashmir. Good ties are still to benefit Pakistan.
We will just have to wait patiently and see how things fold between Pakistan and India and see how the GCC evolves her stance on Kashmir because to them, Kashmir is still not that much of a serious situation. I predict that the Kashmir situation will get serious in the coming few months much to the disappointment of the GCC.
The only boots on ground I see in the future are of the Israelis on the GCC to help them overcome the trembling fear for the Persians.
And as far as the protection of Hijaz is concerned, I think Israel will still need another few decades to be in a position to even think about it.
Pakistan never had any security cooperation or hidden pact with GCC over Iran. A well documented and discussed Pakistani "nuke umbrella", was to deter Isreal. Not in million years Pakistan would have nuked Iran on behalf of GCC. That was never part of any arrangement. Even the so called "anti Shia" , General Zia Ul Haq gave two finger salute to GCC when they raised objections on composition of Pakistan Army contingent send to SA with Shia personal part of it.
Now if GCC are best buddies with Zionists, it's up to them, they changed the goal post not us.
Yes, I agree, not just from GCC but from Pakistan own perspective, the security arrangement we had with them is dysfunctional. They cant help us in our fight with India neither we are of any help to them over Iran.
Funny thing is, just today Trump send a googly to GCC by inviting Rouhani for talks.
That is where the sane advise of Dr Mahatir should be taken into account. Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia grouping is the way forward. No complications, no historical luggage, just purely win win situation for all. And if Iran can get out of its Persian empire non sense, can be slotted in at later stage.
Salaam
You have to keep in mind that there are no purely military engagements - military engagements are, as Clauswitz put it, diplomacy through other means.
Our military is there because it helps us forward our interests - and we have a lot of political and economic interests in that region. It is irrelevant if we are currently fighting a war there or not - our presence helps us achieve certain non-military objectives and so we continue to maintain it.
The Arabs may have gotten closer to Israel but that doesn't mean that our relationship with them has to end. We are closer to the Saudis and the Arabs for reasons other than Israel as well - and saying we should end our alliance with them because they have improved relationship with Israel seems to ignore the reality of our deeper relationship.
Both the Turks and the Chinese have had relations with Israel, and yet we are closer than ever with both of them. So why the different attitude towards the Arabs?
With regards to the Arab Iran issue - we haven't been asked to invade Iran yet - and even if we were - we will be free to chose according to our interests. We've always maintained that our forces will defend the territorial integrity of our allies in a defensive war - so if we don't invade Iran at their behest we'd still be within our officially stated commitment. I don't really see the problem there.
If we leave our Arab allies - who do actually help us with money whenever we need it - it would leave the door wide open for someone else - possibly a party we may not like - to come fill in the role we abandon.
Lastly, imagine how incredibly stupid we'd have to be to leave our long standing close allies - who bailed us out not more than year ago with hard cash (in addition to countless other times) - simply because they gave our enemy a medal or something. That would indeed be a greater gift to our enemy than any award the Arabs could ever give.
...
Tall claims to make when we have just seen how GCC ditched Pakistan on a matter which is absolutely core to our existence as a nation.
Everything has expiry date. New world order, new alliances, as I have said earlier, we need to pay head to the respected and wise Dr Mahatir. Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia is the way forward.