Gulf States don’t need a foreign army, even Pakistan’s, to take part in their Yemen military campaign, Operation Storm of Resolve. That should be very clear before discussing Islamabad’s decision to stay ‘neutral’ in the conflict despite the clear and present dangers posed to the strategic security of the Gulf by Iran’s increasing influence in the southern part of the Arabia Peninsula using Al Houthi militia and its allies, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and his loyalists in the army.
Gulf News has learned from Pakistani sources that Islamabad’s decision was taken on the pretext of “current threats to Pakistan itself because of the Kashmir conflict, India’s growing defence capabilities and the situation on the Iran border.”
The justification doesn’t hold water. There is nothing new on that front. Those challenges have been there for decades; and Pakistan is obviously capable of dealing with them. What cannot be fathomed is the reluctance of Pakistan to support the Gulf military campaign in Yemen despite Islamabad’s repeated media statements that support the Gulf region’s security and stability taking into account the five decades of strategic relations between Pakistan and the Gulf states.
The Gulf nations have invested so much in this relationship and thus feel disappointed that when the situation called for Pakistan to play its part in the coalition, Islamabad said no. We don’t need a Pakistani army to fight in the coalition.
Building alliances in times of war is nothing new. It happened in Afghanistan, in the Balkan wars and most recently, in the global war against Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Iraq and Syria.
What was expected from our Pakistani brothers was at least unequivocal political support or even a symbolic presence in the campaign even with an ambulance! Not the ambiguous statement - on the fence type of position- which was issued after the Parliament session on the weekend. A move that we suspect will have some repercussions on the Pakistan-Gulf relations, built over the decades on trust and mutual cooperation.
It is perplexing that Pakistan doesn’t recognise the dangers posed by the Iranian proxy wars in our region. Instead, its leaders try to manipulate the language to avoid addressing those existential threats. The Prime Minister failed to take the right call, probably to avoid upsetting Iran, and threw the ball in the Parliament’s court. Pakistan must decide today if its relation with Iran is more valuable and sustainable than its historic and strategic ties with the Gulf.
In the Yemen conflict, Pakistan was tested morally and politically but unfortunately failed.
