Jamil Chughtai
Like individuals, at times the countries are also faced with situations where they have to choose between the hard rock and deep sea; both equally ferocious and painful options. Currently Pakistan is set against making one such diplomatic choice in case of Qatar-Saudi imbroglio, with the only difference that this time round Pakistan has had no part in the creation of this mess. Prima facie, the rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, being Arab-centric, should not have posed any problem for Pakistan’s foreign policy, but it did that way and in fairly serious terms.
The whole episode started soon after President Trump paid a historical visit to KSA and gave out some fine lines to be kowtowed immediately. In the meantime, conspiracy mills working for the Western interests kept churning out contentious stuff of grave intensity against Qatar, thereby leaving no room for Saudi Arabia but to boycott Qatar on the accusations of supporting terrorism with their pliant posture towards allegedly extremist Hammas and Muslim Brotherhood factions in the Middle East. Qatar’s clarifications did not impress Saudi alliance much owing to nature of accusations and they went ahead with blocking food, medical supplies and air passage to their tiny Arab neighbour. The action brought out a quick reaction from Iran and Turkey announcing all possible help to Qatar in terms of food supplies as well as airspace.
This whole development has not been as abrupt as it appears, rather the sparks of suspicions about disloyalty of Qatar towards Arab fraternity were already simmering somewhere deep down. However, the incident of a statement indicating the significance of Iran for the stability of the region released in the name of Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in May 2017 triggered it into a fiery crisis. Qatar in its defence opined that their official news agency website got hacked and hence Thani’s statement was false. It, however, did not sit well with the Arab alliance especially Saudi Arabia being already in diplomatic confrontation with Iran, while the local/ foreign media made the situation worse by creating a censuring hype against Qatar. This all eventually compelled KSA and allies to close the land borders, ports and airports for all Qatari passengers, vessels and planes from/ to Qatar, besides tightening the noose around Al-Jazeera by clamping down their wireless transmissions and bureau-offices.
Pakistan has connections with both Qatar and Saudi Arabia. For Pakistan Qatar is not merely a tiny state within the Arab peninsula having friendship with big armies; rather it is an oil rich nation with $335 billion capital worth and the largest producer of natural gas in the entire Middle East. It has been just couple of years that Pakistan signed a 15-year gas supply agreement with Qatar to import 3.75 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) annually and add 2,000 megawatts of power to the national grid which would almost halve the country’s electricity shortfall and amount for over 85 percent of Pakistan’s LNG import capacity. Moreover, Qatar has formally expressed interest in $1.5 billion Karachi-Lahore LNG pipeline project to supply gas to Punjab. Pakistan, which is already surrounded by a hostile neighborhood can ill-afford the rupture of ties with yet another state in the neighbourhood. With Turkey, in addition to Iran, drawing closer to Qatar has multiplied problems for Pakistan, considering the fact that Ankara has supported Islamabad on multiple forums in recent times.
Similarly the Saudi-Pak ties require no explanations. In terms of their extensive friendship, the countries share a history of military collaboration as well as economic and cultural cooperation. Pakistan’s relations with rest of the Gulf States have generally been good yet exceptionally above-par with Saudi Arabia for its being axis of our religious affection as well as major source of foreign remittances. In addition, while the relations with Al-Saud cannot be ignored, the presence of United States in Saudi bloc has further created pressure on Pakistan. But at the same time we cannot disregard the fact that Iran is our next-door neighbour and we are dependent for our natural gas imports on Iran same as Qatar.
It, however, does not require one to be a sage to understand the actual story and real characters behind all this melodrama with Qatar that homes a crucial forward base for the US Central Command. Like always, the US is yet again behind creation of this crisis for both ‘very-obvious’ and ‘not-so-obvious’ vested interest of her own in the region. Most significant among the obvious ones are the US-Israel chronic discomfort with media reporting by Al-Jazeera that frequently provided favourable projection space to Hammas/ Muslim Brotherhood factions and for Qatar’s lately becoming far too cordial towards Iran. The covert and the most stronger reason is the traditional US strategy of “Divide and Dominate through Defence sales”. Hence being a successful businessman Mr Trump first created a rift between the two Muslim states ‘for nothing’, and then from this ‘out-of-nothing’ crisis he managed selling out arms, ammunition and fighter aircraft worth billions of dollars within the same week to both the neighbours making most out of their customary naivety to open-secrets. This whole episode may help us recall that the same strategy was employed a year back by the West in the Middle East when they dropped arms and ammunition with a precisely-planned-error to both ISIS and Syrian forces so that the blaze of fire they (West) had ignited should not diminish merely for want of weapons.
Hence, within this great game of marketing interests mainly by the US & Co, Pakistan needs to play its cards with extreme caution and prudence putting the religion aside simply because the crisis bears entirely secular dynamics being very business-oriented in nature. The situation is no doubt a matter of concern for the entire Islamic world but for Pakistan especially it has some serious economic, political and diplomatic ramifications in the days ahead in the backdrop of likelihood that instead of Russia, this time round India is clearly going to take sides with the US and Saudi Arabia. For Pakistan, staying neutral would although not pay it as much dividends as expected when clear position is taken in favour of one particular party, yet a non-aligned posture would nevertheless preclude the likely situation to end up standing alone as a loser when the crisis is wrapped up by the rivals bilaterally. Hence, this Saudi-Qatar escalation requires Pakistan to perform yet another tightrope feat so as to make it to the other end with unblemished and impartial diplomatic outlook.
