Daily Times

It would not be farfetched to assert that these are the worst times that the world has seen in living memory. Frankly, the original title for today’s article was ‘Divided nations’ as a derisive to the United Nations, which for all intents and purposes is anything but what its moniker implies. A bunch of kids playing the board game Risk might have more strategic sense than the little people leading the big nations of the world today. The fact that things have not escalated to a level where nuclear arsenals get involved is perhaps a miracle of the modern era. However, frighteningly, one buffoon with an itchy finger is all that would take to launch mankind back to the caves.

As of now, if anyone claims to have a handle on what is going on in the Middle East, he is obviously lying. Even those involved in the ugly mess seem to be clueless on what exactly are their goals, or even appear to have a strategy on how to go about achieving whatever they want to achieve. It is therefore rather amusing when analysts in Pakistan offer unsolicited advice to the government on the best, according to them, course of action. Thankfully, whether by design or by accident, it is a wonder that, thus far, the nation is not a main ingredient in the Middle Eastern hotpot; albeit, things are getting all the more dicey by the second and pretty soon sitting on the fence may not be an option, especially if someone blows away the fence.

“A prince also wins prestige for being a true friend or a true enemy, that is, for revealing himself without any reservation in favour of one side against another,” said Machiavelli in The Prince. Machiavelli’s logic behind this advice is simple: a ruler who does not declare himself will be at the mercy of the conqueror and will likewise earn the scorn of the loser. Definitely, it would appear things were much simpler in his time and that back then, a few centuries ago, it could be determined with relative ease which nation was against whom and for what reason. In modern times, nothing is that clear.

While it is unclear, at least to some of us, whether or not Pakistan has joined the Saudi-led coalition of 34 nations against terrorism, beyond nodding heads and shaking hands, the definition of who exactly are the terrorists remains opaque. Looking at some of the nations on the list, one can only wonder what could possibly be their beef against the Houthis in Yemen. Irrespective, kudos to our leadership for taking a principled stand then and now by clarifying that conflict with Iran and Syria are no go areas for Pakistan.

But this is again ultra confusing; obviously the Saudis have not formed the coalition to fight Pakistan’s war against terrorism so who exactly is the enemy that Pakistan will be fighting side by side with other coalition members, if Iran and Syria are excluded, is a $ 65 billion question. And those who are clueless about what all that money symbolises, that is the approximate amount of money owed by Pakistan to foreign lenders. After all, if we are joining a coalition to fight another war on terror, it must, or should, be for the money.

Let there be no doubt, if we are in the coalition, looking at the rest of the coalition partners, our soldiers will be the ones doing most of the fighting. Narratives and counter-narratives explaining good and bad at the ideological level, and on news channel debates, is another thing, motivating soldiers to fight a real war against their kinship is another.

Having recently watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens, clearly the galaxy makes more sense than this crazy world. At least it is clear who the villain is and who the good guys are, and good whoops evil in the end. For the record, I enjoyed the movie thoroughly! On the other hand, in the real world, a bunch of conspiracies keep floating around, the latest of which is that Syria discovered gas fields in its territorial area and these reserves have put all the rest of the gas reserves in the Middle East to shame. Once again, conspiracy theorists project the conflict as having to do with oil or gas. Another theory is that this has much more to do with the dollar and finally there is that issue of the age-old war between the east and the west. Whatever the causation, the powers of the world are at daggers drawn and, once again, Pakistan seems to be riding numerous boats up the creek without a paddle although, till now, they have been doing a great job of it.

The US is giving us lots of aid directly, or indirectly, through the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Chinese are building the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Russians are building a pipeline. All that is left is to get the pipeline from Iran, oil on a deferred basis from the Saudis and, coupled with growing friendship with India and dialogue with Afghanistan, we would eventually end up fighting a war with ourselves.

In the most part, all that is happening in the world today is uncontrollable but can have serious repercussions for Pakistan; all credit to the government for having managed the situation amicably thus far. But, going forward, Pakistan cannot stay aloof from the world or avoid international intrigue and conflict continually. Accordingly, common sense suggests that, in the very near future, clear choices will have to be made, we cannot be ‘friendly’ with everyone and that the party cannot go on forever. There never was and there can never be a truly non-aligned nation.

Admittedly, national security or international conflicts are beyond the personal scope of learning and is best left to technocrats with knowledge and experience of such matters although from the looks of things there are not many on the global level that have any clue about why the world is in this mess. Nonetheless, it would appear rational to clearly define the economic, social and security interests of Pakistan, before choosing the lesser of all evils, and the time for doing so is now if we as a nation are to survive this crazy world.

The writer is a chartered accountant based in Islamabad. He can be reached at syed.bakhtiyarkazmi@gmail.com and on twitter @leaccountant