Daily Times

I have been writing about this for years now. A series of articles was published on these pages in April that reiterated that at some point Pakistan would be asked to take a broader role in dealing with the emerging Islamic State (IS) threat in the Middle East. Recent news reports of meetings between top US and Pakistani civil and military officials confirm that the two sides are negotiating on the Pakistani role in combating IS.
Without sounding pompous, to me it seemed the natural culmination of events that have been shaping the region. There have been three dominant regional powers in Gulf security: Iran, Turkey and the Muslim ‘sultanate’ of the subcontinent. This had to be because of demographics and geography. Just when Turkey and Iran had been dominant empires in the region, Muslim India played the role of balancer in the region on and off. When the British came to the subcontinent, the security of the Gulf was heavily linked to the British presence in India. The Nizam of Hyderabad — of colonised India — was the guarantor between the House of Saud and the Hejaz tribes after the 1920s conflict, and the amirs and monarchs of the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) emirates were given the honours reserved for Indian princely states. So, as the British order is crumbling in the Middle East, a lot will fall on these three states to restore order in the region.
In this context, I had proposed that Pakistan needed to move out of its rented security apparatus role in the region and engage proactively in ensuring regional stability. Of course, because of sectarian and geopolitical strife, Iran and the GCC countries harbour massive mutual distrust. Similarly, Turkey, from the Ottoman days, is considered a hegemon by many GCC monarchs. The GCC itself has come a long way from being a bunch of pearl trading port economies to energy giants. Post-Iranian revolution, in Pakistan they saw a poor country with a strong army that was ready to do their bidding against the Shia revolution in Iran. Iran was an outcast then, Pakistan solely reliant on the US and all GCC countries close allies of the US. It was an arrangement made in heaven.
But a lot has changed since then. For one, as the centre of the world is shifting east, Pakistan has found more clout in the new ‘great game’. Post-9/11, the west became concerned about the Middle Eastern political system that has harboured Islamic terrorism, which has become a threat for the west and so the west wants to calibrate this threat. Thus began the process of rapprochement with Iran as a counter-force. Then there is a weakening of western economies, which is forcing the US to disengage from the region while protecting some key strategic interests. On the other hand, unlike the US, its key western allies, particularly France and the UK, are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern oil and so they, in some cases, are pursuing policies contrary to the US. Above all, we have a risen China that has become a key global player in the region and beyond. This, too, gives Pakistan significantly more clout than in the past.
The GCC states and Turkey started the regional great game in Syria by backing Islamic extremists and others to topple the Assad regime. They were backed by the UK and France, and ultimately the US had to be dragged in. However, soon enough the US realised that the ‘game’ was strengthening the hand of extremists. The realisation came late and we had IS established by then. Even the elements that broke away from IS and were fighting it in Syria were al Qaeda elements. As IS is becoming stronger, even the GCC monarchies and Turkey have woken up to the threat of IS. However, this is where the trouble begins. Their idea of countering IS is al Qaeda. And my fear is that in our bid to be rented we may jump in on the side of our Arab allies. Till the time of this writing, I have not seen any clear indications of whether the US approves of this new strategy or not and whether it is persuading Pakistan on the same strategy or a different one. Raw analysis suggests that the US may actually be planning a state-centric response to IS than this al Qaeda strategy but this may not be the case.
One thing, however, is clear. We are on the verge of entering our third backing of militants who will fight IS in Iraq and Syria — the Shia-led government in Iraq, Assad regime in Syria and the Houthis in Yemen. Interestingly, contrary to our two previous stints of raising militants in the 1980s and 2000s, this time the strategy will have the stamp of approval of a regime that is ensured to be representative through a stamp that resulted from a planned, long bout of sit-in, judicial commission and all. If we join this dirty fight, we will be moving from good and bad Taliban (regional phenomenon) to good and bad global jihadis, and the repercussions will be all the more devastating. What Pakistan needed was a security engagement in the Middle East centred on respecting, as much as possible, the existing political map through engagement with Iran and the GCC that ensures the sovereignty and security of the GCC nations. Where things seem to be heading is the same second fiddle renting of services to the highest bidder.
If the US is resisting the al Qaeda plan, there is some hope that plan will not materialise. What if the US has decided on the time-tested strategy of great powers whereby they leave a region that cannot be fixed, leaving it in perpetual chaos right in China’s and Russia’s backyard? Perpetual chaos is what will emerge if we try to counter IS through al Qaeda. It ultimately will result in heightened sectarian and regional conflicts. We have the power to quell the fire but it depends on what dictates our decisions: the financial interests of a few or the long-term interest of all? Are we even seeing the power we have, leave aside exercising it?

The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik