The intense media coverage of various dimensions of the Yemen conflict and the debate over Pakistan’s military involvement will keep it front-and-centre of the foreign policy agenda, which, given the nature of the issue, will also influence the substance of Pakistan’s public opinion. Besides its resolve to avoid domestic Shia-Sunni tensions, Pakistan’s decision to avoid being dragged into the ongoing Yemen conflict is rooted in the feeling of unease stemming from the tectonic shifts in the regional balance of power following normalcy in Iran-US relations. Had Pakistan responded positively to Saudi Arabia and joined the military offensive against the Shia militants in Yemen, it would have been an act of immense strategic foolishness. With Iran eventually getting unshackled from crippling military-economic sanctions, Pakistan has every reason to believe that antagonising an Iran whose geopolitical stock is going to rise astoundingly would be strategically counterproductive.
With the Turkish-Pakistani decision to abstain from the Yemen conflict and the gradual collapse of the grand idea of a united Sunni front, the Iranians have already proved that their hard-nosed diplomacy is far more effective than Saudi money power. Western countries have a vested interest in promoting rapprochement with an Iran that abandons its nuclear ambitions, opens its huge domestic market to foreign direct investment, emerges as an alternative to Russia as an energy supplier to Europe and helps find solutions to the terrorism challenge coming from the so-called Islamic State (IS). Iran is also likely to play a dominant role in the stabilisation of strife-torn Afghanistan. Pakistan is worried about Iran’s capacity to influence events in Afghanistan.
Will Saudi Arabia allow Pakistan to be neutral? This is the most important question given the fact that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have maintained excellent relations. Saudi Arabia has proved to be a reliable friend to Pakistan’s governing elite. When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, it was Saudi Arabia that provided unaccounted money to the mujahideen through Pakistan in their fight against the Soviets. In return for Saudi funds, Pakistan has always come to the rescue of Saudi Arabia when the latter needed it militarily. But other than its generous financial assistance to Pakistan, it is the ideological dimension of the Saudi-Pak alliance that has been very disturbing regionally. Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghan war was not without a price. Opening up its soil for the recruitment and training of illiterate, impressionable and radical young minds from far corners of the globe was the most decisive moment in the history of Pakistan. It continues to haunt Pakistan as its domestic sectarian divisions and a deep-rooted culture of state sponsorship of jihadi terror can be traced back to what was preached and produced in Afghan refugee camps.
Pakistan has invested so much emotional, social and human capital in Afghanistan that having a ‘friendly’ or client regime in Afghanistan has compulsively become a default position of Pakistan’s strategic worldview. Although an Islamic bond does exist between Iran and Pakistan, Tehran has consistently undercut Islamabad’s designs in Kabul. Iran, which is less prone to get carried away by the religious rhetoric of the Pakistani elite, has at every turn practiced realpolitik, vigilantly pushing its own national interests. That is why Iran cooperated with India in strengthening the Northern Alliance’s resistance to the radically fundamentalist Taliban movement with its anti-Shia and anti-Iran tendencies. Can Tehran forget that the Taliban were created as part of a grand strategy of isolating and containing Iran?
On the other hand, India and Iran have shared close ties. Iran is at the heart of a number of key Indian strategic interests, including more diversified supplies of energy. Indo-Iranian ties, however, came under severe stress during the last few years due to improvement in Indo-US relations and the latter’s antagonism towards Iran’s nuclear programme. With Iran-US rapprochement becoming a reality now, it will be much easier for India to explore more depth in its relations with Iran. Moreover, a strong relationship with Iran is vital to preserve India’s interests in Afghanistan, which is the most proximate country in India’s extended neighbourhood.
India is upgrading Iran’s Chahbahar port and its transportation links with Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries. Chahbahar port, located on the Makran coast of the Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran, is already connected to the city of Zaranj in Nimruz province of Afghanistan. Often referred to as the golden gate to the landlocked Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan, Chahbahar will considerably increase India’s economic footprint in these regions.
Afghans should not be blamed for feeling that a rapprochement between the US and Iran will relieve their country from the grip of Pakistan as the only trade and transit route. If the nuclear deal with Iran goes through, it will be a huge challenge for Pakistan to continue to be strategically useful to US policy in Afghanistan. The US has so far been wholly dependent on Pakistan to get into Afghanistan. With a thaw in their mutual relations, the US may prefer to explore the Iran route to Afghanistan rather than being dictated by Pakistan. This will certainly diminish Pakistan’s geostrategic importance and may seriously hamper its ambitions of getting ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, which the Iranians have never allowed Pakistan to acquire.
It needs no mention that the border area between Iran and Pakistan has remained volatile in recent months with Iran accusing Sunni militants based in Balochistan in Pakistan of mounting attacks inside its territory. Islamabad does not want to allow the Yemen conflict to derail its attempts to stop further deterioration of its relations with Tehran. Pakistan may have decided that the risks of overly antagonising Iran are too high.
Saudi Arabia’s minister for religious affairs’ arrival in Pakistan immediately following a visit by the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif demonstrates the conflicted dynamics of the situation. Keeping both Saudi Arabia and Iran satisfied simultaneously is going to be a diplomatic tightrope for Pakistani decision-makers. Similarly, the challenges before Afghan President Ashraf Ghani are no less formidable. Ghani is fully aware that the Saudis wield considerable influence over the Taliban leadership and the Taliban will not enter the peace process with his government without pressure from Saudi Arabia. But it would be suicidal for Ghani to actively oppose Iran in the current conflict in Yemen.
A shift in the regional balance of power in Iran’s favour may ensure that Pakistan’s ability to influence events in Afghanistan will get substantially compromised. If the withdrawal of the US-led forces from Afghanistan is not accompanied with a genuine, broad-based reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government, the ensuing conflict will lead to another torrent of Afghan refuges into Pakistan’s restive tribal areas, further complicating the social fabric and putting an additional financial burden besides escalating violence. As a matter of fact, India and Iran are also not likely to accept a power-sharing arrangement in Afghanistan that serves as a facilitator for Pakistan’s strategic designs in the region.
The writer is an assistant professor at the Department of International Affairs and Security Studies and coordinator at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Sardar Patel University of Police, Security and Criminal Justice in Jodhpur