News
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Unrest in Arab world can subside US focus on Pak, Afghanistan: PIPS
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The American focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan may subside with increasing unrest in Middle East where the balance of power is shifting in favour of Iran, said STRATFOR Middle East and South Asia Regional Director Kamran Bukhari, while delivering his lecture on “Middle East Unrest” at the Pak Institute for Peace Studies on Wednesday.
“The recent spate of public unrest in the Arab world cannot replicate itself in Pakistan because the situation here is much different. People in Pakistan are much exhausted and fragmented and are less likely to unite for some revolution or regime change. But the unrest in Arabian peninsula has some implications for Pakistan,” he further added. Kamran Bukhari asserted that the role of armies in the Arab world is not that of governing the countries, rather they seek to rule the countries by keeping the civilian set-ups on the front. He maintained that this role would likely sustain, as we don’t see any revolution in Arab countries like that of Iranian revolution. Even the ‘democracy’ and ‘changes of regimes’ are not the visible outcomes in all the cases. The power brokers, including armies, in these countries are trying to readjust their positions to cool down the public agitations. People are being offered some political and economic incentives for that.
However, space for western democracy and multiparty politics has started to emerge and that is where regimes in Arab world find themselves at odd. His lecture was followed by a question-answer session. Responding to a question about regional and global political implications of the Middle East unrest, he argued that particularly the worsening situation in Yemen and Bahrain is a dilemma for Saudi Arabia and the US because Iran can benefit from it.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk