Watch out for Arab Agenda against Iran
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada
It made big news when Imran Khan, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan—and the only Muslim state with atomic power—was shown on television screen driving his honored guest from UAE, its crown prince, to the airport.
In any normal country, this trifle news would hardly merit a headline. In a democracy it makes no news, much less a media splash, if their PM is seen driving his own car. But Pakistan is an extraordinary country, which has been made all the more ‘abnormal’ by its politicians and leaders.
Pakistani politics’ abnormality is being fed by the day from day-one of Imran Khan’s coming to power. Pakistan’s traditional politicians belonging to PPP and PML-N, as well as their allies among the religious brigades—the ever-imposing clerics—have arrogated it to themselves as a god-ordained ‘right’ to oppose him in whatever way possible.
So, every move of Imran’s is under their microscopic watch. Those in the media whose perks and privileges have dried up under Imran Khan are as eager as their political mentors to lend their own weight to the anti-Imran campaign.
What Imran did to honor his princely guest was nothing more than a common courtesy. The PM went out of his way to be extra-decent to his guest because the Prince had, on his part, gone the extra mile to lend Pakistan a big helping hand in IK’s chief concern to bail the country out of its current economic bind—a bequest to him from the two preceding regimes of Zardari and Nawaz Sharif.
When he was on the campaign trail last year—and even long before it for years—Imran’s pet-slogan was that he was on a crusade against Pakistan’s bone-corrupt political mafias.
However, once saddled in power last August, Imran had to quickly shift gears. It didn’t take long to dawn on him that top priority had to be given to fixing a badly hemorrhaging economy—the poisoned chalice to him from the ignoble and thieving cabal of rulers preceding his rise to power in Pakistan.
The economy Imran inherited was on life-support. What the Nawaz regimes bequeathed to him was an empty treasury. Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves had plummeted to a pitiful $ 6 billion, barely enough to cover less than two months of imports.
So, with his well-known crusading zeal, Imran embarked on a campaign which had barely figured in his bid to become Pakistan’s leader. He had to revive the moribund economy before it became a terminal case.
The options beckoning him were few.
There was the easy option of going to IMF, which had been the wont of all governments and regimes coming before him. The begging bowl was there and so was IMF. But in his election rhetoric Imran had lambasted his political rivals for the blight of loans crushing Pakistan under their weight. In the ten years—from 2008 to 2018—that Zardari and Nawaz Sharif alternated in power, the two corrupt Dons had borrowed twice as much from the outside world than all the previous governments had in sixty years.
Moreover, Imran had decried the IMF habit of loaning with umpteen strings and conditionalities attached. He decided, instead, to explore another option: knock at the doors of Pakistan’s rich friends and brothers-in-faith in the Arab world.
Shunning an election pledge that he would not go abroad and spend all his time fixing the country’s myriad socio-economic problems at home, Imran embarked on a crash course of visiting Saudi Arabia and UAE (United Arab Emirates) twice to each place within his first three months in power. He refused to be distracted by his political rivals and detractors thumbing their noses at what they pooh-poohed as his unabashed U-turns. To the likes of Zardari, Nawaz and their cabals of yes-men, Imran’s exploits with the Sheikhs and rulers of the Gulf were just baffling.
Adding to the chagrin of his myriad detractors, Imran’s strategy of canvassing for largesse from the rich and powerful Sheikhs and potentates of the Gulf is paying visible and early dividends.
The Crown Prince of UAE, Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, arrived in Islamabad on January 6 on a two-day visit to lend a hand of munificence to Imran’s ‘New Pakistan.’ He came with a handsome package of $ 6.2 billion in badly needed economic assistance to Pakistan. Of this amount, $ 3 billion is going to be a cash deposit into Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves and $ 3.2 billion in the form of crude oil to Pakistan on deferred payment.
UAE has also pledged to set up, near Karachi, a deep-conversion oil refinery in a $ 5.6 billion joint venture with Pakistan’s state-owned refining outfit, Parco.
Earlier, Imran had courted the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, aka MBS, at a time when the Saudi royal was being shunned by his Western friends for his alleged culpability in the heinous murder of a well-known Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in Istanbul, Turkey.
That gambit of Imran had also garnered lucrative goodies for Pakistan. The Saudis, too, agreed to beef up Pakistan’s starving foreign exchange reserves with a hefty dole of $3 billion. Two billion dollars of it are already into the Pakistani kitty. In addition, oil worth $ 3.2 billion was pledged to Pakistan on deferred payment.
Like the Emiratis, the Saudis are also going to commission a petro-chemical complex at the Pakistani port of Gwadar, within hailing distance of their arch-rival Iran.
In addition to these two generous Arab ‘brothers’ of Pakistan—who have between them doled out nearly $ 13 billion dollars to shore up the Pakistani economy—the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC) in Jeddah is extending, on a nod from the Saudis, its principal benefactors, $1.5 billion in trade financing support to Pakistan.
It must be stunning to Imran’s friends and foes alike that in a short span of four months, he has managed to drag Pakistan back from the precipice of almost-certain economic ruin. And the more remarkable feat of achievement is that he has done it without IMF, with whom talks are still dragging for a bailout package of $ 6 to 7 billion.
Imran’s legions of fawning fans credit this shining achievement to his charisma and his image of an incorruptible and honest leader. The Sheikhs of Arabia, too, apparently seem deeply inspired and impressed by his credentials.
However, the more seasoned pundits, looking at the larger picture, may be wary of an impending test of his yet-unproven skills as a statesman.
Both Saudi Arabia and UAE are sworn enemies of Iran, Pakistan’s next-door neighbor. They tried to take on Iran in Yemen, but their misadventure has fired back on them. Their prime mentor in the White House, too, has been hamstrung by the backlash from Congress over the heinous murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Congress has already passed a resolution calling to end US military support to its Arab allies against Yemen.
So, like a hopeless drowning man, the Petro-dollar-rich Arab states mired in the bog of Yemen may have concluded to curry support against Iran elsewhere. They may have decided to take a chance on Imran’s Pakistan, the best alternative in their perception to bail them out of the pit they have dug themselves into because of their anti-Iran phobia.
Pakistan has been there before Imran: at cross-roads where its traditional—and rightly pragmatic—policy of taking no sides between the Arabs and the Persians of Iran has been challenged and tested.
We were at that cross-roads during the currency of Iran-Iraq War in the 80s. But General Ziaul Haq, then in command of Pakistan, stuck to his guns and refused to bend to, or wilt under, enormous Arab pressure despite his well-known soft corner for Saudi Arabia and others in the Gulf.
Imran is moving quickly on the international front. He has already benefited from the wisdom and experience of towering Muslim statesmen, such as Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammad and Turkey’s Tayyip Recep Erdogan. His learning curve in what was a terra- incognita—the world of diplomacy and foreign policy—to him until he ascended to power is climbing upward at an impressively brisk pace to the discomfort of his befuddled detractors.
Imran should, therefore, have no difficulty in quickly grasping the ropes of balancing his feet between the Arabs and the Iranians. Imran’s Arab friends are entitled to expect some early return on their investment in him as Pakistan’s incumbent and undisputed leader. They may also think that by obliging him at a critical stage for his government they could force his hand to bend to their whims.
This obvious chasm between the expectations of his Arab benefactors and his duty to preserve Pakistan’s traditional legacy of taking no sides between the Arabs and the Iranians is going to test him and his leadership in more ways than one. He should not flunk this litmus test. His baptism as a skilled leader and statesman is still ahead of him.- K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
(The writer is a former ambassador and career diplomat)
Back to Pakistanlink Homepage
