Pakistan’s place in Gulf politics

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Much about the Arab Spring, its spillover, and mutation into a bloody sectarian orgy has simply missed Pakistan’s attention. At least the leadership could have, should have been better informed. For example, the average Egyptian would have been quite amused about a half a decade ago if told Mubarak would soon be rubbished to the dustbin of history. Yet the unprecedented series of events set in motion by the famous Tahrir square protests have stood out as an important example for all Muslim countries except, perhaps, Pakistan.

The following year saw the Muslim Brotherhood, not secular and leftist groups that protested, take the polls. But soon there was little to celebrate of the new democracy as the incumbent showed how easily public mandate could be bended to suit party objectives, in this case reframing society in the Brotherhood’s own narrow, far right of centre, mould. And so we had the military back before the ink could dry on (ousted) President Morsi’s wish list. What is more, almost all strands of Egyptians, except of course the mulla lobby, welcomed back the same military they had grown to detest until very recently. Salafi hordes more radical than the Brotherhood, who have since followed the Spring every step of the way, have now been pushed largely to the fringes, into the Sinai desert, where Cairo and Tel Aviv take turns in neutering them.

Pakistan was also without voice as the Spring rolled into Libya, and became practically dumbfounded when Nato partnered with the same al Qaeda groups that they were droning in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. And perhaps the Iranians and Russians were the only ones to smell a diplomatic rat when a similar effort was underway in Syria some three years ago. A horrific civil war and frantic cross-Atlantic diplomatic activity later the US was convinced that the biggest threat of the new century, fundamentalist militant Islamism, originated in the Wahabi kingdoms of the Gulf, and toned down its decades long ‘arrangement’ with their standard bearer, Saudi Arabia.

But under Nawaz Sharif Pakistan made its only, and much criticised, public gesture of embracing the Saudi vision statement for the new emerging Arabia. That, of course, vindicates long standing suspicion that if the Americans ever became awkward, Pakistan would replace them as the royal family’s gate guards. In the present circumstances, of course, the gesture could also quickly expand to military hardware for Syrian rebels, complicating the Arab situation from the outside, and inviting fury from neighbours like China and Iran. It is little surprise the prime minister delivered a more politically correct position when the House became hostile, but the real purpose behind parading Saudi and Bahrani royals across Islamabad remains unexplained.

The Arab street, again except the clergy, received our prime minister’s tilt with visible disgust, rejecting interference from a supposed fort of Islam that only makes news for the wrong reasons, and has hardly ever taken any real interest in the Arab world beyond Saudi Arabia, and a few words of support for the Palestinians.

If only Nawaz studied the Muslim world better, he would invite less problems in his own method of governance. But so long as he remains clueless about the most important political evolution of modern times, he will have little to deliver at home except complications and self defeating positions.