I want to point out a very interesting article at Pat Lang’s site by Patrick Bahzad on Pakistan’s declining to participate in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen:
The members of the Pakistani Parliament have spoken – or maybe it was the Chiefs of Staff in Rawalpindi. Pakistan will not commit ground troops to a land-based operation against the Yemeni “Houthi” rebels. The news arrived on Friday and have stunned several Arab States, mostly Saudi-Arabia, but also the United Arab Emirates. In the US as well, a sense of disbelief seemed to prevail among the usual proponents of the anti-Iran faction.
Pakistan’s decision has drawn sharp criticism from these players, yet it is based on an instinct of self-preservation and national interest that should not come as a surprise, even to those advocating for a more aggressive approach in Yemen. What is at stake for Pakistan is not just its alliances with countries in the Gulf, but its standing in the future geopolitical landscape at the intersection of the Middle-East and South-Asia.
It provides a good backgrounder on the complex international politics of South and West Asia, something you won’t find in our slovenly domestic media who have correctly decided that Americans are much more interested in the underwear that female celebrities aren’t wearing than in events far away that could lead us into war.
Excess hyphen alert!
…
Also: _Could_ lead us into war? Haven’t we already been fighting in Yemen? And didn’t we just lose?
This was on the Times on Friday. Also, NPR.
While I agree that using armed drones to kill people is war, most of what we’ve been doing in Yemen is killing people the old Yemeni government didn’t like. Are they Al Qaeda? Who knows? Our human intelligence in that part of the world is pretty poor. We’re forced to rely on what we’re being told.
I disapprove of the use of assassination but I seem to be pretty lonely in that view. I think there’s a widespread assumption at least among the supporters of the Obama Administration that they know exactly what they’re doing 100% of the time. I’m skeptical. I think it’s more like 5% of the time. I didn’t support the Bush Administration’s actions, either. I’m sort of the Maytag repairman of analysts.
BTW, that’s a reason to be skeptical about an agreement with Iran—our human intelligence is so poor. We end up relying on what we’re being told, in this case by the Iranian government. How much of their development program are they hiding? We can be pretty confident it’s not zero. 10%? 90%? How would we know?
I didn’t see any reference to Pakistan’s key advantage over the Sunni Gulf States: falconry. If the Gulf States try to retaliate against Pakistan, they will lose access to hunting the Houbara bustard, which I think is technically illegal to hunt, but with oil money, the Gulf royalty gets access to its deepest passion and tradition.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been active in the Pakistan provence of Balochistan and the city of Karachi. A lot of anti-Islamisist dissidents fled there, and the IRG engaged in assassinations and organized violence against them. There were also drawn by the presence of tribal opposition groups (Baloch and other SW Iranian tribes) that headquarted in the part of Pakistan.
Pakistan is comfortable with the Sunni gulf states bankrolling Sunni fundamentalist militias in Pakistan/Afghanistan that attack Iranian proxies, but doesn’t want to provoke the Iranians otherwise. I think that is consistent with the linked piece’s main point that Pakistan differentiates btw/ defensive and offensive actions. The Saudis are seeking support for offensive actions in Yemen.
“I didn’t see any reference to Pakistan’s key advantage over the Sunni Gulf States: falconry.”
PD wins.