The deal was made within days after Israeli air force planes bombarded some strategic sites of Qatar. Have the Saudis lost trust in the US, which has traditionally been their security manager? Minor irritants in bilateral relations are not uncommon. However, in the case of US-Saudi relations, perhaps the irritants were not so serious as to affect Saudi-US relations seriously. International diplomacy is not that fragile.
Israel would not normally hazard a Qatar adventure without prior consultation with President Trump. Prime Minister Netanyahu is the only leader in the world today who seems to know how to deal with enigmatic Trump, and he often boasts in other countries that he controls the US President.
Whether Trump was taken on board or not, matters not, given the total support of the US for Israel. There are strong reasons for Netanyahu to have made the decision.
Qatar has huge natural gas deposits. It has been steadily gaining prominence in recent years as an alternative strategic base for the US in the Gulf region. Saudi Arabia, being the world’s foremost oil supplier, will not play second fiddle in the Gulf region. It has enjoyed the historical distinction of being the most important strategic partner of the US in the area.
Under covert US patronage, Qatar aspired to play the unsolicited role of a peace-broker for the West Asian proxies and their handlers locked in a chronic struggle with Israel. Its significance increased for the Americans and the West Asian leaders when Qatar allowed the Taliban to open an office in Doha.
Almost all negotiations held between the Taliban leadership and the Americans were conducted in Qatar. This was an additional cause for Saudi displeasure with the Americans. Some of the top leaders of radical Islamic groups in West Asia took permanent residence in Qatar.
Doha became something like the political headquarters of the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamic radical groups pitted against Israel. Most of the leading Islamic radical proxies gravitated towards Qatar, and the local government facilitated an anti-Israel platform for radical Islamists, some of whom took permanent residence there.
The situation under discussion reminds me of the cryptic remark of late Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State. He said, “The US as an enemy is dangerous and as a friend is deadly”. That is what the American Deep State is.
What has led Riyadh to enter into a security deal with Pakistan, a country that has been begging for the friendship and support of the Saudi kingdom from day one of its birth? No doubt, Riyadh has been throwing crumbs to Pakistan, but it has never attached any great importance to it. Why then the sudden bonhomie?
The agreement stipulates that an attack on any one of the two countries will be considered an attack on both. Many Muslim countries have liked the deal under discussion.
The question is, what is the threat perception of the Saudis? Pakistan, we know, has been playing the Indophobia card for the last seven decades, and the world knows who has been the originator of the Bombay carnage, the Bangladesh war, the Kargil war, and the Pahalgam crime?
Saudi Arabia maintained good relations with India throughout, more so during the Modi era. Crown Prince Salman said that India was not in focus while the terms of the deal were discussed.
We know that some Muslim countries want a change in the leadership of the Muslim ummah. Turkey (Turkiye) leads them. Pakistan was also invited by the dissident groups some years ago when they convened a meeting in Malaysia. Pakistan had backed out at the eleventh hour because of threats from Riyadh demanding that Pakistan clear its debt to the Kingdom.
Notwithstanding MBS’s clarification that India was not in sight when the treaty was signed with Pakistan, the question is that in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, India has categorically stated that Operation Sindoor against Pakistan has not come to an end, and that it will strike decisively if Pakistan stages new terrorist attacks.
Pakistan will not be deterred by the deterrence India has used during the four-day missile war. The Generals are planning more mischief. The question is: in case of India’s retaliatory action, have the Saudis calculated the consequences of actively supporting Pakistan against India?
What will happen to the strong trade relations and supply chains between the two countries? Has Riyadh considered the regional realignments likely to emerge out of Saudi-Pakistan bonhomie? Is Pakistan in a position to defend the shores and lands of Saudi Arabia if a third country were to strike or invade Saudi Arabia?
The Muslim world is generally against the US. Iranians call the American president “Shaitan-i-Rajeem“, meaning The Devil Incarnate. Ordinary Muslims consider Saudi Arabia a stooge of America. This is a game plan of the American deep state. Trump is using all pawns at his command to damage India economically, politically, and in terms of regional strategy. A component of his anti-India campaign is to bolster Pakistan, the arch-enemy of India. Washington would very much like to provide Pakistan with state-of-the-art military hardware so that it can arrest India’s growth as a military and economic power. But since it cannot supply the war equipment openly — that would bring widespread opprobium —- in all probability, Washington will supply arms to Pakistan via Saudi Arabia. Washington knows that arms supplies to Saudi Arabia would not evoke criticism from India.
Assuming that the deal between the two was precipitated by Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, we are reminded that the Saudis, though joining their voice with the rest of the Muslim world in castigating some actions of the Israeli state, have never expressed the level of hostility that Iran manifests against the Israelis. Iran has often accused the Saudis of following the American policy of intimate cooperation with Israel. After Israel and the UAE formally established trade relations, Saudi and Israeli leaders were seriously thinking about establishing bilateral relations in trade and commerce and tourism sectors to start with. Had not Israeli attacks on Hamas continued in their fury, perhaps an understanding of sorts would have come bout between Israel and the Saudis.
At the end of the day, we will have to track the reaction of the Islamic regimes in West Asia, Africa, and South Asia to the security deal signed by the Saudis and Pakistan. How Iran looks at it is of much significance. In the present political scenario, the deal is to be dissected in light of (a) the conflict between India and Pakistan conflict, (b) the reactions of Some Muslim states led by Turkey desirous of wresting the leadership of the Ummah from the Saudis, and (c) the possibility of Iran successfully test firing some nuclear device, thereby snatching from Pakistan the prestigious status of being the only Muslim country with a nuclear bomb and presenting a heightened threat to Saudi Arabia’s regime, in view of the latter’s vassality to the US.
Add comment