U have your own views and entitled to your opinion. However i am not in agreement with your statements except for the last para.
We r in difficult times now but its not like that we were always in similar condition or will remain the same. If millions of pakistani are working in GCC then these same Pakistani are responsible for making GCC capable of what they r today.
Its not like that only we want GCC support its the other way around as well. GCC is militarily so weak that they cant even handle few thousand houthis. Without protection if Pakistan KSA is as vulnerable to USA and Israel as Iraq and syria were.
Your statement that Pakistan cannot made independent foreign policy stand false as we still have the same instance in iran ksa dispute... 15 days back SMQ visited iran showing we still want to maintain balance between ksa and iran on the same timeframe visit of KSA was a success.
It was just a matter of time for ksa to realize the new facts of Pakistan making independent policies.
I dont understand why we as a nation want to use clutches and still wanted others to treat us an independent and proud nation.
If u behave like a slave others will treat u like a slave.
U want to leverage KSA and Iran dispute then they will treat u as slave.
There is a complete thought process in our foreign policy in which foreign policy is being moved from transactional based policies to relationship based policy.
Didnt we rejected FMS of USA but kept our relationship lines open with Taliban ? Didnt we fave the heat for almost a decade but in the long run USA did realize that they needed us and we were right as there is no military solution to afghanistan problem. Similarly KSA has back downed from her previous stance for Pakistan that we have to chose between iran and ksa. Clearly we havent chose any side but still getting relationships back to normal.
Brother, it's not me that wants Pakistan to be beholden to anyone or unable to draft truly independent policy. It is this way as a matter of fact, and I am merely pointing this out. Why do you think these moves with Saudi caused such a fiasco? If we were independent, might we not have completely ignored them?
Where we do maintain a stance like the one we took on the Taliban as you mentioned, or on not getting involved in Yemen, despite the fact that these moves cost us ties, we did them only after we had a proper assessment of what is in our national interest. It's a cold and calculated cost-benefit analysis. Par exemple:
Is it worth getting into Yemen just to keep Saudi happy? We concluded no, and kindly backed out despite GCC dissatisfaction, we can't afford to involve ourselves in a foreign sectarian conflict.
Is it worth looking the other way on Saudi initiatives in their own region, be it even reaching our to Israel? We concluded yes, it costs us nothing, and it would cost us not to stay quiet.
Our national interests have their own defined red lines, but beyond this we are to quite a large extent unable to draft truly independent policy. We are an international pipsqueak, and are reliant on allies for everything from financial bailouts, to war-fighting capability, to vaccines.
We can't afford to be an int'l pariah like Iran, we have no oil and LNG wealth to survive off, if we don't maintain ties with the West as an example, we'll be in a tough spot. Sanctions don't just bump numbers off of GDP, they literally lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of premature deaths, these happen by starvation, poverty, medical shortages etc.
On the other hand, what happens if we choose not to take Saudi, GCC, French, US (IMF) aid? We would default on dollar denominated debts. And that would be us done as an economy for a good decade or two. I work in finance as you know from prev conversations we've had... Argentina defaulted 16 years ago, folks in this business still treat its sovereign to this day as, and I quote, "a load of shit". If we allow ourselves to get to that point, that's us done in terms of investments, financial and capital markets, export credit, sovereign guaranteed financing etc. Even the Chinese would raise their rates or flee.
Now when you are taking loans from others, they don't do this without contractual conditions, and other unwritten and unstipulated expectations. If the Saudis bail us out, they expect our support to an
EXTENT. That's not to say they expect us to go guns blazing into Yemen, the whole Pakistani nation, and the whole of parliament (govt+opp), and the mill establishment, all rejected this. But some basics are very much expected of us.
What are those? To a degree to which it's tolerable, we won't interfere or deter Saudi initiatives in what they consider their sphere of influence, we do't actively or tacitly undermine them via Iran, Turkey, Malaysia etc, we don't move against the OIC in any way. We can have ties with these nations, that's fine, in the same way we expect the Saudis to have ties with India, but don't cross the line on certain matters. This is how all international relations operate, and creditors apply these conditions as a matter of obligation.
The US bails us out but only if we give Washington something, they will help take us off the FATF grey list, but only if we accommodate them in Afghanistan etc. There are no free lunches, and IMO, IK and his cabinet messed up the Saudi relations, they did not properly judge the int'l dynamics at play, and this move has gained us very little, and cost us a lot more. It utterly failed that cost benefit analysis. The army understood this and are now fixing it.
