Published June 9, 2016
SOURCE: ENS
The latest joke making the rounds in Pakistan has it that the May 23 Trilateral Transit Agreement — signed in Tehran during PM Modi’s visit there — between India, Iran and Afghanistan so fazed and unnerved Nawaz Sharif that he got a heart attack. He underwent bypass surgery in London on May 31.
A Pakistani layman has it to his abiding consternation why can’t his leaders have faith in their own medical facilities and why must they run off to London or New York for even minor ailments? And then they exhort their countrymen to have faith in Pakistan. But faith seems to be in short supply in Islamabad, especially its ‘establishment,’ in the wake of three of Pakistan’s neighbours ‘ganging up,’ in the eyes of many a cynic, to outmanoeuvre and outflank Islamabad in one clean swoop.
The trilateral agreement Modi coaxed out of Pakistan’s Muslim neighbours — in the critique of the India-centric detractors — is a smart move on the regional chessboard of one-upmanship. The agreement is anchored on the Iranian Port of Chabahar, which will be developed into a modern outlet with 500 million dollars of Indian money. To the Pakistanis, the Indian gambit is calculated to checkmate the Port of Gwadar, just 70 kilometers from Chabahar. Gwadar is intended to be the crown-jewel of the 46 billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor on which Nawaz Sharif has, apparently, staked his future in Pakistani politics. Gwadar will be China’s pivot of outlet to the Arabian Sea.
Chabahar will be doing the same thing, in reverse, for India, allowing it to gain access to Iran, Afghanistan and — the main-prize — the vast region of Central Asian Republics (CAR) of the defunct Soviet Union. The religion-conscious Pakistani pundits can’t put aside their sensitivity that all CARs are Muslim and should, in their faith-phobia, be automatically inclined to Muslim Pakistan than (Hindu) India.
So Modi, in checkmating Pakistan on the coast of Arabian Sea as well as in Central Asia and Afghanistan is triggering off a new Great Game, in reverse, in the 21st century against both Pakistan and China. The protagonists and contenders of the 19th century Great Game — Imperial Britain and Imperial Russia — sought to thwart each other in their lunge to the warm waters of Arabian Sea. Here, Pakistan and India are going to fight it out in their thrust into Central Asia. What incenses the Pakistani establishment — army and intelligence agencies — most is Modi’s checkmate devaluing Pakistan’s trump card of access to land-locked Afghanistan, and beyond, through its territory. India has long been frustrated in its quest to have access for its goods to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Chabahar is going to steal all the thunder from Pakistan’s pivotal position as the only inlet to, and outlet from, Afghanistan.
Of greater chagrin to Pakistan is how Iran — a neighbour with whom it shares much, much, more than just land border — has allowed itself to be roped into an ‘axis’ aimed at undercutting Pakistan and its core interests in the region. What these Pakistani Cassandras forget, however, is the old dictum of no permanency of friends or enemies but of national interest only. But un-blinkered Pakistani pundits with open minds argue that as far as delivering Iran into India’s arms is concerned, Pakistan has scored an own-goal. They fault the Pakistani leadership for subverting Pakistan’s ineluctable geo-political compulsion to cultivate Iran and sacrificing this core national interest at the altar of its civil and military leadership’s subservience to Iran’s arch-rival, Saudi Arabia — and Saudi Arabia’s principal mentor, US. Pakistan wilfully squandered a golden opportunity to benefit both itself and Iran during the period when Iran was under West-enforced sanctions. Sanctions against Iraq in 1990s — history’s most suffocating according to their American authors — had been flouted with impunity by those who had nothing in common with Iraq.
But Pakistan deliberately chose not to help Iran and itself and instead took cover under the sanctions’ umbrella. It was starved of natural gas and next door Iran, awash with gas, was ready to fill all its needs; it laid a gas pipeline years ago up to the Pakistani border but, to date, Pakistan hasn’t moved a finger to do the same on its side. Pakistan stopped buying the Iranian crude — to a drop — because of Saudi and American diktat. So why bemoan now that Iran has drifted to Pakistan’s arch-rival, India?
A friend in need is a friend indeed, the Iranian Ambassador in Islamabad reminded his Pakistani interlocutors. India was the only country that continued to buy Iranian crude despite the sanctions. Why shouldn’t Iran oblige a ‘real friend’ with favours opposite a reluctant neighbour?
Nawaz was one of the earliest visitors to Tehran, following the lifting of sanctions against Iran, early this year but did nothing to warm Pakistan to Iran. And during Hasan Rouhani’s visit to Islamabad, in March, the Pakistani establishment embarrassed him by insinuating that Iran was providing sanctuaries to Indian spies against Pakistan. It’s petulant of Pakistan to cry over spilt milk now that India has stepped in to fill the vacuum for both Iran and Afghanistan.
And, as per the Iranian Ambassador in Islamabad, “the deal (on Chabahar) is not finished.” It isn’t a done deal yet and the Iranians are still game to both China and Pakistan. But the invitation only adds to Pakistan’s concerns: what if China takes the bait and starts nibbling on Chabahar, too? What future will there be, then, for Gwadar? Keep your fingers crossed for the health of both Gwadar and Nawaz.
Modi in the US is bound to raise temperature in Islamabad.
karamatullah k ghori is a former Pakistan diplomat
