Can Pakistan play a role in defusing Saudi-Iran conflict?

The Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) emergency summits called by Saudi Arabia are to be held on Thursday, a day before the long-scheduled OIC summit. It is not yet clear how many countries will take part in the emergency gatherings, but Qatar which has been boycotted by a Saudi-led alliance has been invited to attend the GCC meeting.

Riyadh cut diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2016 after protesters stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran following its execution of a prominent Shia cleric. The OIC summit will address "current issues in the Muslim world" and "recent developments in a number of OIC member states", the official agenda states. Saudi Arabia and its allies have repeatedly accused Iran of interfering in the affairs of other countries, including Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, by supporting and arming fighters.

Qatar has grown closer to Iran, while Kuwait has expressed concern over Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. Oman, which has good ties with both Iran and the United States, has said it and other parties "seek to calm tensions" between the two countries. Ahead of the summits, Iran's top diplomats have been touring the region, including Iraq, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. Iran, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey, also has good relations with Ankara and Islamabad.

I am obliged to refer to an Editorial  published in one of Pakistan’s leading English newspaper and Dawn on 26th May 2019 that needs to be read by all Pakistanis very carefully and dispassionately. I have often asserted that Pakistan’s neighbors are turning hostile because the successive governments have been following the US foreign policy agenda, without taking into account the deprecations.

Dawn has rightly highlighted the need for serious deliberations because of the threat of a catastrophic conflict between the US and Iran looming larger over the region. It is encouraging that the incumbent government appears to be making a considerable diplomatic effort to defuse simmering tensions between the two countries.

On last Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif concluded his two-day trip to Pakistan with an encouraging message from Pakistan’s civil and military leadership — that maximum restraint must be exercised in the prevailing situation as any conflict in an already volatile region could threat global peace and stability. Zarif expressed his satisfaction with Pakistan’s view that US pressure on Iran was unjustified. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi also emphasized the need for a resolution of the crisis through dialogue.

It is evident from Zarif’s comments as well as Prime Minister Imran Khan’s earlier visit to Tehran that the incumbent government is making an effort to avoid taking sides. It is by no means an easy situation, given Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both have been generous in extending monetary support to Pakistan. The situation becomes even more difficult to handle, when there is internal and external pressure.

In 2015, parliament’s decision against sending troops to support the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen was a brave step but the current scenario could test the limits of that position. Pakistan’s relationship with Saudi Arabia runs deep. The countries also enjoy strategic and military cooperation. If the warm reception and vows of solidarity during the Saudi crown prince’s February visit are anything to go by, it will not be easy to stay neutral in the face of a request for support from Riyadh.

In this situation, the guiding principle should be to resist any external pressure in the best interest of the country as well as the region. Pakistan has successfully avoided supporting any side during Iran-Iraq war and the ongoing Yemen conflict. Therefore, Pakistan must remain steadfast in protecting its own interests, while making the best efforts to resolve the conflict between the two Muslim countries.

Islamabad should use whatever little influence it has on Iran to demonstrate that it (Iran) is not directly involved in the Yemeni conflict. Or, if the OIC countries push for a strong anti-Iran stance, Pakistan must articulate its position in a way that is not offensive, while pointing out that the ultimate beneficiary of a war would be Israel. A diplomatic approach would involve a proactive move to counsel its warring allies and make note of positive statements coming from Washington or Tehran.

With strained relationships with two of its immediate but hostile neighbors, India and Afghanistan, Pakistan cannot afford another war in the region. If US-Iran conflict breaks into war, it could put Pakistan’s security into serious jeopardy.

Sheldon Adelson: Jackpot for Israel

A bet on Donald Trump for president may have seemed risky two years ago, but for billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the payout has been spectacular. Adelson (85-year old) and his wife Miriam gave around US$82 million to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016, and within two years his two major asks were met: moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and withdrawing of US from Iran nuclear deal.

This was accomplished in consultation with Adelson comprador John Bolton, who in December 2016 promised members of the American Friends of Beit El that Trump would not only move the embassy by declaring Jerusalem the true capital of Israel, but he would not oppose any Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank territories. Adelson is also credited with opening the door for Bolton’s appointment to national security adviser in March

Adelson has enjoyed a direct line to Trump, speaking with him in person and on the phone at least once a month. Most recently, he was able to convince the president to cut off US aid to Palestinian refugees living in crowded, dirty, and unrelentingly hopeless refugee camps outside Israel. Around the same time, Trump withdrew US$25 million in assistance from impoverished East Jerusalem hospitals that also serve Palestinian cancer patients allowed in from the West Bank and Gaza for treatment.

Of course, Adelson’s pro Zionist agenda, which includes expanding the settlements as far as they can go most recently, is pouring his money into a huge new Israeli medical university on one of those settlements, in sync with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. It’s been a great year for all involved.

For the first time in recent presidential history, there is no pretense of peace with the Arabs. Trump’s endorsement of a two-state solution at the recent United Nations General Assembly in September may have appeared hopeful, but it was as lame as it was patronizing. “I like two state solutions,” Trump offered spontaneously, posing for smiling photographs with Netanyahu. “That’s what I think works best. That’s my feeling.”

For someone who supposedly has a “peace plan” but hasn’t announced it after two years in office, his “feelings” are as worthless as poker chips outside a casino. Maybe that’s why Bibi didn’t offer much of a response. After declaring he would consider Trump’s non-existent plan “with a keen and open mind,” Netanyahu reiterated that any Palestinian state endorsed by Israel will be an unarmed one, not really a state at all.

Not long after Adelson, Netanyahu also encouraged Trump to stop all funding (an estimated US$300 million allocated in 2018) from a UN agency tasked since 1950 with providing aid for Palestinian refugees, Trump abruptly closed the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) offices in Washington, the only diplomatic conduit between the US and the Palestinian National Authority. The reason given was “PLO leadership has condemned a US peace plan they have not yet seen and refused to engage with the US government with respect to peace efforts and otherwise.”

Trump’s point man for the peace plan is none other than his son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose family has generously supported the aforementioned Beit El settlement and is old friends with Netanyahu. Kushner was the primary agitator behind yanking the refugee funding, calling the aid entitlement program and withholding of it a punishment for Palestinian leaders who vilify the administration.

More cynically, reports indicate he is merely helping Israel end right of return for Palestinians and their kin displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Similarly, the embassy move was designed to take the contested issue of Jerusalem off the table. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s government just passed a nation-state law that declares Israel a Jewish state, one that affirms Jewish settlements and the right to self-determination for Israeli Jews only, codifying, in essence, that 1.8 million Arabs living there are second-class citizens. This loads the dice before the games even begin.

Only people like Kushner and Adelson, who at a net worth of US$42.5 billion is the 16th richest man on the planet, would see withholding food, education, and healthcare as way of disappearing a problem to gain leverage in future negotiations. Only Trump would consider that the art of the deal.

Western Media is Key to Syria Deception

In the past, I have often termed western media ‘dishonest’. Today, I refer to an elaborate work of Jonathan Cook, lately published by "Information Clearing House" to substantiate my assertion. He has referred to the claim recently made by al-Qaeda-linked fighters that they were targeted with chemical weapons by the Syrian government in Idlib province – their final holdout in Syria.

It is known to all that the US and other western governments enthusiastically picked up such claims, which lack credibility.  This particular news also lacked authenticity because no evidence has yet been produced to confirm the jihadists’ claims. Syrian government is poised to defeat these al-Qaeda groups without resort to chemical weapons – and without provoking the predictable ire (yet again) of the west.

Public has all the reason to doubt the credibility of this statement at a time they have learnt that the last supposed major chemical attack – which took place in April 2018 and was, as ever, blamed by all western sources on Syria’s president, Bashar Assad – was a false-flag operation by those very al-Qaeda groups now claiming the Syrian government has attacked them once again.

Most astounding in this week’s coverage of the claims made by al-Qaeda groups is the fact that the western media continues to refuse to learn any lessons, develop any critical distance from the sources it relies on, even as those sources have repeatedly deceived it.

This was true after the failure to find WMD in Iraq, and it is now even truer after the international community’s monitoring body on chemical weapons, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), was exposed this month as deeply dishonest.

It is bad enough that warmongering governments and their expert institutions deceive and lie. But it is even worse that the corporate media is addicted to such content to promote its importance. The conviction that the western media is dishonest is getting stronger with each passing day.

US Warmongering on Iran Showing Cracks

According to reports, Exxon was forced to withdraw some 80 staff from Iraq’s oil-rich Basra over ostensible Iranian threats to US interests in the fallout from Washington’s attempt to provoke Tehran.

Now the acting US Defense Secretary is saying, vaguely, that the threat of attacks by Iran has been “put on hold” thanks to US counter measures, while Trump has wavered back and forth about his intentions, based on criticism coming from the Democratic camp.

The dishonest western media continue to say that Saudis are lobbying for a war and Yemen’s Houthis are happy to oblige, claiming to have launched an armed drone at the Najran airport in Saudi Arabia. The tinted media also say that it is not the first time Houthis have targeted this airport, which is right on the Saudi-Yemen border and is an easy target.
In the meantime, Iraqi are furious on Exxon’s evacuation of staff, calling it “unacceptable and unwarranted”. Iraqi also claim that the southern part of their country is peaceful and secure and other oil companies (Lukoil, BP, Eni) have made no similar move and also have not expressed any intent.

Reasonably, Iraq is worried about the false message being sent to the investors and the market in general.

Iraq also says that 19th May 2019 rocket attack aiming Green Zone has served to ratchet up tensions further. The attack was being headlined in the media as “near the US Embassy in Baghdad”. This headline is grabbing ploy because the attack occurred a mile away from the embassy, suggesting that the embassy was clearly not the target.

The only significance of the attack was that it was the first in the Green Zone in some 8 months, but there were no casualties, and authorities know little about the nature of the attack, other than that the rocket was fired from an open field and may have been fired from Eastern Baghdad, where there are known Iranian militias.

Overtures and Confrontations between United States and Iran

I am an ardent reader of the proceedings of ‘United States Institute of Peace’, particularly on Iran. Today, I am referring to a few snapshots of its recent release on Iran. 

I want my readers to read the briefs but also keep two points in minds: 1) since Islamic revolution in Iran, US has emerged as its worst enemy and 2) every failed attempt to ‘change the regime in Iran’ adds to US frustration and desperation.

Keeping Iran under ‘stringent economic sanctions’ has not weakened it, on the contrary, Iran has emerged the biggest resistance in the creation of ‘US hegemony in the Arabian Peninsula’.

According to United States Institute of Peace, “Half of American adults expect the US to go to war with Iran “within the next few years.”  In a survey conducted by Reuters of a representative sample of 1,007 adults were asked a series of questions from May 17-20 amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran. Some 53 percent of adults considered Iran a “serious” or “imminent” threat. But only 12 percent said US forces should conduct a preemptive attack on Iranian military interests.” 

Since the 1979 revolution, Washington and Tehran have gyrated between hostile actions and diplomatic overtures. Relations have never recovered from the seizure of the US Embassy and 52 diplomats. The US attempted military action to end the drama but eventually turned to diplomacy. Since then, the Islamic Republic has been linked, directly or indirectly, to the deaths of hundreds of Americans, while the US has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iranians. Yet both countries have also dabbled in bold outreach, with mixed results.  

Lately, Acting US Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan has reiterated that the US does not want to go to war with Iran. On May 21, he told reporters that recent US moves have deterred attacks on US interests in the Middle East. “Our biggest focus at this point is to prevent Iranian miscalculation,” he said.

US lawmakers have been divided over what to do next to deal with the escalating tensions between the US and Iran. The split is largely along partisan lines. Democrats voiced concern that the Trump administration was leading the US into a new Middle East war. Republicans largely denied that the administration sought war with Iran but emphasized that the US would respond forcefully if its forces in the Middle East were attacked.  

A peep into recent history indicates President Trump’s election produced dramatic change in US policy in 2017. The US withdrew from the nuclear deal with Iran and the word’s major powers in May 2018. The Trump administration has been following a “maximum pressure campaign” to press Iran to change its policies and negotiate a more comprehensive deal.

Since taking office, Trump has taken an increasingly aggressive posture toward Iran. The tone was set less than two weeks into Trump’s presidency when then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn responded to an Iranian missile test. “The Obama Administration failed to respond adequately to Tehran’s malign actions—including weapons transfers, support for terrorism, and other violations of international norms,” he said. “As of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice.” 

The recent attacks on ships near a UAE port provided the US an opportunity to accumulate its troops, naval ships and aircrafts closer to Iran to warn of a preemptive attack. Though, both Washington and Tehran have been saying ‘we do not want a war’, it is feared that any adventurous move by any of the proxies could ignite a spark enough to break a war between two mind sets, Zionist and Islamisit.

Exempting Iranian Chabahar Port from US economic sanctions

It seems certain that the United States will not impose any sanctions on movement of Afghan transit goods through Iranian port Chabahar. This exemption will be aimed at consolidating Afghan-Indian economic relations.

The port has been constructed with the Indian assistance to boost trade between one of the largest regional economies, India, and landlocked and war ridden Afghanistan.

The exemption will be aimed at facilitating Afghanistan in reducing its dependence on Pakistan. If a contrary decision is made, it will increase the transit costs of Indian commodities and put further restrictions on Afghan merchants.

Some analysts believe reveal that imposing sanctions on Iran as the most secured and less expensive access route for Afghanistan implies imposing sanctions on Afghanistan as well.

As far as the India is concerned, the significant point is that the India’s commodities to be transit to Afghanistan are not extensive and voluminous enough to rationalize marine and road transportation expenses and to create a significant growth in India’s balance of trade.

Indian analysts are of the view that bearing in mind the trade volume of Afghanistan, Russia and Central Asian countries which altogether are more than 16 million tons and the insignificant share of Afghanistan, it could be concluded that without making possible the transportation of all India’s merchandise to above mentioned countries through Chabahar Port, the exemption of this port will not make any noticeable change in India’s trade.

Therefore, Chabahar Port’s exemption will only be a competitive advantage for India, if all Indian merchandise toward Afghanistan, Russia and Central Asian countries could be transported through Chabahar Port without any restriction in banking and insurance transactions.

The noteworthy point about Afghanistan is that the exemption of Chabahar Port will only be fruitful, if there is no restriction on entering and leaving Chabahar Port for vessels carrying Afghanistan’s merchandise; as well as commercial transactions of cargo owners, merchants and shipping lines, particularly banking transactions are done without limitation.

Pakistan grants oil exploration license to Kuwaiti firm

The Government of Pakistan (GoP) has granted the license for exploration of oil in the Makhad block to a subsidiary of Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.

According to the details, the GoP has executed an Exploration License (EL) as well as a Petroleum Concession Agreement (PCA) signed by Petroleum Division Secretary Mian Asad Hayauddin and Qazi Mohammad Saleem Siddiqui, Director General, Petroleum Concessions, and CEO of Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) at a ceremony also attended by Federal Minister for Petroleum, Omar Ayub Khan.

On the occasion, the Petroleum Minister said that "the execution of PCA and EL will attract foreign investment in the petroleum sector and bridge the demand and supply gap in the energy sector."

Khan further said that the efforts will bear fruit in future years in the form of hydrocarbon reserves.

The Makhad block, is situated in Attock, Mianwali and Chakwal in Punjab as well as Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is said to be spread over 1,562.92 square kilometers.

Kufpec will invest at least US$9.8 million in the block. Apart from the minimum firm work commitment, the company is also obligated to spend a minimum of US$30,000 per year in Makhad block on social welfare schemes.