Good words are better than bad strokes
As quickly as it had begun, the conflict in Yemen has come to an abrupt and welcome end. The Saudi glare has turned into a milder gaze. The Saudi-led coalition’s aerial campaign, designated as Decisive Storm, caused unacceptable civilian casualties and raised humanitarian issues and has wisely been dumped in favour of a mix of political, diplomatic and military moves. Only a day before, fears had arisen of an impending ground invasion by the Saudi elite National Guard, a plan that thankfully failed to materialise. Instead we have an uneasy peace, and that is always worth having in such volatile circumstances.
What caused the radical change of attitude among such heterogeneous elements with such divergent aims as America, Saudi Arabia and Iran? Despite all the tough rhetoric from the American side, are we not witnessing the first benefit of the rapprochement between the Islamic Republic and the (former?) Great Satan? Iran welcomed the end of the air bombardment and emphasised the need for resolving the issue through peaceful means. No Iranian arms shipments were intercepted by the American aircraft carriers and warships patrolling the region. Already facing biting American sanctions over its nuclear programme, Iran perhaps recoiled from antagonising its Congressional foes further by an overt military repartee. Did the Saudis and the Iranians both realise (or were made to) that further escalation could ultimately lead to the closure of the Mandeb Straits chokepoint through which nearly 3.8 million barrels of oil pass daily, driving up global prices and drawing the world’s ire towards them? Or perhaps the bitter lessons learnt during the long drawn Syrian civil war were remembered just in time, as al Qaeda was exploiting the vacuum and the chaos to spread its roots, or is it tentacles in Yemen? Whatever the cause, peace has broken out against the odds.
Yemen is an old, intractable and apparently insoluble problem. The already battered Islamic world watched with apprehension as the alignment of the economically and militarily most powerful Muslim states gradually assumed the dreaded sectarian one, a boon to our enemies. If World War I was ‘the war to end wars’, which as it quickly turned out it was not, the conflict of the sects could have led to an unending wave of proxy wars and violence in the entire Muslim world, especially in places where either of the two sects are found in equal or in substantial number. The quest for world domination may be a Jewish conspiracy or a Teutonic fantasy, but the hunger for supremacy over the Ummah would be equally catastrophic for the entire Muslim world. For, the obvious victors can only be the sole superpower of the Middle East and the grim, masked practitioners of a fanatical and bigoted version of Islam.
In the modern world, with mankind multiplying like rabbits, global warming playing havoc across the globe and precious resources even of indispensable water supplies, vital for survival, depleting rapidly, new wars and wild spending on military machines should ideally be the last items on the global leaders’ agenda
It is said that the fog of war quickly disposes of the best laid plans of mice, men and the general staff. Few, if any, plan survives the first shot or the first bloody skirmish. Then, ‘all is on the hazard’, as the antagonists enter into an ‘untrod state’, a fact that possibly also gave the gentlemen poring over the war maps some pause for thought in the present instance. Religious wars for some reason are the most ferocious and the most barbaric. The Thirty Years War (1616-1648) fought in Germany by rival Protestant and Catholic armies decimated the population from some twelve million to reportedly only four million towards its end. Only the Black Death had been more devastating.
In the modern world, with mankind multiplying like rabbits, global warming playing havoc across the globe and precious resources even of indispensable water supplies, vital for survival, depleting rapidly, new wars and wild spending on military machines should ideally be the last items on the global leaders’ agenda. Even a second Cold War that would inevitably result from the American ‘pivot’ to the Pacific to checkmate China is an unwelcome idea the world can readily do without.
Henry Kissinger, the former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, a great proponent of Realpolitik once reportedly remarked on the 1980-1988 Iran–Iraq conflict, ‘it’s a pity they both can’t lose’. The Yemen crisis involving Saudi Arabia and Iran is one conflict that the rest of the Islamic world earnestly wants both sides to win! And that can only be achieved by a calm diplomatic quest rather than a destabilising military conquest. War jingoism on the one hand and the crusade for spreading a particular religious dogma across the Middle East and the world has to be eschewed in the interest of Muslim unity, political stability and economic well-being. Live and let live should be the watchword.
The prospect, still far in the future, of an American–Iranian nuclear deal obviously panicked some countries of the region into a state of utter paranoia leading to sleepless nights and the inclination to shoot from the hip. Billions of dollars are being pumped by a few Arab countries into the American military-industrial complex for even more sophisticated weaponry much to the latter’s glee. It is strange that the policies and ends of Saudi Arabia and the state of Israel coincide on the matter of Iran’s nuclear programme, an anomaly that the majority of Muslim’s round the world find hard to accept and digest.
In this lighter vein one hopes that that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a huff freezes and padlocks all assets, bank accounts, factories, palaces and the smallest investments of the brothers in the Holy Land, as well as slapping them with an astronomical tax bill (with compound interest!) to settle accounts with their former Pakistani non-paying (and non-delivering) guests
The Pakistani leadership, believing it was safe in hiding behind a parliamentary resolution, was left numb by the livid reaction from the Levant to its demurring from direct military intervention in Yemen. With hindsight it is right that the air bombing campaign has now been ended, it smacked too much of a Bush-fire with its shock, awe and arrogance. In the last analysis, ‘good words are better than bad strokes’. But Pakistan seems definitely out of royal favour for the present.
On a humorous note, a senior analyst saw the brighter side of the Yemen crisis in the respite both for the much persecuted Houbara Bustard hunted almost to extinction on our soil by the Sheiks and for the one-way traffic of our ‘starlets’ and ‘artistes’ to the Gulf, let us say to satisfy their wants and, one may add, as carriers of the ill-gotten dollars of the influential. The drab Dubai architecture so favoured by our property developers may also become a welcome casualty of Arab anger.
In this lighter vein one hopes that that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a huff freezes and padlocks all assets, bank accounts, factories, palaces and the smallest investments of the brothers in the Holy Land, as well as slapping them with an astronomical tax bill (with compound interest!) to settle accounts with their former Pakistani non-paying (and non-delivering) guests. Likewise, the Gulf state’s threat of Pakistan paying a heavy price for its Yemen ‘desertion’ should take the form of freezing the bank accounts of all Pakistanis which are illegally stashed there and releasing a list of all those owning properties in their lucrative property market, in ending the use of Dubai as a ‘conspiratorial home away from home’ and watering place for Pakistani politicians and as the elites’ weekend retreat. There is no better way to get even, and one which will please the common citizens of all these countries no end.
