Islamic Military Alliance: Options for Pakistan

By Shahzad Masood Roomi

Saudi Arabia has asked for Pakistani cooperation to establish a military alliance of Muslim countries on the footprints of NATO.

Pakistan has accepted the request and has shown its willingness to cooperate with the Kingdom but no details of this cooperation have come fore so far. 

According to media reports, the request was made to PM Nawaz Sharif and COAS Gen Raheel Sharif on their return to home after attending the concluding ceremony of "North Thunder" military exercises where military contingents from 20 Muslim countries participated. 

ANALYSIS: Gen Raheel and Saudi Led Islamic Military Alliance

By Shahzad Masood Roomi

Pakistan media is buzzed with the news that Gen. Raheel Shareef, COAS Pakistan Army, has been asked by the Saudi led 34 countries alliance to become its commander in-chief after his retirement which is due November later this year. Source of information according to Daily The News International is "US military and political sources."

Why Saudi Led Military Alliance Is Not a Good Idea, Strategically!

By Shahzad Masood Roomi  

Though the contours of recently formed 34-nation strong military alliance by Saudi Arabia are not clear so far, but the way it has been announced and the way US and UK are reacting on it is something which gives rise to some critical questions;

1. What will be mandate of this alliance as far as territorial integrity of member states are concerned?

2. What will be the formula of sharing the troops in its operations?

3. How the alliance members would decide to conduct an operation or against it if there is a dead lock between the member states?

4. Who will bear the expenses of operations of this alliance?

5. Why this alliance has a clear sectarian overtone in its formation? Why Iran and Syria are not part of it?

6. How this alliance would overcome the impression of being a Sunni alliance especially in Iran and Syria?

7. Which terrorist outfits apart from ISIS this alliance has identified as threat and with which criteria?

8. How can Saudi Arabia unilaterally include or exclude countries in this alliance? Has Saudi monarchy given that mandate by rest of the Muslim World?

9. Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, said the coalition would share intelligence and deploy troops if necessary. If that is the case, why there was no meeting of all military or intelligence chiefs from member states? How this understanding was reached (if there is an understanding at all)?

10. The way US and UK have welcomed the announcement of this alliance, it implies that now ‘troops on ground’, in Syria, would be from Muslim nations. Who they will be fighting against and under what mandate?

These questions are critical. Each and every one of them and needs to be answered honestly and urgently. This requires an in-depth analysis of this Saudi idea of forming a Sunni military alliance and possible strategic repercussions it can have for Muslim World and for Saudi Arabia itself.

ANALYSIS:

Saudi Foreign minister, while talking to media in Paris, also sighted “the threat of terrorism and state failure on the rise, and a growing leadership vacuum in the Arab and Islamic world” as primary drivers behind Riyadh’s announcement of this military alliance. Question remains, if Riyadh is so concerned about these things within Muslim world, why no initiative has been taken by Saudi government to form a body to seek the root causes of these threats and to contemplate strategies to mitigate the threats by developing solutions for long term instead of trying to play leader by an attempt to “institutionalizing cooperation in combatting terrorism”?

As it is evident that there are too many questions which need to be addressed and answered else this military alliance would fail even before its very first operation. Furthermore, the impression that Saudis are forming this military alliance on the behest of US and the West must be eradicated through transparent announcement of scope, goal and rationale of this alliance.

Ironically, Pakistan has announced to be part of this alliance but at the same time has also said that the quantum of its participation will be determined later on when more details about the objectives of this alliance would be available. Clearly, by blindly accepting to be part of this military alliance, Pakistan has made a desperate attempt to not to disturb Saudis this time like it did to them on Yemen issue.

But question remains is it a wise strategy? Not at All!

Pakistan is venturing into a military alliance whose actions in Middle East could have serious sectarian backlash at home and then there is our own precarious security profile which already presents a bleak law and order and security situation where the state is struggling to grapple with its own internal and external security challenges. With a restive Afghan border in the west, a belligerent India on the east, Baluch insurgency in the southwest and urban law and order break down in Karachi in the South, it is very difficult to fathom that how Pakistan will manage to help this military alliance expect intelligence and knowledge sharing.

Strangely enough, UN is not even concerned and this leads to a bigger question that why an issue like terrorism is not being debated at the global forum like UN? There is no definition of terrorism. There is no consensus over the root causes of global terrorism. There is no classification about types of terrorism (like state-terrorism, Non state actor-terrorism, financial-terrorism etc.) so that, in order to find its solution, policymakers and academics can understand what lies within these definitions and categorization. It is my firm belief that unless and until this debate is not initiated in the UN, global terrorism will prevail. Muslim world is the most affected part by terrorism and yet the silence and inaction, within Muslim comity of nations, on taking the issue of global terrorism to the UN is complete and total. Completely ironic!  

“The Saudis feel they are under attack from the media suggesting they are responsible for Daesh (Isis),” said Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre, which often reflects thinking in Riyadh. “They felt a need to answer this not by counter propaganda but by a realistic project.”

And then there is an equally important question is of terrorists’ ideology which is not being addressed or even debated anywhere in the world not even within Muslim World. And among other factors, this is yet another reason why this military alliance by Saudi Arabia is not a very good idea to combat ISIS. What Saudi strategic community (if there is one) is not realizing is that in modern incarnation of warfare (4^th and 5^th generation warfare) the ‘narrative’ is the ultimate weapon which lies at the heart of any effective response strategy against organizations like ISIS who harvest its power from distortion and misinterpreting of the Islamic political ideals like Caliphate. But it seems that even after witnessing the failure of military-oriented strategies of the US and West in the Middle East, Saudi intelligentsia is advising for a similar military-oriented response strategy.

The Guardian’s Middle East editor, Ian Black has quoted Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center, which often reflects thinking in Riyadh, saying, “The Saudis feel they are under attack from the media suggesting they are responsible for Daesh (Isis). They felt a need to answer this not by counter propaganda but by a realistic project.”

 “The nature of terrorism is changing. It is not only hit-and-run. It is not only suicide bombings. Its objective now is state-building. If you want to fight Daesh in Iraq you can’t send police or security people. You need to send real military forces.”

If Gulf Research Center is really that influential as being claimed by Ian Black, then it is evident that major flaw is within Saudi strategic community who is not addressing the core issue of ideology and propaganda but is suggesting a more kinetic approach to handle terrorism; a failed strategy to start with!

Actually this military alliance is an attempt by Saudi Arabia to position itself in the Middle East as a leader against growing influence of Iran and to dispel the impression that Saudis have a role in rise of ISIS. If Saudis will try to achieve these geopolitical goals through this military alliance it is again a plan destined to be doomed sooner than later. Saudis should have learned from Russia how to deploy the media to counter the propaganda and present their own narrative across the globe. There is no scarcity of resources to Saudi government. But it seems that Saudis are more interested in power display to both Iran and to strengthen its authority among ‘Sunni Muslim states’ after it is diminishing within ‘Muslim World’.

Last but not the least, if at any point in near future, this alliance decides to send forces to Syria there would always be a high probability that the entire Muslim world will indulge into a grand sectarian war where Iran, Syria, Iraq will be on one side and this Saudi military alliance on the other. Zionist forces will be more than happy to push the regional scenario in that direction as well because this will make their plans to redraw the map of Middle East much easier.

These are distressing times for Muslims. There is a complete and total collapse of leadership in Ummah due to which it is heading towards an implosion which will only result in formation of many smaller and weak countries based on ethnic, sectarian and linguistic divide and a very powerful Israel!

It is a very realistic near future scenario for the entire Muslim World, Pakistan must initiate aggressive military-diplomacy in order to warn Riyadh about its dangerous miscalculations on strategic issues. So far, Pakistan has done good to not to say a straight no to Saudis in order to prevent a more aggressive response from Arab world like we saw from Abu Dubai after Pakistan refused to send troops to Yemen but no way Pakistan can afford to let Riyadh go with this self-destruct strategy of forming a Sunni only military-alliance to counter Iran under the pretext of fighting terrorism. This is a dangerous trap set for the every noticeable Muslim nation. Time to act is Now!

Yemen Crisis: Dangerous Miscalculations

By Shahzad Masood Roomi

As Pakistani Prime Minister and COAS are in Riyadh in a bid to cool tempers in the Gulf kingdom over Pakistan's refusal to provide troops for war in Yemen, the situation in Yemen is getting worse by the day. The visit is being seen as an attempt by senior political and military leadership to make Saudi ruling elite understand that why Pakistan could not join Saudi offences in Yemen. The outcome of this tour would play a critical role in discourse of Saudi actions in Yemen. But regardless of the outcome of the PM's visit, it is obvious that the conflict in Yemen has grown too big for the Saudis alone to resolve it and bring it to a logical termination. So what went wrong in Saudi strategic thinking regarding Houthis in Yemen?

This is what happens when strategic miscalculations are made while weighing the policy options. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia is not the only country in this crisis which made dangerous miscalculations. Pakistan’s political leadership also failed to analyze the situation and potential outcome scenarios and now consequently another diplomatic crisis has emerged at the bilateral level between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia on this issue of Yemen.  

Saudi Arabia launched indiscriminate bombing campaign in Yemen against the Houthis rebels (Iranian Proxies) without much intelligence collection about their strengths & weaknesses and without identifying and categorizing the key targets for air campaign. Next, the Saudi ruling monarch assumed that Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt would come to help and fight their war in Yemen. But to their utter surprise none of these transpired.

Houthis proved too defiant for Saudi air assault and this is not the first time the futility of applying the air power alone has been proven. Earlier, the US campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq met early tactical wins but later on proved too costly for Washington as senseless aerial bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq turned large portion of local populace in these countries against the US. The price of these air-power oriented military campaigned is being paid by US troops on ground (which like Saudi operation joined the campaign after the aerial assaults) and the policymakers who have no idea how to bring these two protracted wars to an end with face saving exits. Saudis have committed the same strategic blunder here. Instead of studying the aftermath of American air campaigns, they repeated the same mistakes.

After a month of bombing the Saudis were convinced that they have forced the Houthis to come to the negotiation table but today, according to BBC, Saudi-led coalition warplanes have struck Houthi rebels across Yemen in fresh raids, two days after announcing the end of a month-long air campaign.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32430003

While according to Fox News, Yemen's defiant Shiite rebels press their offensive as Saudi Arabia launches airstrikes

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/04/23/yemen-defiant-shiite-rebels-press-their-offensive-as-saudi-arabia-launches

It left the fate of "Restoring Hope", which was announced on Tuesday after a month of bombing, hanging in balance as it looks like Saudi led coalition is again back to square one.

Saudi air strikes are being complemented by artillery support as well. But due to lack of clear target identification and damage assessment the completion of the objectives remains uncertain and elusive.

How the outcome of this new round of aerial bombing is going to be any different from the previous one? This is the question no one in Saudi led coalition has any answer of.

Military sales of weapons to from the US and Russia to the Gulf States is also fueling the fire. According to the Guardian, "Security experts express fears for region’s stability amid record weapons sales from west and Russia’s missile deal with Iran." An estimated $18 Billion have already been spent on weapon imports by Gulf States with Saudi Arabia and UAE remain the biggest buyers of western weapon systems.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/23/the-18bn-arms-race-middle-east-russia-iran-iraq-un

All these rapid developments are not only shrinking Saudi options in Yemen but this fluid strategic milieu is creating problems for Pak-Saudi bilateral relations as well. In Pakistan, both the political leadership and the masses are clearly divided on the Yemen issue while Pakistan Army remains seriously concerned about this fast unfolding scenario. This is why from the onset of this crisis, Pakistan Army leadership showed concerns over this crisis.

A faction in Pakistani policy analysts and experts of defense and security considers that PM Nawaz Sharif made a mistake while assuring Saudi king full support without consulting with army leadership.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1172460/nawaz-assures-saudi-king-salman-of-pakistan-army-support

And the way the stance of both Pakistani government and the Saudis dignitaries (visited Pakistan frequently in recent weeks) has been changed over the time, it is evident that the assumption of Prime Minister Nawaz assuring Pakistan Army's troops to Saudi king is not off the mark. The fact that PML(N) government was unwilling to reveal what exactly Saudis had demanded from Pakistan Army also amplify this assumption. 

An info-graphic appeared in one of the leading Arab news agencies at start of the Yemen war 2015, showing Pakistan as a part of Saudi air campaign. Pakistan never joined Saudi coalition forces; not so far! 

During the first few days of the conflict, the news given by the entire Arab media was that Pakistan wanted to be involved in Saudi led campaign in Yemen. Then it was reported that Saudis wanted a 3-4 year deployment of a full Pakistan Army corps under their command. (Pakistan has 9 active corps. 7 defensive while two strike crops. While a specialized nuclear strategic force command handles country’s nuclear arsenal). After few days, Arab media and few of their Pakistani supporters start giving impression that all Saudi Arabia had ever asked for was political support only and that they were not interested in any Pakistani troops. Then Pakistani parliament debated on the issue and news is that any threat to Saudi sovereignty would provoke a strong action from Pakistan but Pakistan would not send any troops to Yemen or Saudi Arabia unless that threat is materialized. This stance by Pakistan drew severe criticism from Saudi Arabian allies especially from UAE.

But if we analyze the Saudi request of putting Pakistani troops under the Saudi command closely, it has a major intrinsic problem with it which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could not realize, and that is the demand of giving Pakistani troops under the Saudi military command.  Pakistan was fully aware that Hothis would be never able to mount a serious threat against Saudi Arabia so the resolution included the possibility of sending troops to Saudi Arabia.  But the problem is when command and control of the troops will be changed all Pakistani units will receive their commands from Saudis and not from Pakistani commanders. Riyadh would be controlling the deployment of these troops not Rawalpindi. Once under Saudi authorities, Pakistani troops will be storming to Yemen. There is no doubt about it! This is something Pakistan Army is fully aware of and the potential outcome for troops back at home as well.

The fact is that Pakistan Army cannot afford to plunge into an overseas crisis with complex geopolitical and sectarian dynamics regardless of true nature of Saudi demand about Pakistani troops. But at the same time, Pakistan can also not afford to turn away a strategic partner like Saudi Arabia. There are ways in which Pakistan Army can help Saudi forces in their operations against Houthis. Pakistan Army can share its experiences against the asymmetric militants. But the best thing that Pakistan can do is honestly tell the Saudis about the strategic, operational and tactical miscalculations they have made during the last six months on Yemen.

There cannot be any better choice for this job than General Raheel Sharif. He has fought Pakistani case through military diplomacy in Afghanistan and now the bilateral relations between Pakistan Army and Afghan Army are taking a new turn in positive direction. If Pakistan Army has learnt its lessons regarding Afghanistan and now it is pursuing other options to protect the same vital national interests for which it supported militant factions against Kabul previously, convincing our Saudi friends on the same strategic mindset regarding Yemen must not be impossible. But before telling Saudis about using soft-power in Yemen, Pakistan Army needs to tell the same to Pakistan's own political elite particularly to ruling PML(N). Apart from that, Pakistan must declare its policy regarding the holy cities of Makkah and Madina to end any possible strategic confusion in this regard.

On the Question of Pakistani Troops involvement in Yemen

There is no doubt that the conflict in Yemen has strong sectarian overtones in its implications. This is more accurate in context of Pakistan where government finds itself in a strategic dilemma of choosing to join Saudi led coalition fighting in Yemen or Not. But this must be understood that there are other dynamics of this conflict. Most important of them is the poor track record of Yemeni governments towards various ethnic factions of the society. The history of Yemen prior to 1990 when the country was united, is also important. South and North Yemen had conflicting foreign policies and were part of opposing blocks during the Cold War era. The crisis of Yemen is manifestation of years of real politics revolving around power grabbing catalyzed by foreign interference.

Ironically, with just few exceptions, the commentary and analysis of the crisis revolves only around Sectarian implications which Pakistan possibly can face as a consequence of any decision Islamabad is about to take on the Saudi request of sending the troops. All the other aspects are being overlooked in this debate. Furthermore, Pakistan has not announced any decision in this regard so far. All the news in international media are based on pure speculations. There is a higher probability that Pakistan will play a role similar to 1997 OIC summit when Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif arranged one-to-one meeting between then Saudi Crown Prince, Abdullah and Iranian President Rafsanjani. This is the best possible discourse for Pakistan right now.

Any participation in the active war in Yemen against Shia rebels or ignoring the Saudi request all together would not serve Pakistan's interests. It must be cleared that Pakistani troops participating in join military exercises with their Saudi counterparts have nothing to do with Pakistan's decision regarding Saudi request contrary to what has been reported by some Arab media houses in this regard.

Pakistan's Policy Option on Yemen Conflict

Shahzad Masood Roomi

Since last two days, Pakistan has been engulfed in a hotted debate on weather it should accept the Saudi Arabian request of sending its troops to protect the Kingdom. So far, Pakistani government hasn't replied to this request and the matter is being examined as per foreign office spokesperson's remarks.

Pakistan must take a clear stance and adopt a out of box strategy in Yemen crisis. So far, the government is sending only ambiguous messages. The large part of media is reporting that the decision of sending troops to Saudi Arabia has been made already but the Defense Minister is negating these reports by issuing statement which are being perceived very differently in media circles.

“Pakistan will stand by Saudi Arabia by all means if the kingdom’s territorial sovereignty is in danger.”, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said.

Pakistan simply cannot afford to become a party in this conflict as Pakistan has close ties with both Iran and Saudi Arabia and any strategic miscalculation in this conflict can open a Pandora's Box with long term security implications for Pakistan especially on internal front.

But question is, can Pakistan remain isolated in this scenario and play neutral? Unfortunately, the answer is No because Pakistan is already part of this conflict on internal and media front. So Pakistan will have to play a role. Now question is; How?

The best course Pakistan can take is to engage Riyadh and Tehran aggressively to pacify the underlying larger historic conflict between the two. Yemen is just another manifestation of this old duel between Shia Iran and Salafi Saudi Arabia. Though there are other political and social factors are also involved but at its core this is emergence of hibernating sidewinder of sectarianism which is poisoning Muslim societies all over the world. The rise of Iraq's Sunni insurgency which was hijacked by Khawarij were also an outcome of this sectarian war.

Muslims all over the world are very emotional about the security of sacred places in Makkah and Madina. Pakistani nation is no exception in this regard. But the policies of Riyadh, just like Tehran, has compounded the situation in Middle East to such an extent that Muslims all over the world are being affected.

Pakistan's best policy option is to deploy its diplomatic prowess in this conflict including media and military diplomacy with only point agenda to make it clear that who is actually benefiting from this war and whose interests are being served. The real beneficiaries of this war are the Zionist forces of Israel who are looking to expand their political influence in the region.

Poll: Should Pakistan get involved in Yemen?

As crisis in Yemen is getting complex and compounded, the Saudi government has officially ask the Pakistani government to send troops and participate in action against Houthis rebels in ongoing war in Yemen. Pakistani government is yet to make an official decision on this sensitive request.

Saudi Arabia has a special status among general masses in Pakistan and an overwhelming majority would like Pakistani troops protecting the sacred land but this crisis in Yemen has very delicate sectarian dynamics as well. Keeping that in mind, it would not be an easy decision to make for government. Sending troops to fight Yemeni rebels would mean very different for both Sunni and Shias in Pakistan as this crisis in Yemen is outcome of a bloody proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Keeping this scenario in mind, what you think, how Pakistan must play its role in this crisis ( if any)?