Pakistani involvement in the Middle East

Submitted by Michael S (United States), Apr 6, 2015 at 02:24

Hello, Debanjan

I would characterize your post as politely anti-Saudi -- which is to be expected, since the Saudis are close to India's enemy, Pakistan.

It is true, that Saudi Arabia is no advocate of democracy; but

1. Iran is not the advocate of democracy you present it as being -- it is an absolute theocratic dictatorship, and

2. Democracy is not all it's cracked up to be. At best, democracy allows the majority of people to have their way; but if the majority is bent on madness and violence, this is no improvement over autocracy.

On the matter of whether or not Israel is the "friend" of the Arabs, again two things:

1. Arabs do indeed have a philosophy that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend". By this thinking, and considering the fact that the Arabs are currently at war with Iran and not with Israel, I would have to conclude that the Jews, though considered "enemies" by the Saudis and other Arabs, are considered (and rightly so) less of a danger to them, at the moment, than the Iranians are.

2. There are no true friends in politics. What Israel and the Arabs share, at the moment, are converging interests. That's as close as one gets to a "friend" in today's world.

There is no doubt in my mind, that the world has already entered into a global war -- beginning in the Middle East. It would probably be in everyone's interest, to just let the Arabs, Turks and Iranians have at each other; but unfortunately, others are involved -- and the foremost of those is my own President, Barack Obama (cheered on, in an ironic way, by his Republican opponents).

Pakistan is not as involved in Yemen yet, as you seem to think it is. The last I heard, all they've definitely offered the Saudis is a few troops to help them defend the oil fields, etc., while the Saudis pursue their intervention in Yemen.. Pakistan is closely allied to China, which apparently has just offered it several state-of-the-art submarines. That presents a quandry in itself, because China has generally backed Iran politically; and of course, Pakistan also has some local problems that keep its plate full, in the form of many, many terrorist groups on its soil which are not necessarily on good terms with one another nor with the government.

If all struggles emanated purely from the Middle East, we would expect a WWI-type alignment to take place, with Arabia, Pakistan and China on one side and India, Russia and Iran on the other.. I suspect that things will not divide that neatly; I expect a major war to break out first in the Middle East, involving Turkey vs. Israel, followed some years later by an attempt by the US-led UN to wipe the Jews and Christians off the planet. Time will tell, which scenario will prevail.

I also expect a genuine bond to develop, by the way, between Israel and her near neighbors. We'll see how that works out as well.

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