Pakistan backtracks on defence of Saudi monarchy

K N Pandita

knp627@gmail.com

Pakistan says it can offer a channel between Tehran and Washington but "analysts differ over how much influence it really has", questioned Al Jazeera of 24th August. The same paper wrote in a previous edition that the war against India led to Munir's elevation to the status of field marshal. "Now he is playing peacemaker."

The two-week ceasefire was scheduled to end on Wednesday. Hours before the deadline, President Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, and upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack."

April 11 talks between the delegation of Vice President Vance and Ghalibaf --- the Speaker of Iranian Parliament --- in Islamabad failed to yield a break through. To defuse his mortification, Munir began his three-day visit to Tehran to retry his mediatory role.

New Delhi was caught off guard when, just two days after launching devastating airstrikes against terrorist camps across the LoC and deep within Pakistan, Donald Trump abruptly announced that his intervention had brokered a ceasefire between the two warring nations. Despite India holding the upper hand following the fierce two-day aerial conflict, Pakistan seized the narrative to project a massive victory, claiming it had downed five Indian Air Force jets. Trump endorsed this fabricated claim after the Pakistani army chief strategically floated his name for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The reality of Donald Trump taking an assertive and partisan stance highlighted the vulnerability of American strategic assets at Pakistan's Nur Khan Air Base, which the Indian Air Force had struck during Operation Sindoor. Nervous that Indian jets might inflict even more severe damage on some more hidden American strategic assets in Pakistan, Trump moved fast to intervene in Indo-Pak horn lock. He knew that in India-Pakistan conflicts, India historically "wins the war but loses the peace"-a pattern seen in Kashmir in 1947, Shimla in 1972, and now, arguably, in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor.

Weeks later, an American air force plane carrying dozens of nuclear experts and engineers landed at Nur Khan air base in the darkness of the night. Washington said the aircraft carried relief for victims of natural calamity but sources close to Pak intelligence said the aircraft had flown in carrying American nuclear experts and engineers to repair damages done to the American Nur Khan nuclear assets particularly when rumours of radiation from the hidden nuclear installation began to make rounds.

Donald Trump elevated the Pakistani army chief to the status of Field Marshal, a distinction earned not through military merit, but through a shared commitment to political deception. United in their crusade against the truth, they have diminished the presidency. The White House-traditionally the citadel of global leadership and democratic ideals-has effectively been reduced to a wayside tavern for the transactional and the ordinary.

Munir has risen from four-star general to field marshal, and then to first chief of defence forces (CDF) of a country, whose four out of its five provinces are on the path of separation and independence.

On 24th of August, Munir made another jaunt to Tehran, reportedly after a telephonic conversation with Trump. What could be the purpose is worth speculating. In the first place his telephonic conversation with President Trump and secondly not accompanied by the prime minister shows that Trump trusts him more than he trusts his prime minister. That is not anything new.

The reports from Pakistani and pro-Pakistani western media that Munir wants to re-activate mediatory role and bring Washington and Iran to the negotiating table once more appears only a camouflage to cover the real purpose of the visit.

At the time of signing the defence agreement, the two countries --- Saudi and Pakistan --- stated with great emphasis and élan that an attack on any of the two will be taken an attack on both and they will together resist it jointly. This connotation had created ripples in political circles in West Asia. Knowledgeable circles knew that this was a slap on the face of OIC, indirectly reflecting its imbecility. It was also considered Saudi rebuff to the US, which had been lionising itself as the protector of Saudi monarchy.

Recurring attacks by the Houthi gun wielders on Saudi assets and inability of Saudis to deter the assailants had forced the Saudis to look up to Pakistan, a state moving around with a begging bowl, for its possession of a nuclear device for the production of which, Saudi regimes had contributed significantly.

Houthi attacks increased and its fighters even claimed to have made advance in the Saudi managed defence positions. Only a couple of days back the Houthi targeted Bab al Mandab, a crucial waterway of international trade. Saudis were dismayed that Pakistan was just an onlooker at Houthi aggression and was reluctant to make any move in defending the Saudi interests in the region.

Feeling deserted by both America and Pakistan, who he thought would be his defenders, MBS privately conveyed to Trump that he would be forced to revisit her alignments. The grapevine has it that he would not be averse to renewing contact with Tel Aviv.

This entire situation has given sleepless nights to Munir. After all he has obliged Trump with various favours --- proposing for Nobel, facilitating enormous crypto monies to Trump's family members, helping CIA arrest Shareefullah --- the master mind of the devastating suicide bombing on August 26, 2021, near the airport's Abbey Gate, at Kabul airport, and finally offering him a box of Pakistani rare earth samples.

In Tehran he met with a host of second and even third rung officials in the theocratic hierarchy pleading for no attacks on Saudi Arabia as it makes his position awkward to fight a Muslim nation against a Muslim nation and by a Muslim nation.

Iran did not budge from her known stand. In the BRICS 2026 meeting in Delhi, Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian said that American bases in the neighbouring countries are a threat to Iran and would not be tolerated. Munir will have received a shock seeing PM Modi holding a meeting with President Pezeshkian at the BRICS in Delhi and holding his hand tight like intimate friends.

As pressure builds over Houthi attacks Pakistan is desperately doing a balancing act with Saudi Arabia. Islamabad speaks on the issue in wobbled words rambling from one explanation to another to take off the sting in the Makka Defence Pact. In his telephonic talk with Crown Prince Salman, Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif reiterated Islamabad's "support" to Riyadh but added that Makkah Defence Pact "does not automatically require Pakistan forces to take military action against the Iran-backed Houthi.

Finding another escape route from obligations emanating from Makka agreement, Pakistani Defence Minister added another caveat by saying, " If there is unprovoked aggression, or a spill over of whatever is happening in Yemen into Saudi Arabia, definitely the Makka agreement will become operational. " He clarified that the agreement was defensive in nature and that no military response against the Houthi was being considered at present."