The ‘Salman doctrine’ will haunt India
Pakistan’s participation in the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen has been all along a foregone conclusion. There was no reason to disbelieve the definitive announcement by the Saudi side in this regard a week ago already. Riyadh estimated that it had made an offer to Pakistan that the latter simply cannot refuse.
The rest is theatrics. Pakistan is going through the motions of showing that it has a mind of its own. To mollify domestic critics, the government has resorted to sophistry – that Pakistan is only defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia; that Pakistan is actually offering ‘mediation’ in the conflict in Yemen; that Pakistan is engaging the (toothless, spineless, moribund) Organization of Islamic Conference to mediate; that no final decision has yet been taken regarding Pakistani participation in the military campaign in Yemen; that the Pakistani nation and the country’s lawmakers will be taken into confidence on any such decision and so on.
At any rate, public opinion never really matters in Pakistan when the ‘establishment’ has total clarity bout what to do on any policy issue. And in this case, fortuitously, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Raheel Sharif are absolutely on the same page as well (although the military will always maintain the charade that the civilian leadership is the ultimate authority and decision-maker.) Both Sharifs are, in fact, stakeholders in their respective ways in coupling Pakistan to the Saudi-led bandwagon in the Middle East.
From the Indian perspective, it is at once obvious that the developing regional security scenario has profound implications. If an analogy can be drawn, we are at the threshold of an emergent scenario that bears similarities or is comparable to another defining moment in regional security – the launch of the US-Pakistani-Saudi collaborative project of ‘jihad’ directed against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in1980. Remember the dramatic appearance of the then US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at the Khyber Pass on February 3, 1980? The current visit by a high-powered Pakistani delegation to Riyadh brings back memories.
The heart of the matter is that Pakistan is once again positioning itself as a key participant in an uncertain enterprise whose only certainty is that it is sure to be hugely beneficial financially and materially — and the Pakistani elites, civilian and military, find that to be irresistible.
One may philosophize that the rentier mentality of the Pakistani elites is tragic. Of course, it is always a pathetic sight when the elites sell their country in the bazaar so shamelessly. Of course, this new adventure in the Persian Gulf region will eventually hurt Pakistani interests – perhaps, even more than the Afghan saga thirty-five years ago.
But then, there is big money in it if the Saudis loosen their purse strings (which they would, given the high stakes involved for the survival of the House of Saud). As for the danger of getting involved in sectarian strife, that is nothing new to Pakistan; and, the relations with Iran have always remained problematic in all these decades since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
However, beyond all this, India should make a serious note of the comment, inter alia, in a New York Times report two days ago that “Saudi Arabia is also expected to step up its efforts to develop a nuclear bomb [with Pakistani help].” Indeed, this is a very real possibility against the backdrop of the impending US-Iranian deal.
There has always been strong suspicion regarding covert Saudi funding for Pakistan’s nuclear programme and of a Faustian deal between the two brotherly states that an ‘Islamic bomb’ will be their common heritage. It stands to reason that the hour of reckoning may be fast approaching.
One big check against such a thing happening would have been the US’ influence over Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But today, both these client states are displaying an extraordinary degree of ‘strategic defiance’. The well-known Saudi establishment writer Jamal Khashoggi has come out with a startling revelation – if more confirmation is needed – that “Saudi Arabia no longer cares” what Washington thinks or says and “if Saudi Arabia has to act alone, then it will.” He calls this the ‘Salman doctrine” (named after King Salman of Saudi Arabia.)
Now, it will be simplistic to say that this is all merely a passing over-reaction to the Middle East policies of the present US Administration that have annoyed the Saudi leadership. Of course, it is inevitable that the Israeli Lobby and the Republican Party in the US will use such an argument to further vilify President Barack Obama (without realizing, alas, that in the final analysis, the ‘Salman Doctrine’ will cast shadows on Israel’s security, too.)
In actuality, though, the roots of the ‘Salman doctrine’ run very deep. It has been lying in the sub-soil, struggling to surface, for some years already (or even decades) and was impatiently waiting for the departure of the late King Abdullah from the helm of affairs. Most important, it also forms part of the succession struggle within the House of Saud and, specifically in today’s circumstances, it is almost inextricably linked with the career of the son of King Salman, 34-year old Prince Mohammed bin Salman (sixth son of the 80-year old king who suffers from dementia) whom his father appointed as defence minister within a day of being anointed as the new monarch.
In the regional context, the stunning part is that the ‘Salman doctrine’ is not an isolated phenomenon born in the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan must be counted as one of the doctrine’s most ardent votaries in the Middle East. Erdogan’s apparent madness does have a pattern – mothballing Turkey’s ties with Israel and repeatedly insulting that country’s leaders even at personal level; ostentatiously patronizing the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas; coyly lurching toward the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Russia’s Vladimir Putin (while still remaining a NATO member country); tenaciously keeping up the secret dalliance with the al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria despite all western criticism; threatening to procure a defence missile system from China; and, harboring the notions of ‘neo-Ottomanism’.
Coming back to Pakistan, the ‘Salman doctrine’ is nothing new to the country’s military elites. As a matter of fact, it forms a veritable ideological bedrock for large sections of the officer corps of that country’s military who have been weaned on General Zia-ul-Haq’s ‘Islamization’ agenda.
Put differently, the ingredients of the Saudi and Pakistani crucibles are the same – ultra-nationalism rooted in the Islamic identity; staunch faith in the manifest destiny of the Muslim world in civilizational terms; sense of impotency vis-à-vis American power and the profound angst borne out of it; virulent ‘anti-Americanism’ (whilst also seeking US’ help); and, most important, a gung-ho attitude bordering on recklessness that everything is possible if only the Muslims of the region united against the predatory dominance by the West.
One might argue that it is not a bad thing at all if countries take their fate into their hands and decide to act in their self-interest. Those with a cold-war mindset might even view with schadenfreude the discomfiture of the Americans that two of their key non-NATO allies have rebelled against their tutelage. But from an Indian viewpoint, a chilling reality arises here when the Saudi-Pakistani military alliance gathers momentum in the coming period.
Simply put, all bets are off as regards the new frontiers of the Saudi-Pakistani military alliance. The point is, Saudi Arabia is engaging Pakistan as the Praetorian Guards of the House of Saud and there is a good price to be paid for the services to be rendered by the GHQ in Rawalpindi. It is well-known that the Saudi armed forces are a joke, but on the other hand, they have ultra-modern equipment and unlimited financial resources. Whereas, the Pakistani army is regarded today as the most powerful – and highly professional – military machine among all Muslim countries and to boot it, Pakistan is also a nuclear power. Yet, it is strapped for cash. All in all, the Saudi-Pakistani alliance becomes a match made in heaven.
To be sure, Pakistan doesn’t have to worry where to find the money to finance the multi-billion dollar deal to procure the eight submarines it is reportedly negotiating with China to gain parity with India in naval prowess. This is only one telling example. In fact, the visit by the Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pakistan next week is perfectly timed. China could turn out to be a major beneficiary of the Saudi-Pakistani alliance.
In political terms, the ‘Salman doctrine’ liberates Saudi Arabia from its past inhibitions in owning up its dealings with the al-Qaeda. The latest events in Syria suggest that Saudi and Turkish intelligence have openly helped the military victory of the Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda affiliate, in Idlib city over the government forces. In short, a new phase of the Syrian war is commencing, riveted on boosting the capabilities of the extremist groups to violently overthrow the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Saudi Arabia has never had qualms about using al-Qaeda groups in foreign countries but has been consistently in denial mode. The Salman doctrine virtually legitimizes the nefarious nexus. The high probability is that the al-Qaeda affiliates in southern Yemen would act as Saudi surrogates against the Houthi militia as time passes.
Suffice it to say, the ‘action plan’ of the Salman doctrine, insofar as it has no qualms about using the extremist Islamist terror groups as tools of regional politics, is bound to cast its shadow in South Asia. There are enough signs already that Pakistan has decided to initiate another major push for an outright Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, and may have no serious intentions of fulfilling the offer to facilitate peace talks between the Kabul government and the insurgents. (See my article in Asia Times Online titled Ghani’s US visit lays bare Afghan fault lines.)
The dramatic decline in the US influence in the Middle East will only encourage Pakistan to ignore Obama’s entreaties for an early Afghan settlement. In any case, Pakistan harbors the grievance that Obama not only failed to reciprocate Pakistan’s ‘goodwill’ but also ‘tilted’ toward India and did nothing to help reach a solution to the Kashmir problem.
Significantly, Khashoggi (whose links with the top echelons of the House of Saud are far too well-known to be recalled here) has warned that Saudi Arabia will support Turkey to go for an all-out attempt by Erdogan to force a regime change in Syria “without US approval”. He prophesied: “Just like Erdogan supported Saudi Arabia’s operation in Yemen,
Saudi Arabia will of course support him if he decides to adopt Salman’s doctrine.”
These are ominous words and should ring alarm bells in Delhi. Their import cannot be lost on the Indian policymakers. From the Saudi point of view, what holds good for Erdogan could as well hold good for Pakistan’s Sharif. After all, the ‘troika’ — Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan — had at one time, in the bloodiest years of the insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir in the early 1980s, had formed a cozy little ‘Contact Group’ within the OIC to help the Kashmiri people to assert their right of ‘self-determination’
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