In a move that has come as a surprise to many, Pakistan is now sending troops into Saudi Arabia for “bilateral security cooperation.” This comes at a time with increasing tensions for both nations with Turkey, Iran, and India:
In a major policy shift, Pakistan has decided to deploy troops in Saudi Arabia under bilateral security cooperation with the kingdom which is involved in the ongoing civil war in neighbouring Yemen.
The Pakistan Army announced the decision after a meeting between Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Saudi ambassador to Pakistan Nawaf Saeed Al-Maliki, at army headquarters in Rawalpindi yesterday.
“In continuation of ongoing Pak-Saudi bilateral security cooperation, a Pakistan Army contingent is being sent to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) on training and advise mission. These or troops already there will not be employed outside KSA,” the army said.
It also said the army “maintains bilateral security cooperation with many other Gulf/regional countries”.
About the meeting of the ambassador with Bajwa, it said that matters of mutual interest including regional security situation were discussed during the meeting.Already around 1,000 Pakistani troops are deployed in Saudi Arabia in various advisory and training roles, according to officials
There was no official word on the number of additional troops being sent to kingdom but the Dawn newspaper quoted “multiple sources” hinting that it might be the size of a composite brigade.
It also quoted army spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor that the new deployment would be much lesser than a division, and that he would give details later.
Saudi Arabia has been pushing Pakistan to provide troops since 2015 when it joined Yemen’s civil war but Pakistan steadily refused, saying it would not become party to any regional conflict.
The war in Yemen stalemated and the situation has aggravated with the rebels firing missiles at regular intervals towards the kingdom.
The alliance of Muslim nations set up by Saudi Arabia and led by former Pakistan Army chief Raheel Sharif is also still in an early stage to play any role in the conflict.
Bajwa earlier this month visited Saudi Arabia for three days and met officials including Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Commander of Ground Forces Lt Gen Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Abdulaziz.
It was his second visit to the kingdom in two months and reportedly played a role in Pakistan’s decision to deploy troops.
Pakistan is treading a fine line in maintaining relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar and other regional players and the decision of deploying troops may annoy Saudi Arabia’s rivals like Iran and Qatar.
The decision may also create tension in Pakistan’s internal politics as parliament had passed a resolution at the start of the Yemen crisis that said Pakistan would stay neutral in the conflict.
Calling the reason that Pakistan is sending military troops to Saudi Arabia and saying it is for “fighting terrorism” in Yemen while “maintaining relations” with the rest of the Muslim world is a lie. This is happening because Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are their only two serious allies in the region. Saudi knows that her goose is cooked, and at the same time Iran and India are talking about not if, but how they are going to eat Pakistan next. (source)
Shoebat.com has been predicting since 2014 that Saudi Arabia was terrified and likely going to be consumed by her neighbors, most likely first by Turkey but also Iran. We warned that Pakistan will likely provide Saudi Arabia with nuclear capabilities, and Saudi was already talking with Russia to add nuclear power plants for the purpose of producing material for nuclear weapons. With the recent relocation of ten thousand Turkish troops to Qatar made in June 2017, we noted that Saudi Arabia is toast.
Let’s take a look at a regional map:
We know for a fact that Turkey, Iran, India, and Qatar have an alliance. Syria and Lebanon are also under Iranian and Turkish influence, so they are effectively tied as well. Likewise, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have an alliance too, which gives the following picture:
Obviously, there are some holes in this map. However, it illustrates the basic idea that Saudi Arabia is surrounded. Sure, she has allies technically in Yemen and Egypt, but Egypt is weak and as we have noted, will eventually be attacked by Turkey. Yemen has the support of Saudi Arabia, but is engaged in a continual war against the Houthis, who are Shiites that are being backed by Iran. Yemen is weak, impoverished, and will continue to receive support from Iran and by default, Turkey and India.
This leaves Bahrain and the U.A.E. as Saudi’s two major remaining allies. However, it would be impossible for them to stand up against a Turco-Iranian union because the nations are outnumbered, out-manpowered, outgunned, and isolated, as well as accustomed to a life of luxury from oil money. If anything, they will submit as vassal states to preserve their wealth and lives.
The Russians were mentioned as a possibly ally earlier, but the Russians are not going to come to their aid. See the following map, this time focusing on Russia, in blue:
Russia is HUGE. As we have noted, she also has a lot of internal problems. This does not include her external neighbors with historical grudges and imperial desires. In the West, Russia has to contend with German militarization. To the south, Russia has long fought against Turkey and Iran, not to mention her long-standing problems with the Caucasus republics. In Central Asia, there is a massive, unreported migration taking place from those nations into Russia. In the Far East, China and Japan are both looking at Siberia for her mineral resources, and we know that Japanese militarism is increasing. For Russia, she is going to be at war with at least one, most likely two external enemies at any given time. It is in her interest to keep peace with as many neighbors as possible for her own stability.
If Russia were to “back” Saudi Arabia, it could automatically be used as an excuse for Turkey and Iran to move towards war against Russia. Russia would fight them, but that could also give Japan a “clear signal” to attack Russia from the east. Any declaration of war that involves Japan or Turkey means Germany will come along and by extension also the Americans, which could start a war in the West. Since Russia cannot afford any more wars than she absolutely has to deal with, Russia will wait for one of these neighboring nations to move first against her. In fact, Russia may exercise considerable patience even in the face of multiple attacks against her from any one of these nations so that when war does come, she has ample, undeniable, clear, and completely just reasons for responding in that if Russia was retaliated against for those reasons would make the one who attacked her to be perceived as the aggressor. Likewise it is also unlikely that Russia is going to come to the aid of Pakistan for the same reasons.
Pakistan is stuck between a rock and a hard place like Saudi Arabia. Iran hates the Arabs for racial reasons, with its origins going back to well before the times of Islam, for remember, the Iranians see themselves as a separate race- the Aryans- who are the descendants of the Bactrians, Parthinians, and Scythians, NOT the Arabs. India was originally a Dravidian nation that was conquered by the Persians, who imposed the religious and racial caste system on the people. The Indians, while a mixed people, understand their history and the special relationship they have culturally and historically with Iran. When Islam came to Iran, the Muslims slaughtered the Persians and destroyed their culture, imposing Islam upon them. While Persia has been Muslim for centuries, there has always been in Iran a strong sense of ethnic nationalism and a hatred of the Arabs for what they did and still do not forgive them of it. Likewise when Islam came to India, the Muslims brutally ravaged the subcontinent that India still remembers and hates.
In the eyes of Iran and India, Pakistan is the treasonous loser who wants to be just like the people that destroyed both of their civilizations. While this makes Pakistan the natural ally of Saudi Arabia, it also cements in the mind of her neighbors their hatred of Pakistan and gives reasons to move against her.
Israel and especially America are the wildcards in this game of geopolitics. Both will act out of self interest, the Israelis in their economic and political survival, and the Americans to get as much access to cheap oil as possible while attempting to undermine any possible Russian influence for their own geopolitical aims. As we have pointed out there is an alliance between Turkey and Israel right now, but how this will play out with Israel is yet to be seen, for in a game of power at all costs with respect to none, and dealing with madmen who place dreams of empire and wealth over the good of their fellow man, anything could happen.
At the recent World Government Summit in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia gave a special presentation about the future of the nation. Speaking in positive terms, the Saudi’s said they wanted to focus away from just oil and towards oil-derived products, but most surprisingly, towards entertainment. The Kingdom has appointed a minister of entertainment, and has boasted they want to make Saudi Arabia a world destination for entertainment, as the video below shows:
This seems uncharacteristic of Saudi Arabia, but in desperate times people do desperate things.
Saudi Arabia knows that she is dead- she’s simply trying to keep the world from realizing what Turkey, Iran, and India already know.
What the viewer should come away with from watching this video is a desperate, Arabian-style attempt at the Roman panem et circenses. The people inside of Saudi Arabia are furious, for the majority lives in desperate poverty while the Saud family lives a debauched lifestyle divorced from the Islam they so aggressively preach and impose on the population. Saudi’s neighbors hate her because the Saudi’s have viciously persecuted the Shiites and interfered in the affairs of the Muslim world. Turkey hates Saudi Arabia and believes that by divine right she is the protector of Islam, and sees the Saudi corruption as a symptom of the past century’s decline in Islamic influence and so as part of her goal of empire wants to re-take control as custodian of Mecca and Medina. Iran, due to the fact that she is Shia, has holy sites in different locations and owing to the Sunni-Shiite hatred so has no problem with Turkey’s desires towards Saudi.
Saudi Arabia can make all of the circuses she wants and try to remake herself as many ways as she pleases. The reality is that Saudi Arabia knows that she most likely does not have a future except as a vassal to her historical Turkish overlord. Pakistan is her only hope of a real alliance to defend herself, and she will work with them as much as she can. However, Pakistan has her own problems that she has to deal with, which is that Iran and India are planning to delightfully carve her up and destroy her in the name of ethnonationalist zealotry just as much as Turkey is planning to do the same to Saudi Arabia in the name of Islam.
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan might be better off starting a business trading in spices, because they are geese fattened for the kill and waiting to be seasoned and roasted by their Muslim neighbors as the world watches.