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Is Pakistan isolated?
[DAWN] SEVERAL Pak commentators have concluded that Pakistain is isolated because its relations with three of its four immediate neighbours are hostile. Some have ascribed this ’failure’ exclusively to the absence of a fulltime foreign minister and the hydra-headed leadership at the Foreign Office.Pakistain is far from isolated. It enjoys a very close strategic relationship with its largest neighbour China, the emerging superpower. Relations with Iran are complex, but not hostile, and can become cooperative. Relations with regional neighbours Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , the GCC and ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... remain friendly, with considerable potential for collaboration. Pakistain enjoys influence within the wider international community due to its size, strategic location, military strength and economic potential. That Pakistain’s relations with India are tense should come as no surprise. This is almost a historical norm. The hostility of a Hindu supremacist BJP government was anticipated by most Paks, except the purblind. But Modi’s arrogance and belligerence towards Pakistain have outstripped anticipation, partly because of the perceived weakness in Islamabad, but mostly due to the shift in the global and regional strategic environment and India’s growing alignment with the US in the context of its rising rivalry with China. This emerging US-Indian alliance has not only encouraged New Delhi’s belligerence, it has exacerbated Pakistain’s security challenges, reflected in American support for India’s massive arms build-up; wide-ranging US attempts to contain and neutralise Pakistain’s nuclear and missile deterrence capabilities; and growing US pressure on Pakistain to act against ’terrorists’. Posted by: Fred 2016-08-07 |
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