A ten year long bloody war ensued. Although the war finally ended in 1988 with a United Nations-brokered ceasefire, it left Iran with a troubled relationship with the West, owing to its position on the Palestine-Israel matter, and jeopardized its relationship with the neighboring Saudi Arabia owing to the Shia-Sunni sectarian rift.
In the same year, 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan, which further complicated Iran’s complex relationship with the Russians. Iran provided humanitarian and military assistance to the Afghans against the USSR, but simultaneously shared Russian sentiments against the West and the US.
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Iran fostered closer ties with the Russian Republic, which has, allegedly, provided assistance in Iran’s nuclear program. Iran claims that their nuclear program is exclusively for non-military purposes – energy and medical research – something the US and particularly Israel, highly suspect and have imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic for.
But Iran has survived the western sanctions. Iran and Saudi Arabia together have strived for dominance and influence in Middle Eastern politics - Egypt, Kuwait, UAE, and Bahrain clearly on the Kingdom’s side, and Lebanon, Syria, post-Saddam Iraq, and Yemen under Iranian influence. Owing to Iran’s importance as a key player in the Middle East politics, it cannot be ignored by the West.
What was important a few years ago is turning irrelevant now, but Pakistan’s worldview remains largely stagnant. It is the same situation that Pakistan had experienced after the fall of the USSR in 1991, when the next day it woke up not as a front-line state anymore – not so important suddenly.
Pakistan’s relationship with Iran has been a tricky one since the 1979 Revolution. Being in the Western bloc, Pakistan took generous assistance and support from the US and Saudi Arabia – both viewed as rivals by Iran. Moreover, the sanctions imposed by the West weakened Iran’s economy and made it look for relations outside of religious ties – it moved closer to India, which helped Iran build infrastructure like Chahbahar Port, and bought their oil that filled its pockets. Pakistan, with an incapacitated economy, erratic internal politics, and ties with Saudi Arabia, wasn’t a very attractive option for Iran.
The Saudi air-war against Yemen in 2015 and Iran’s military aid for the Houthis brought diplomatic relations between the two rivals to an end in 2016. This development left Pakistan oscillating between the two Islamic nations – Iran and Saudi Arabia – with competing ideologies. In a quest to find a balance between the two, a debate in Pakistani Parliament on the question of sending troops to Saudi Arabia for their military expedition in Yemen, and then deciding to stay neutral, had seriously displeased the Saudis. It didn’t make any significant difference in Pakistan’s relations with Iran, either.
In the March of this year, however, Iran and Saudi Arabia signaled the restoration of their formal diplomatic relations, following a deal brokered by China. The United States Institute of Peace has called it a development with far reaching implications for the Middle East. Immediately after that, the US has sped up its efforts to encourage both Saudi Arabia and Israel to establish diplomatic relations. With this achieved, how will the Middle East look like with Saudi Arabia’s friendly relations with both Iran and Israel, simultaneously. This will place the US back in a key position in the Middle East, while war rages in Eastern Europe, and the Russian oil supply is cut off for the rest of Europe.
The wolves don’t like the rain. When the winter sets in and the rains start, the wolves hide in their caves. But after some days of hunger, they are forced to come out and they all sit in a circle, waiting for one of them to doze off.
The United States Institute of Peace have published a detailed study of the impact of Iran-Saudi relations and the Chinese role in it that may help us understand those realities. The American think tank pays close attention to Iran’s regional agenda: ‘It also remains to be seen if Iran is just repositioning to lock in its regional gains or if relatively recent developments — like the killing of Quds Force Commander General Qassem Soleimani, the impact of economic sanctions, domestic unrest, Europe’s move toward the US position on Iran, and Tehran’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine pushing it closer to Beijing and Moscow — have engendered a real change in approach in Tehran.’
Pakistan, in the evolving geopolitics of the region and beyond, appears to be in a fix. The immediate concerns of Pakistan are ludicrous – circular debts, IMF package, unstable governments, incompetent bureaucracy, an aimless education system – you can make an exhaustive list of the absurdity that plagues Pakistan.
The world is changing fast. What was important a few years ago is turning irrelevant now, but Pakistan’s worldview remains largely stagnant. It is the same situation that Pakistan had experienced after the fall of the USSR in 1991, when the next day it woke up not as a front-line state anymore – not so important suddenly. It took Pakistan plenty of time to believe in this reality.
Similarly, if you examine the Pakistani media today, most of the matters being discussed are quite irrelevant in the context of new geopolitical realities. Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto cited these concerns in his recent Parliamentary speech – the world doesn’t care about the question of terrorism anymore – what was once a major issue few years ago. They are now focused on the Russia-Ukraine war.
There is an ancient parable in Iran. The wolves don’t like the rain. When the winter sets in and the rains start, the wolves hide in their caves. But after some days of hunger, they are forced to come out and they all sit in a circle, waiting for one of them to doze off. When a weaker one gives up and falls asleep, the others attack and eat him. This continues until only one of them survives by the end of the winters. That one survivor is known as – گُرْگِ باراں دِیدَہ – the wolf that has seen and survived the rain. It probably explains Iran in many ways, and leaves us with a hint of how to move forward in unfavorable times.