The Saudi Kingdom has granted $1.5b to the Nawaz Sharif government. Another such donation will accrue in due course. A quick fix of $3b is a lot of free money for Pakistan’s forex-strapped economy that is struggling to cope with significant international debt payments and a rising trade gap that is putting pressure on the rupee and fuelling inflation. Indeed, the Saudi injection has reversed the rapid fall of the rupee, proving that the finance minister, Ishaq Dar, was not bluffing when he warned exporters six weeks ago not to hoard their dollars. Why then all the hush-hush about the Good Samaritan who has eventually bailed him out?
Significantly, the PMLN government has been at pains to hide the Saudi largesse. But after we discovered that the cause of the sudden reversal in the fortunes of the rupee was due to an uplifting shot in the arm of the State Bank, we were told not to ask about the “friendly” source and amount of funds. Then, after we found out about the donor, we were told that the Saudi “donation” was a measure of the personal relationship between our prime minister and the Saudi monarch. That is when our happy surprise turned to suspicious incredulity and the game became crystal clear.
A clutch of high-powered Saudis, including the Crown Prince, has descended upon Islamabad in recent weeks. The prime minister and the Pakistan army chief have made unexplained flying visits to the Kingdom. In due course a joint statement or communiqué was issued from Islamabad stressing the demand for a “transitional” government in Syria while emphasizing that there was no change in Pakistan’s position on the issue. Indeed, the foreign office spokesperson, an apparently haughty lady, was quite aggressive in ticking off inquiring hacks who argued that the demand for a transitional government amounted to a veritable “regime change” in Syria and smacked of a definite policy about-turn. Mr Sartaj Aziz, the de facto foreign minister, has also executed some verbal gymnastics to try and obscure the truth. But we, the public, are not stupid or ill-informed. We are not ready to buy this story hook, line and sinker. We know there are no free lunches, let alone free feasts, in relations amongst nations. So what’s the $3b quid pro quo?
The truth is that Pakistan has agreed to supply, among other weapons, anti-aircraft and anti-tank rockets to the Saudis. Mr Aziz says the End-User Certificate conditions will guarantee that these are not used outside Saudi Arabia. This is a load of nonsense. Why the Saudis should suddenly turn to Pakistan for these weapons when traditionally they have tapped the US and Europe has, however, given the game away. These potential game-changing weapons are clearly meant for use by Saudi-backed Wahhabi-Salafist rebels in Syria who are fighting to overthrow the Baathist secular Asad regime. The Americans haven’t supplied the Saudis because they don’t want such radical Islamist forces any more than Al-Qaeda to succeed in Syria and are therefore having serious second thoughts about regime change in Syria. Indeed, the Saudis’ sudden embrace of Pakistan portends shifting sands in the Middle-East.
The Saudis and the Emirates-Gulfdoms are feeling insecure because of the Shia revival in their heartlands. This is because the restless Shias are sitting on their oil reserves. Iran, too, is unremitting in opposing Saudi influence. Iraq and Qatar, two competitive energy suppliers, are not playing ball either. Egypt and Libya haven’t bought into the Saudi Islamist line. Worse, the Americans are seeking negotiated nuclear solutions in Iran instead of succumbing to Saudi pressure for military action. And American self-reliance on shale gas is the first definite step against continued dependence on Saudi oil.
On the heels of the Saudi VVIPs now comes the King of Bahrain to Islamabad. The PMLN government claims that foreign investment deals are in the offing. But the small print betrays the real motive behind “renewed manpower exports”. The Bahraini Emir wants well-trained and equipped Pakistani military mercenaries to beef up his police and security forces to repress the rising democratic impulses of the majority Shia populations. It is as simple as that.
It is the same old treacherous story. Since independence in 1947, the Pakistani ruling classes and military establishment have lived off rents from leasing out their “services” to the highest foreign bidder instead of standing on their own feet and not meddling in other peoples business. In the 1950s, 60s and 80s, they sold their services to the Americans, first against the USSR and then against the Taliban; now, in the 2010s, they are rolling up their sleeves to stir the Middle-East cauldron at the behest of a rich “friend”. The extremist Sunni blow back from the first lease to the US in the shape of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is now primed for escalation and blow back during the proposed second lease to the Saudi-Emirates network. We are making another irrevocable blunder, so help us Allah.
SO HELP US ALLAH. will he ? No sir No, Allah remained patiently for all these 67 years. **** rulers who were bartering their Independence, self respect and Nations honor with Americans and Saudis for paying loan commitments and not developments.
The water gate hero Nixon and his chela the trouble creator ( not trouble shooter ) Kissinger were hoodwinked, raining money in the short run, but gaining permanent radicals well with in the home land in the long run. Thus they buried Jinnah for the second ,third, and hundredth times.
Bankruptcy of long range policy makers, who lived for that day ditching Nation for generations. They radicalized the country obtaining doles. Shias . should there be another Hitler of Saudi version to gassify them.
Hitler had gone even from memories. But jews have well settled and cannot be taken lightly. They can surprise bomb any nation in the Gulf. The same will happen to SHIAS. they will become very powerful in due course.
If a country continues to live under saudis financial support for ever for bad deals, how Pakistan can grow on its own merit . Take the dole. pay the loans. what then is left for investment. Again incur loans. surrender to saudis. get bad money for bad deals. The cycle repeats. This makes us to ask, is there any Parliment in the country. Are the members of Parliment are sleeping. or they share the benefits. Is the financial deals of a nation to be done on personal relationships. can The PM of a nation sell the country to saudis secretly.
The common man is lost in finding two meals a day . He cannot bother about Pirme ministers deeds and misdeeds. politicians are clueless. Bureaucrats are Time servers. Media has no voice. intellectuals are on the run. Army is confused.
SO HELP THEM GOD
Sethi Sahib, this may be the final nail in the coffin of our social harmony. Do they think the other side will say quiet? Sectarianism will split the society like never before. We would have another Iraq over here.
Pure and utter propaganda
So Guru ji, do you really have explanation for this largess thrown at us? Remember they are the same people who have all but enslaved the labor force working in mid-east comprising mostly of South Asians with the most retrogressive labor laws in the world. They are racist in their dealings with non Arabs specially the poorer lot. So wake guru ji!! we are still reeling from their devilish product in the shape of Talibaan…
By voting out the anti Saudi and pro Iran PPP and voting in pmln haven’t the people of Pakistan already given their endorsement for this move?
Najam sethi sb, this is a brilliant analysis of a rentier state that exports mercenaries, guns and fire power to the highest bidder
sadly pakistan has not gone further in the past 60 plus history, rather travelled a downward spiral into a self created abyss, supporting autocracies abroad and suppressing genuine democracy at home
what a shoddy role model for any nation!
An excellent analysis. As said Soul is lost then all is lost -so has happened with Nawaz Shariff long time ago. So God help Pakistan
Foreign policy of any country is based on self interest. The current move by the Nawaz government is also based on self interest. The catch here is to take advantage of others need for weapons and ensure it doesn’t disturb our internal security and ethnic harmony. After all economics is the main driver of the foreign policy.
The people of Pakistan have perpetually suffered, due to, among other factors like bad domestic leadership; Saudi’s ominous meddling in our affairs. Zia ul Haq destroyed the very fabric of whatever was left of an equitable democratic order in Pakistan, with the active assistance of Saudi leadership. Now the Sharif family is busy driving the last nail in the coffin of democratic order, again through active interference of Saudi monsters. Najam Sethi’s warning is a cry in the wilderness as we have an army of reactionary media men to muffle his voice. We can only pin our hopes on Shelley’s dictum, “If winter comes can spring be far behind
Interesting! Sounds like an attempt by Mr sethi to intentionally malign the government so that his image as an independent journalist could prevail! Well, as you have mentioned in your article, the nation is not ill informed and is well aware of the services rendered to the government by you in return for the appointment as PCB chairman 🙂
Nawaz was bought by saudis long ago. His life/survival was and is under their feet and their ill-begotten dollar sacks.
Bunch of negatively overlooked bullshit
it is a good sign that Muslim countries have turned to Muslim Countries for their need of Weaponry as it was a long standing demand of Muslims to help each other.
If we think selling weapons is leasing a country than USA has been the biggest supplier of weapons,
And the only guarantee required is that of not using that against India now (Nonsense na)
Pakistan Must Sell its state of the arts Weaponry which is at a competent price to all the Muslim Countries they must market for it as it is one of the greatest source of Income in the world
It is the most disappointing development I have seen where our beloved Fouj is collaborating with the most despicable fascist Saudi regime, ultimately, against its own people (sunnis and shias together). When our ‘brave and macho’ foujis will be eliminating defenseless unarmed ‘dirty terrorist shias’ in Bahrain, Syria etc. etc., do they think, it will not have repercussions in Pakistan? We will be bringing back these monsters after they have innocent blood on their hands as ‘ghazis’, They will not hesitate in eliminating the ‘kafir shias’ in Pakistan. There was a time when civilized Pakistanis took immense pride in our social harmony and diversity. The Sharif Government and the fouj now wants to take away the last reminiscence of civic pride and decency left in our homeland! Unfortunately, the people of Pakistan will pay the ultimate price while the civil and military leaders responsible for creating this havoc will be safe in Canada, USA and other heavens on earth. Make no mistake, their final abode will be hell since that is Allah’s promise.
whether they will go to hell or not, they have made our life and land a hell for us
Please don’t have a recourse on ALLAH as custodian of this word i.e. Islam, is repugnant to stupidity. If one commits wrong again and again then according to Einstein’s definition of stupidity (please read stupidity instead of insanity), “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
We are having leaders who are not above board instead are bunch of pygmies with myopic tendencies of loot and plunder. I am really flabbergasted to see that NS is highly irrational when have some expectations from these کباڑئیے (a euphemism for Nawaz Sharif & Co.), who are plunderer and trend setter for exporting national wealth for narrow vested interests which are not beyond their kith and kin.
So readers please don’t expect miracles and ALLAH or nature is based on highly rational approaches in the regulation of natural phenomena to which we are not alien too.
It is just a quid pro quo which one has to pay for the wrongs not in the hereafter but here in the same world we mortals are living in!
So let’s have fingers crossed!
IF Iran and hizbollah can support a DICTATOR asad in syria against 80% muslim population in Syria who also want democracy then why cant PAKISTAN and SAUDI ARBIA do the same thing ? I think you should change the name of your newspaper from friday times to KARBALA times.
A simple doubt . If a country can export gifted and bought out weapon to another middle east country, for the purpose of killing one section of Muslim population, it is nothing but mercenary trade. You are HURTING THE CREATOR and Challenging him for giving place for SHIAS to live like any other Sunnis.
An outsider like me wonder and cannot believe that there are no high ranking SHIAS in administration, ministry, in the parliment, in the hospitals, in the ARMY, In the Navy, In the Airforce, In the ISI, In the media. in the judiciary, in universities, in TV channels,, among the educated class, among the uneducated class, among the unemployed, among rowdies, among terrorists, and among beggars, among police , among pop singers, among Gazal singers, among other artists. among airline pilots, among diplomats etc, All of them are CITIZENS of Pakistan, a Nation created by Jinnah for all Muslims.. He thought That there will be peace, happiness, progress and harmony etc.
One can understand if such high posts are not occupied by AHMADIS, HINDUS, CHRISTIANS, PARSEES,SIKHS in Pakistan. But cannot understand SHIAS being discriminated. Has no one married in NAWZ family a SHIA. It is amazing that how the Nation is keeping quiet against organized GOVT partisan policies and trading weapon for killing SHIAS.
A writer opines that it is nothing wrong if one Muslim Nation supports an another Muslim Nation. sir, what type of support?. support to Kill Muslims . It is not a support to develop education, health and wealth management. strange. and shocking. what are you selling. It is not your produce to sustain your economy. It is just a bought out or doled out weapons as bribe . Thus the Americans also become part and parcel of this SIN. This is what happened in Afganistan . you are paying for it. Americans wanted some one else to fight for their interest. saudi is doing the same.
people of pakistan. your enemy is not from Outside. It is your Government.
Right from the Day-0ne, the people of Pakistan whenever given the right to vote, have always voted into power those whose who had faith in the lofty ideals and the practices of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The poor people of Pakistan never gave their vote to approve those leaders or parties which use religion for their political gains. But it a very sad and disappointing aspects of our leadership that they succumbed to their greedy selfish short-lived benefits and make themselves bow before the too much noise-making/demanding mullah and try to satisfy their worldly needs and greed, forgetting their ‘roti-kara-makan’ type election slogans. PML-N is doing/repeating the same mistakes again and again like PPP. Day by day things are getting from worse to worst as the state is being sidelined the the government is being run on personalized politics of permanent likes and dislikes.
Will our Saudi bros give us some guarantee that these very weapons will not find their way into the hands of their favorite “outfit” in Pakistan and used against our Armed Forces?
PAKISTAN must send its troops to fight alongside with the FREE SYRIAN ARMY to liberate SYRIA from the ASSAD REGIME. OTHERWISE if AL NUSRA FRONT takes over they WOULD END UP demolishing IRAN.
Agree with NAJAM SETHI.
It came as a great surprise when the COAS visited Saudi Arabia almost soon after taking over and received a medal from SA.
this seemed to be the harbinger of things to come.
Whatever we have been doing in the past must serve as a lesson.
The results have not been to our advantage.
We should now adopt non Interfernce as the key.
It is under UN auspices that we must send troops,to countries not otherwise and only for UN duties.
Troops sent to countries friendly or otherwise can only be for seeking financial benefits and runs counter to strategic and foreign PO,icy objectives.People must come out to protest as this is patently against the interests of Pakistan?
Shams Z Abbas
The title should have been “Leasing out Broken Pakistan”. This dangerous state Pakistan must be broken into more pieces.
Sethi sahib will you please explain yr photos along with baloch rebels and yr arrest in 90’s raises eyebrows on yr affiliation and agenda . On the topic I would recommend you to stop fueling rumors if Pakistan is selling weapons thats a good news for our defence industry and you stop selling yr soul and words for few cheap dollars.
I see some people defending this policy on the pretext that we should look at our interests…and everyone sell weapons, why not us?
Well, firstly its NOT in our long-term interests. We have seen how meddling into other countries come back to haunt us later. What did we actually achieve by interfering in Afghanistan, Kashmir? Trust me people, they both hate us. Kashmiris may also hate India, but if they cant get independence they will rather saty with India than us. Afghans hate us more than ever…fact. All the militant Deobandis that we created for Jehad purposes are now threatening the existence of Pakistan.
Secondly if America and Europe sells weapons, do not forget that they get the flack for it. They have enough resources to offset the repercussions…they have enough resources, culture, development, human-rights, rule of law to afford negative publicity that they get for selling weapons, supporting dictators and corrupt regimes. WE on the contrary have NOTHING whatsoever to counter,the mess we are about to create for our short-term gains.
Churchill asked a lady if she will engage in unsavoury activity for
one million pound, she said yes. He asked if she would for
hundred pound, she angrily replied what kind of lady he thinks
I am. Churchill said we have already established who you
are, we are just negotiating the price. If I am not mistaken USA
also gave $1.5B in aid, same as Saudi Arabia. This looks like
the market price for Pakistan. PM office as well GHQ in Rawalpindi
should hang the sales price tag to avoid haggling.
Mr. Sethi, without the slightest doubt is the most balanced, objective, fearless and sensible political analysts of Pakistan who calls a spade a spade and consistently points out the utter folly of the Sharif government in giving the Taliban a breathing spell under their duplicitous ruse of offering negotiations. Mr. Sethi is not seduced into becoming a Sharif government apologist and supporter in return for the favor of being appointed the Chairman of PCB by NS. Mian Sahab is playing with fire in selling the interests of the country to Saudia Arabia, the epi-center of evil and the unquestioned exporter of terrorism and militancy, in return for the infusion of billions into Pakistani economy but at the cost of annoying its powerful next door neighbor, Iran.
As far Ibrahim, he typifies the ‘Jahilaan’ rant of the Tafkiri, Salafist idiots, dripping with hate but forgetting that the creator of Pakistan was also their hated Shia. It takes only a mentally defunct Salafist with an IQ of 40 not to realize that deep hatred of the progeny of the holy Prophet is not likely to endear them to the prophet himself just as blowing themselves up as suicide bombers is not going to land these savages into the arms of 72 virgins in heavens but straight to the darkest corners of hell.
Our US friends seem to have been offended by the unprecedented Saudi friendship-gift of 1.50 Billion direct into the Forex hard-hit Pakistani National exchequer and has thought it fit to retaliate by a corresponding/identical cut of one billion dollars, which are now sent and spent in Ukraine to contain Russian expansion.
Changing the murderous regime in Syria wouldn’t be a bad idea. In fact, it would be quite good. As for Salafi-Wahabi takeover there, that would be fantastic for the region. It would then be free of the waste on mazaars and the mashaikh living off the fat of the land for free, something long overdue for Muslims. We need this change more than anyone else though. Our feudal – pir combine has drained all blood out of us and the country.