EDITORIAL: It beggars belief that Tehran would carry out an ill-advised and completely unacceptable missile and drone strikes in Pakistan just one day after it hit alleged Israeli intelligence hideouts deep inside Iraq and Syria and decisively upped the ante in the Gaza war that is spreading so dangerously in the Arab region, attracting, in turn, Pakistan’s response to unprovoked aggression in the early hours of yesterday.
Pakistan’s action could be described as most appropriate, measured and proportionate retaliation, successfully targeting only the safe havens of Baloch insurgents wanted by the state of Pakistan with absolute precision in the Sistan-Balochistan province of Iran.
It increasingly appears that Iran had grossly underestimated the extent of the problem that it was going to cause through its warlike behaviour that it demonstrated in Panjgur, Balochistan, a couple of days ago.
Moreover, the explanation for such totally uncalled-for belligerence against Pakistan offered was unfortunately found to be stemming from a blatantly flawed and implausible perspective on Pakistan’s approach to terrorism in areas that are immediately adjacent to Iran’s border.
Iran needed to go only as far back as early 2019, when the Pakistani air force shot down two Indian aircraft following Indian violation of its airspace, to know that Islamabad would never let this sort of needless provocation go unpunished.
Now the stakes are higher than ever before, with neither country affording the kind of confrontation that is developing. True, Iran had complained repeatedly about militant group Jaish al Adl, which often used its camps on the Pakistani side to carry out terrorist activities across the border.
Just like Pakistan had shared intelligence about “Pakistani origin terrorists calling themselves Sarmachars on the ungoverned spaces inside Iran”, according to a statement by the Pakistani foreign ministry, and the status quo had endured.
Until Iran suddenly decided to take matters in its own hands and surprise Pakistan, when the two countries were engaged in numerous high-level exchanges, including landmark trade talks and naval exercises; completely changing the complexion of the relationship.
One international media outlet, Britain’s BBC, reported on the day of the Iranian strike that Tehran conveyed a warning to the Pakistani caretaker prime minister during a brief interaction on the sidelines of the world economic forum (WEF) in Davos, but this bit of information did not echo anywhere else in the international media.
Regardless, now this tit-for-tat has raised the temperature a number of notches and altered not just the bilateral calculus, but the entire regional outlook. Surely, Iran would be wise enough to know that any further escalation is in nobody’s interest, especially its own as it takes an ever-increasing stake in developments in the Gulf.
Pakistan has down-graded diplomatic relations, quite naturally, so it is now up to Iran to claw its way back to the negotiating table. It’s a shame that this route had to be taken, especially since – as the Foreign Office brief following the Pakistani retaliation explained – we consider Iran a brotherly country and therefore take the attack as something of a stab in the back.
It cannot, in any way, be claimed that Tehran had exhausted all diplomatic options before taking to the gun. So there’s already enough to suggest that there might be a breakdown in its own command structure with the Revolutionary Guards, perhaps, calling the shots when it was not their place to do so, especially in such delicate matters. But that is for Tehran itself to sort out and return to constructive talks.
Both countries have enough problems of their own to afford such an ugly, completely unwarranted slugfest. Pakistan has troubles on its eastern and western borders and also an economic crisis that occupies much of its attention. And Iran, already badly sanctioned by the west, is taking a very risky position in the Gaza genocide. The threats for both sides have never been more acute. And considering their long history, they are best solved on the table.
Both Pakistan and Iran are required to immediately begin a diplomatic process of de-escalation. Given Iran’s conduct, however, it will be difficult for Pakistan to escape the connotations of an adversarial kind. Iran, therefore, needs to clarify why it chose to cause breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty while it was hosting the external affairs minister of India, a country that unfortunately happens to be Pakistan’s worst enemy, to say the least.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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