Saudi-Tehran Tensions: Can New Delhi Avoid Taking Sides?
Saeed Naqvi
Polarized politics is what
pundits were expecting from the party and its principal leader with an eye on
polls in key states. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised people by
turning up in Riyadh to meet the custodian of Islam’s two holiest shrines, King
Salman bin Abdulaziz.
In doing so, he has dropped a
pebble in the pond. Ripples will lap at many shores in the region – Pakistan,
Iran, the Gulf countries. Israel, ofcourse, will have noted the visit with
satisfaction.
Editorials in the gulf
newspapers give glowing accounts of the visit. Millions of Indians in these
states will obviously rejoice as well as their families in India.
Establishments in Islamabad
and Rawalpindi will peruse every phrase in the joint declaration issued at the
end of the visit. The timing of the visit was such that defence and strategic
relations had to be given saliency.
Saudis are in deep trouble in
Yemen. Relentless air bombardments for a year has razed cities and
infrastructure to the ground but not brought the Yemenis to their knees. Riyadh
talks only of “Iran backed Houthi rebels”. With falling oil prices, the
treasury is depleted. Providers of mercenary armies like Blackwater have been
making money hand over fist. Almost comically, Riyadh has opened its coffers to
lure Latin American private armies for combat duty in Yemen. Imagine Roman
Catholics from Colombia fighting for Wahabi Islam.
It were in these desperate
circumstances that Riyadh turned to their Pakistani friends for military help
in Yemen, including for combat duties. After conferring with army Chief Raheel
Sharif, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif placed the issue before the National
Assembly where it was shot down.
Saudis were in no mood for
niceties. They simply put aside their old friendship with Pakistan and clasped
India’s hand. It would be wrong to say the Riyadh turned to New Delhi on a
rebound. It is a long friendship of which energy security, Indian Diaspora,
billions worth of remittances, annual Haj are some of the salient features. The
finest diplomats have been generally selected as ambassadors. Vice President
Hamid Ansari was one such.
Also, the late king Abdullah
was the Chief Guest at the January 26, Republic Day Parade in 2006. In 2010
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Riyadh, signaling an acceptance of the
regional order under US auspices. To that extend the present visit represents a
continuity but in a different setting. Saudis have to pull themselves up if
they are to avert a nosedive in Yemen at a time when nothing is going Riyadh’s
way in Syria.
The other uniqueness derives
from Modi’s persona. Here is the first avowedly Hindu nationalist leader, one
who declared in Parliament that the entire Muslim period was one of “ghulami”
or subservience: he has now reached out to befriend a country with a special
resonance for the world’s Muslims. It would be too abrupt to put it down to a
change of heart. Implicit in the visit is nimble footed diplomacy: it foils
Pakistan in its most vulnerable moment with the House of Saud.
The Saudis have given New
Delhi everything it could have wanted on defence, terrorism – and much more
without naming Pakistan. There will be “exchange of visits by military
personnel and experts, conduct of joint military exercise, exchange visits of
ships and aircrafts and supply of arms and ammunition and their joint
development.” In this and several such blanket statements, the sky is the
limit.
Visits are often forgotten
once the ink dries on agreements. To forestall this danger the two sides have
“welcomed the decision for convening of the second meeting of Joint Committee
on Defence Cooperation in Riyadh to follow up on the visit of Prime Minister
Modi”. Already there is talk of special envoys to keep up the momentum.
The flip side to the narrative
is the lack of finesse with which Iran has been handled. The visit was planned
at a time when Saudis had snapped diplomatic ties with Iran after an uproar in
parts of the Muslim world after the beheading of popular Shia cleric, Nimr al
Nimr in the oil rich Eastern province of the Kingdom. Surely Tehran, with which
we have a more assured future, could have been kept in the loop.
That Oil and Petroleum
Minister Dharmendra Pradhan is being sent to Tehran with a technical team to
ostensibly discuss the $6 billion Farzand–B gas field project will be seen by
Tehran for what it probably is – a damage control exercise. The Farzand project
has been discussed for six years. That Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and, at
some stage, even the Prime Minister will be Iran bound, is all very well, but
an unnecessary phase of defensiveness would have been avoided by taking Iranian
foreign office into confidence.
It is very tempting to help
protect the sea lanes off the troubled cities of Aden in Yemen and Jizan on the
Saudi-Yemen border. Caution would be required because an opening with Riyadh
could become a slippery slope if New Delhi finds itself taking sides in the
Kingdom’s adversarial moves in the region, eventually targeting Tehran. Already
talks with Yemeni groups and the Saudis are taking place in Oman. These cannot
be without direct or indirect Iranian participation. It is a dynamic area New
Delhi has chosen to strike a high profile in.
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