SAUDI FOREIGN POLICY: PAKISTANI TROOPS TO THE KINGDOM?

Pakistani sources in late September claimed that Saudi Arabia had asked the Pakistani government to dispatch Pakistani troops to the Kingdom. This, if true, would be meant to achieve the following:

1) It would trump any infiltration by al-Qaeda of the Saudi armed forces and the National Guard. There's a distinct possibility that this already has taken place. Non-Arabic-speaking Sunni foreign forces should be more manageable than local forces, whose training has been limited for fear they would stage a coup.

2) It would assist the Saudi government in suppressing any wide-scale Shiite rebellion in the Eastern Province, now that the Shiites have the upper hand in Iraq, and Shiite nationalism (within the wider Arab nationalism) is reaching peak mobilization. (The majority of Pakistanis are Sunni.) (In late April, 450 Saudi Shiite activists presented a petition to Crown Prince Abdallah, asking for equal rights with the Sunnis.)

3) It would send a message to Iran that the Saudis are ready for any disturbance where Iran plays catalyst. (Too early. Iran, for now, can rely on the mobilized Sunni public. Prime Minister Sharon helps it out, by building a wall and stealing yet more Palestinian land.)

4) It would send a clear message to the United States that the Kingdom is no longer certain about the American commitment, especially when viewed in tandem with Prince Abdallah’s September visit to Russia. Though the Crown Prince is close to the United States, he probably has misgivings about the American goal to take full control of the Saudi government.

5) It would provide the Kingdom with a nuclear cover, to offset Israel’s nuclear weapons and Iran’s development of the same.

Defense Minister Prince Sultan has denied on October 22 that any military deal has been reached with Pakistan. But a balance of power analysis would indicate that a Saudi-Pakistani alliance and the dispatch of troops are distinct possibilities. Israeli Prime Minister Sharon visited India in early September, in what looked like an affirmation of a new political-military alliance. It was claimed that Israel concluded an agreement with India to sell it over one billion dollars in weapons. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries should be concerned about India's alliances, as millions of Indians work in the Gulf countries, and Indian nationalists have voiced claims to that region's wealth.

At the beginning of September, the Crown Prince paid Moscow a visit. Arab sources seemed to agree that the visit–symbolic in general, with some commercial agreements--was a message to the United States. In essence, following the invasion of Iraq, the pullout of U.S. troops from the Kingdom to Qatar, and the continued anti-Saudi campaign in the United States by conservatives and liberals, the Kingdom was now searching for it security everywhere. It continues to work on its alliance with the United States, but has decided to expand its horizons and seek alternative sources of security.

SPC NOTE : Arab observers have failed to see that Abdallah's visit to Russia was not meant only as a message to the United States, but also as a desperate attempt to slow-down the take-over by the United States of the Saudi government--succession and all. The reason why the otherwise astute Arab observers have failed to see in Abdallah's moves the desperate attempt to preserve some Saudi independence: The majority of thee observers are on the Saudi or the U.S. payroll, or both. Bye-bye astuteness.