Saudi Arabia is shocked at the way Pakistani government of Nawaz Sharif is handling request of Saudia to help them symbolically in the war against Houthi rebels in Yemen. It wasn’t about attacking Yemen, or Shiite or Iran but it was about a payback in friendship. Pakistan has bungled up the chance and Nawaz Sharif has once again turned into a mess with his lethargy and habit of delaying the decision. Next time, army does a coup and tries to hang him no Saudi Arabia will be there to save him and put him in Saroor palace. People have elected this government and they wanted to see it making decisions. Why on Earth did they take this issue to the joint session of parliament? It was a straight forward issue and there was no need to make a mountain of this mole as nothing was required.
There are various reasons why Pakistan must support Saudia in Yemen Publicly:
1) 2 Million Pakistanis work in Saudi Arabia, GCC, Middle East, Gulf and UAE. After giving this cold shoulder to Saudi Arabia, their future will be uncertain and not pleasant at all.
2) Pakistani economy runs on remittances from these expats in Middle East. They will start drying up soon if we loose KSA’s support.
3) Iran is already creating problems for Pakistan in making Balochistan restive and is already buddy with India on issue of Chahbahar seaport and providing India all the logistics and routes to Afghanistan.
4) For decades now Saudi Arabia is plugging huge holes in Pakistani economy silently with billions of dollars of aid so that we don’t go bankrupt. That won’t happen anymore and we as a whole will suffer soon.
5) Pakistan only has two true friends in world; China and Saudi Arabia. We are on verge of loosing one of them and China would then also think hard again if its a good option to put weight behind Pakistan.
And Saudi Arabia is not happy with the happenings in Pakistan over this issue. They are still giving us some room to mend what we are doing. Saudi military spokesperson said on Friday that Pakistan is yet to inform Saudi Arabia regarding the country’s official stance after the passing of resolution in Parliament. The spokesperson further said they would still like Pakistan’s military to join in the coalition and support Saudi Arabia in the Yemen conflict. We still have time but not much and its running out.