Pakistan is unable to fight a war and seeks an off-Disaster with Iran
When Iran and Pakistan exchanged airstrikes this week, with both targeting what they said were militant camps, the exchange raised fears that the unrest sweeping the Middle East was moving into new territory.
To Pakistan, which was the first to be affected, it was important to send a clear message that violations of its sovereignty would not be tolerated. But the Pakistani military quickly followed its retaliation with a different message – one that reflected its desire to contain tensions, a desire motivated in no small part by the enormous pressure the country had already faced before the clash with Iran.
Pakistan signaled it was seeking de-escalation by calling the two nations “brotherly countries” and urging dialogue and cooperation, language that Iran reiterated in its own statement on Friday. Pakistan's call, analysts said, underscored a clear fact: the country could hardly be in a worse position to fight a war.
For two years, the country has been mired in an economic crisis and political turmoil that has directly tested the country's all-powerful military establishment. Terrorist attacks have flared up again across the country. And with the country already at odds with its archrival India, the country has seen its once friendly relations with the Taliban government in neighboring Afghanistan deteriorate.
“At a time when Pakistan is experiencing some of the most serious internal unrest in years, if not decades, the last thing the country can afford is further escalations and an increased risk of conflict with Iran,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center. South Asia Institute. “If Pakistan becomes embroiled in serious tensions with not one or two but three neighbors, that is a geopolitical worst-case scenario bar none.”
The clash with Iran comes ahead of Pakistan's long-awaited parliamentary elections expected in early February, the first since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2021. the foundation of Pakistani politics, a winner-takes-all game that has long been controlled from behind the scenes by the country's military.
Over the past two years, Mr. Khan's ouster has fueled deep-seated resentment — especially among young Pakistanis and the middle class — toward the country's generals, whom Mr. Khan blames for his removal. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets to protest, sometimes with violent scenes. Protesters have breached the gates of the national army headquarters and attacked military units across the country.
Months later, Mr Khan was arrested – a move widely believed to be an attempt by the military to keep him out of politics. He is still in prison, but a few weeks before the elections his popularity is still high. That support has injected a once-unthinkable sense of uncertainty into the upcoming elections in a country where the military has typically cleared the way for its favored candidates.
Adding to the political unease is the violence of insurgent groups that have attacked both political and military targets has returned in the past two years, with hundreds of deaths. The attacks have exposed the country's precarious stability and further eroded public confidence in the military. They have also fueled growing tension with the Taliban in Afghanistan Some militant groups have found a safe haven since the group returned to power in 2021, while others have been expelled from Afghan territory into Pakistan.
At the same time, Pakistan is in a dire economic situation, relying heavily on a loan from the International Monetary Fund to prop up an economy that would struggle to sustain a long-term military commitment.
In the current circumstances, analysts say, Pakistan's military strategists are walking a very fine line.
“On the one hand, they were faced with the strategic dilemma that if Pakistan allowed this to pass, it would have emboldened all of Pakistan's adversaries, especially India,” said Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace. “On the other hand, by taking a confrontational stance and hitting back, Pakistan risks a dilemma on three fronts.”
Yet the military exchange with Iran has shown that even with growing discontent with Pakistan's military, the country's foreign policy remains firmly in the hands of the generals. Those military leaders appeared to be following a well-worn playbook in responding to a provocation by a neighboring country with military force that fails to provoke all-out war.
For decades, Pakistan has sporadically shelled Afghanistan's border areas in what Pakistani officials describe as targeted attacks on Pakistani militants seeking shelter there. And in 2019, heavy shelling and gunfire between Pakistan and India along their disputed border initially threatened to escalate into a war between the two nuclear-armed countries, but that threat was ultimately contained.
By targeting separatists from the Baluch ethnic group in Iran, Pakistan on Thursday mirrored the action Iran said it had taken in attacking a militant group, Jaish al-Adl, in Pakistan's Baluchistan region. The group had attacked a police station in southeastern Iran on December 15, killing 11 officers.
Pakistan undertook the tit-for-tat retaliation “in the most careful, deliberate manner possible by choosing to attack Baluch militants – its own citizens – hiding in Iran,” said Madiha Afzal, an associate from the Brookings Institution in Washington. Nine people are said to have been killed in those attacks.
The strikes and subsequent diplomatic statement “sought to deter future actions by Iran while signaling a turn for de-escalation,” she added.
For those living in Baluchistan, however, the Iranian airstrike was a devastating reminder of the violence that has gripped the region for years.
Baluchistan, a large, arid province in southwestern Pakistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan, has experienced five insurgencies since Pakistan's creation in 1947, the most recent and prolonged since 2003. These groups have staged violent attacks in name of the struggle against political marginalization and the exploitation of the region's resources.
The Pakistani military has for years been the ruling power and gatekeeper in Baluchistan, which has been largely barred from foreign journalists. The army and its militia allies have been widely accused of repression and human rights abuses as they battle insurgents to maintain control.
Now Baluch people feel “caught in a war between two countries they cannot control,” said Malik Siraj Akbar, a Washington-based expert on the region. “The bleak social and political conditions in both countries are fueling Baluch resistance, and these airstrikes threaten to tilt more toward armed groups, further destabilizing the region.”
Until recently, a military strike with Iran — the first exchange of missiles between the two countries in recent history — was considered virtually unimaginable, despite occasional border violations in recent years.
Disagreements have arisen in recent decades over issues such as terrorism, a failed gas pipeline project, Iran's close coordination with India and Pakistan's ties with Saudi Arabia, a top Iranian rival for influence in the region.
But diplomatic relations remained largely cordial, despite sectarian differences between Shiite Iran and predominantly Sunni Pakistan. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iran began funding Shia institutions in Pakistan. Any escalation of the clash between the two countries could fuel sectarian tensions and pose a serious challenge to Pakistan's internal order.
Iran said it carried out attacks this week in Pakistan, as well as in Iraq and Syria, to show it would take the fight to militant opponents anywhere. Observers said Iranian authorities were driven by a desire to show strength both at home and abroad as they face internal challenges to their authority.
On Friday, however, Iran appeared to be heading for the exit that Pakistan had apparently built. In a statement, Iran said it “distinguishes between the friendly and brotherly government of Pakistan and armed terrorists” and that it would not allow these militants to “strain these relations” between the two countries.
Zia ur-Rehman reporting contributed.