The Crossroads of Opportunity
Iran’s Iraq war has sputtered along violently to what seems to becoming a genuine ceasefire after long years of horrific slaughter and destruction. Mr Perez de Cuellar is hoping that Iran’s Mr Velayati and Iraq’s Mr Tariq Aziz will look each other in the eye during the ongoing Geneva talks and eventually start talking turkey. As wars go, this must rank as one of the most senseless, an unending orgy started due to misplaced Iraqi adventurism a la Saddam Hussain gone astray confounded doubly by Iranian clergical stubbornness. That Iraq clearly was the aggressor is not a debatable fact, it was; that it was Iran’s propensity to be principled on various issues that kept the war booming along is also not matter of doubt. The bottom line is that the material loss is estimated at approximately US$ 400 billion, as if the cost of a million lives, give and take 100,000, can be tabulated in such a manner.
Pakistan may have managed somehow to walk on a tight-rope but certainly cannot continue to have an even-handed approach between Iran and Iraq. Since the early years of Pakistan’s independence, Iran has consistently been of great moral and material support during times of external stress, particularly during our wars with India, the last of which is still to come in the future. On the other hand, since 1958 and the advent of subsequent Baath regimes, Iraq has been internationally and consistently wishing us ill, highlighted by the large scale smuggling of sophisticated weapons via the safe conduit of diplomatic bags in 1974. It is only recently that they have shown some concern for a relationship with Pakistan but Iraq has not supported our cause vis-a-vis India for the last three decades. While we can understand the long-standing historical Persian-Arab rivalries and try to adjust that fact with our excellent relations with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan, etc, our regional and material interests lie with constantly developing and maintaining our relations with Iran. Iran is our natural ally in the region as well as being our immediate western neighbour and we cannot afford to have an even handed approach when one takes into account the existing threat from India, our immediate eastern neighbour. We can only hope that eight years of bloodletting would have tempered Iran’s Islamic ardour to the extent of dovetailing (what universally everyone calls as) fundamentalism into pragmatism. Our deep friendship with Iran may also act, to an extent, as a restraining influence on them vis-a-vis the Arabs and act as a dampener on the lunatic fringe existing in the form of a new breed of terrorists spawned by the war and religious extremism. Hizbollah-type terrorism is a direct offshoot of Iran’s isolation from the comity of nations and pragmatists in Iran will definitely impress upon the fanatics the bankruptcy of following such extreme and violent policies, the victims of which are (1) innocents caught in the crossfire and more harmfully (2) the general image of what Islam stands for in the western world. On the contrary, democracy in whatever order has replaced the autocratic rule of the Shah, the Islamic resurgency in Iran establishing deep roots. It is unfortunate that the western world has not seen Iran in its new image, a matter of prejudice and short-sightedness on both the sides, which Pakistan can do much to blow away.
Regional strategic interests dictate that Iran remains our safe route for wartime supplies. Even with that and emotions aside, Iran represents a great economic opportunity for Pakistan. The reconstruction of Iran would generate an enormous requirement for our manpower and material. The successor of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) is the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO), binding together Iran, Turkey and Pakistan. Immediate steps must be taken on the governmental level to revive the on-going process on a priority basis. It is extremely important that before others take advantage of the situation we should exploit our geographical and emotional links to Iran in conjunction with our other great ally, Turkey, Iran’s north-western neighbour. This would benefit Iran as much as it benefits both Turkey and Pakistan. In the end, the major support for the economic rehabilitation of Iran has to come from the First World and if history acts as a precedent, it is eventually going to be the US of A, once it gets over its deep moral repugnance at the hostage issue and other indignities suffered over the past decade at the hands of Iran, which will come up with a version of a Marshall plan for Iran and (once peace comes to) Afghanistan. France and UK have shown no such compunctions in the rapid normalisation of diplomatic relations. It is again a matter of great satisfaction that while both Pakistan and Turkey have the closest of relations with Iran and have served as Iran’s main conduits for commerce during these long eight years, both countries maintain excellent mutual relationship with each other and also with the US of A. In the context of new emerging co-relations between the nations of this region, this significant fact of traditional continuity may tilt Iran’s future ambit satisfactorily away from the Soviet Union’s grisly and Godless embrace. The recent emphatic UN resolution condemning the use of chemical weapons, the main victim being Iran, will do much to assuage Iran’s suspicions of the perceived anti-Iranian role of the US in the UN body. The use of chemical weapons by Iraq against Iran and against its own Kurdish population is just a bloody foretaste of the likelihood of a PAX IRAQI in the region once Iraq’s Armed Forces are not committed further in the war with Iran. Within the State Department in USA there must be a genuine concern to reach some accommodation with Iran as graphically explained in a recent article by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The first task in the rebuilding of Iran must be the development of a viable infrastructure for communications inside Iran and adjacent to it in the adjoining Pakistani province of Balochistan. The war with Iraq has shown that Iran’s greatest weakness lay in a logistics system which was within easy reach of Iraq’s air power. At the same time the same weakness in depth requires that those of Iran’s industries that can be shifted must be relocated in South Eastern Iran, away from potential interdiction either from Iraq or Afghanistan (at least till it remains a client Russian state), with safe and unrestricted access to the Indian Ocean. This will involve a mutual effort on the part of both Iran and Pakistan to develop road, rail, port, telegraph and telephone facilities in the region supported by adequate potable water and electricity. Lateral communications with South Eastern Iran must be the high priority in Pakistan as well as development of Balochistan’s Province’s support facilities. By itself this is a unique opportunity for Pakistan to establish a coastal highway and railway line complemented by a network of similar facilities in the vast Balochistan spaces. Gwadar and Pasni can be developed as FREE PORTS on a priority basis (see MAKING DREAMS COME TRUE, THE NATION dated 22 December 1987).
The development of Balochistan will afford tremendous benefit to Pakistan. We have excellent expertise and enterprise in the construction field and with the return of quite a few of our expatriates from the Middle East there is no shortage of skilled manpower that can undertake any task either in Pakistan or in Iran. The present communications set-up in Iran has been badly damaged and our great affinity with our neighbours will be extremely profitable for those of our entrepreneurs who show some adventure. In contrast, Iran is apt to look askance at expertise and labour coming from those countries that adopted an antagonistic or even a neutral policy towards Iran’s needs for the past decade. Pakistan can also serve as an excellent intermediary for such expertise that can come from such countries and may not be readily available, taking on the role of a multi-national entrepreneur on the Singapore pattern.
During the boom years of Iran’s decade of development in the 1970’s, cement was in short supply as well as steel. During the war years, Iran became self-sufficient in cement and steel as housing starts fell. With the advent of peace, demand will certainly outstrip supply by millions of tons for many years in the future. Pakistan’s great potential to manufacture cement and steel can be increased manifold, with an open invitation to foreign entrepreneurs to enter into joint ventures in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province with tax-free status for exports to Iran. Along with our textile exports, our capacity to manufacture textile machinery and integrated plants of various configuration e.g. Sugar, Cement, Refining etc can also be exploited. Our transportation sector can be multiplied manifold in a sophisticated manner with emphasis placed on the manufacture of large trucks in Pakistan acting as a base for a well modulated transportation industry. Iran may need everything from toothbrushes to trucks and Pakistan`s hitherto under-developed Balochistan Province has to be effectively industrially geared for this economic challenge on a war footing, delay would entail missing the commercial bus. One can give innumerable suggestions what can and should be done, the start has to be made by having an effective trade mechanism in place in Iran for us to exploit, both as manufacturers and as surrogate representatives for those western business who persist in remaining shy of Iran’s Islamic premises. Since Iran had a much developed pre-war industrial base we may also concentrate on the raw material required to feed the industries as well as Iran’s commodity requirements such as wheat, rice and cotton.
Every war leaves behind it considerable debris, the most poignant being human, fortunately eminently recoverable. As the war winds down, hundreds of thousands of stories will come to the fore of individuals and families who will need medical attention for their physical and mental selves. Hospitals will have to be complemented with sophisticated rehabilitation centres to salve Iran’s human and psychological wounds. Iraq’s chemical attacks have been particularly brutal, opening a new vista for conventional warfare that qualifies as premeditated murder on a genocidal scale leaving deep mental scars among the survivors. In many cases rehabilitation may also involve physical relocation to safer areas where economic survival is a possibility. In this respect again, the role of Pakistan can be salutary, our medical profession and our expertise in refugee tackling can be of great benefit to Iran’s war invalids and internal refugees.
A crossroads of economic opportunity has come about for Pakistan with the cessation of Iran’s Iraq war. Very fortunately this coincides with our long-term national policies. While it is for the Government of Pakistan to invigorate the public sector, private sector enterprise must come into full play exploiting our excellent inherent potential in this respect to good economic purpose. As peace breaks out in the region it is incumbent upon us to utilise this opportunity from a national commercial standpoint, dovetailing it neatly into our strategic compulsions.
Luckily our future intentions are only an extension of our considered foreign policy over the last decade. We must get onto the high ground vis-a-vis Iran NOW.
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