India and Pakistan's stance on Iran's nuclear program

It has been a while since I last updated this blog or wrote a commentary for the journals that I contribute to. Recently, an American graduate student contacted me with questions for his research project dealing with India and Pakistan's reactions to the hypothetical development of nuclear weapons by Iran . I thought to share my brief response to his question with the readers of this blog.

Theoretically speaking,  Iran currently maintains the technical capacity to enrich uranium to even weapons grade level if it wishes to. Iran 's sucess in enriching part of its existing stock of 3.5 percent level enriched uranium to 20 perecent level with relative ease for its civilian Research Reactor in Tehran  showed that it possesses the technical capacity to enrich uranium to higher levels as well . However, Iran has refrained from conducting higher-level enrichments because they have no applications in Iran's civilian nuclear program. The highest religious and political officials of Iran have reitrated many times that Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons on both religious and strategic grounds. As a member of the NPT, all of Iran's nuclear facilities are also under constant surveillance and inspection by the IAEA , a fact which makes the diversion of Iran's peaceful nuclear program to military purposes virtually impossible. 
  

As regards India and Pakistan's reactions to such a hypothetical scenario, it should be noted that Iran maintains friendly relations with both Pakistan and India, even though its relations with India had been strained in recent years as India had leaned more towards the US, lending its weight to that country in its international campaign against Iran's nuclear program. Although India would supposedly not benefit from a hypothetically nuclear-armed Iran, it does not have any serious security concerns about Iran becoming a nuclear-armed state either, as there are no fundamental conflicts of interest between the two countries over any issue and also given India's own nuclear deterrence capability and its geographical distance from Iran.

More recently, Indian leaders have been pursuing rapprochement with Iran as they have realized that their bandwagoning with the US over the past several years against Iran's nuclear issue has cost them loss of lucrative business opportunities in Iran's energy sector to the benefit of their regional rival China. Besides commercial interests, India and Iran also maintain largely common geopolitical interests in Afghanistan, which is centered around preventing the Taliban from seizing power and controlling that country. Recent visits by high-ranking Indian officials to Tehran and the planned visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Tehran all indicate that India is determined to mend its ties with Iran and shed its image as a US lackey in Iranian eyes.

Iran's relations with Pakistan has also improved in recent years as a result of developments in Afghanistan, as I have also made the case in my previous articles on Iran-Pakistan relations . Despite some tensions between the two countries in the past over Afghanistan, Pakistan, similar to India, does not have much to fear about a hypothetically nuclear-armed Iran. Pakistan's public opinion is in fact quite positive towards Iran and does not perceive a hypothetical nuclear-armed Iran as a security threat to Pakistan. Not to mention both India and Pakistan's own nuclear deterrence capabilities, common cultural and civilizational bonds between these two countries and Iran also preclude the possibility of occasional tensions in their relations turning into open confrontations with Iran.

Closer Iran-Pakistan partnership and its implications for the U.S.

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy In Focus, Middle East Online, Foreign Policy Journal and Online Opinion.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari paid a second visit to Tehran last weekend after having been there only three weeks ago. Various speculations have come out as to what may have motivated Zardari to pay two official visits to Tehran within just three weeks. Official reports by Pakistani and Iranian sources broadly characterized the visit as “ part of the on-going process to strengthen bilateral ties, step up consultations with countries in the region for peace and stability at a time when tension was developing in some parts and for promoting peace and stability in Afghanistan and fighting militancy.” But this rationale hardly warrants two official visits at the level of head of state in such a short span of time. After all, such concerns could be dealt with by lower-level officials as in the past.

Some other speculations presented around the web seem too farfetched to merit any serious scrutiny. Playing a mediating role between Iran and the West, while Pakistan itself is currently embroiled in a crisis with the United States, or acting as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran, while the tensions between the two countries have largely subsided and while the two parties themselves can discuss their problems directly or, if needed, lower-level third party actors can do the task, are among such speculations made around Zardari’s recent visit to Tehran.

In light of recent developments in Pakistan’s foreign policy, it seems more plausible to think that, more than any other factors, Zardari’s last two visits to Tehran are explained by the unfolding political crisis between Pakistan and the United States which was provoked by the U.S. raid on Al-Qaeda leader’s hideout near Islamabad in early May, drawing Pakistan’s strong condemnation as a blatant violation of its national sovereignty. The fallouts from the raid including Pakistan’s decision to restrict access of the U.S. military to its soil for conducting drone strikes on suspected militants and reducing the number of American military advisors in Pakistan and the recent U.S. decision to freeze $800 million worth of military aid to Islamabad have provided further incentives for Pakistan to seek or make the impression of seeking closer partnership with its Western neighbor.

Given the recent history of tensions in U.S-Pakistan relations, the question poses itself as to what the recent apparent warm-up in Iran-Pakistan relations signify and what its implications might be for U.S. interests in the region ? To begin with, it should be noted that even in the absence of a crisis in U.S-Pakistan relations, Iran and Pakistan have abundant rationales for establishing a dependable framework for closer bilateral relations. Without going into detail, it is clear that apart from cultural and religious bonds between the two nations, economic and security considerations are the driving force behind the relations of the two countries.

Due to conflict of interests between the two countries in certain policy areas in the past, they have not been able to fully realize their potentials in forging a strategic partnership with each other. Their divergent foreign policies towards Afghanistan have long been a major source of tensions between the two countries. These tensions were at their peak in the second half of the 1990s when the Taliban had captured most parts of Afghanistan. While Pakistan had lent its full support to the Taliban , Iran was at odds with the group and had instead given its weight to the Northern Alliance forces, a coalition of Persian-speaking and other non-Pashtun ethnic groups in Afghanistan. While creating a host of other problems, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban regime put an end to the proxy wars between different regional powers in Afghanistan and subsequently removed a source of tensions in the relations of Iran and Pakistan at least on a temporary basis.

Both Pakistan and Iran have also needed to balance their relations with each other against their interests in cultivating friendly relations with the regional rivals of each other. Iran has attached importance to its relations with India and has not wished its relations with Pakistan to come at the cost of alienating India. Similarly, Pakistan maintains important economic interests in its relations with Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia and most importantly Iran’s arch foe, the United States. These considerations have precluded the emergence of a full-fledged strategic partnership between Iran and Pakistan even after Afghanistan has ceased to be a major source of tensions in the relations of the two countries over the past decade.

Under normal conditions, the United States does not have much to worry about any warm-up in the relations of Pakistan and Iran. But the combination of cold U.S-Pakistan and warm Iran-Pakistan relations can have significant implications for US interests in the region. Given its present military presence in Afghanistan and its continued fight against the Taliban and the remnants of Al-Qaeda, the United States simply cannot afford to simultaneously antagonize Pakistan and Iran. It will either need to engage Iran over Afghanistan and play down other contentious issues in its relations with Iran, or buy Pakistan’s friendship and alliance back.

Given the current level of U.S. hostility and confrontation with Iran, Iran will surely welcome any opportunities to cultivate a coordinated Afghan strategy with Pakistan, should it be sincerely interested in a strategic partnership with Iran. While Iran has welcomed the overthrow of the Taliban regime and has lent its support to the central government in Afghanistan, it would better serve Iran’s security interests if the United States withdraws from Afghanistan and removes its military bases from across the Iranian border in that country. A close partnership with Pakistan at the background of cold U.S.-Pakistan relations will significantly facilitate the realization of that objective for Iran.

There are various resources at the joint disposal of Iran and Pakistan which can potentially be used to turn up the heat on the United States in Afghanistan and make its military presence in that country too costly. Actively supporting the Afghan insurgency against the U.S. forces, denying transit route for the delivery of logistical supplies to NATO forces and using their leverage with the Afghan government and their traditional influence in Afghan society to incite public opposition to the U.S. military presence in that country are some of the tools available to both countries which can be deployed in the event of escalating tensions with the United States. 

Iran will naturally not hesitate to embrace Pakistan in light of its alienation from the United States. The recent statement by Iran’s supreme leader in his meeting with Pakistani president that the United States is the real enemy of Pakistan was meant to further feed into this alienation. Such representation of the United States also resonates well with some segments of the Pakistani political elites and it is also not entirely alien to the Pakistani public in light of the recent developments in U.S.-Pakistan relations and the close U.S.-India partnership in recent years . This explains why some members of the Pakistani parliament recently echoed Khamenei’s statement and branded the United states as “the common enemy of both Iran and Pakistan” and called upon the Pakistani government to abandon its friendship with the United States.

Having said this, it is unlikely that the United States and Pakistan will allow further fallout in their bilateral relations and will most likely strive to patch up their differences. It thus seems more plausible to attach symbolic significance to the recent warm-up in the relations of Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan is genuinely interested in cultivating closer relations with Iran for various reasons, including energy cooperation with Iran, but it seems unlikely that it will seek this relationship at the expense of its relations with the United States.

Given the current confrontational U.S. approach towards Iran and its tendency to picture every thing about Iran in a zero-sum game framework, Pakistani leaders may have intended to raise the alarm for the United States by making the impression of seeking closer partnership with Iran. It is plausible that Pakistani leaders may have wished to exert pressure on the U.S. government by sending the signal that any further alienation with the United States would amount to closer Iran-Pakistan relations. This development shows once again how far the U.S confrontational approach towards Iran has created unnecessary costs for its own foreign policy and has limited its room for maneuver in the region.

Iran-Pakistan relations in light of popular uprising in Bahrain

This article is simultaneously published in Foreign Policy Journal, American Chronicle and Online Opinion.

Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik was recently on a visit to Tehran conveying a special message from the Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. The Pakistani minister also met with other Iranian officials including his Iranian counterpart Mostafa Mohammad Najjar and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Besides the reports of routine diplomatic niceties over the importance of the bilateral relations of the two countries, no details have been reported on the content of the presidential message delivered by the Pakistani minister.

Lack of substantive media reports notwithstanding, there are some indications as to what may have motivated the Pakistani president to dispatch a special envoy to his Iranian counterpart and what issues may have topped the agenda of the meetings between the Pakistani minister and the Iranian officials. Over the past several years, security and economic cooperation have been the staples of the agendas of meetings between Iranian and Pakistani officials at various levels. However these issues are normally discussed in periodic meetings between the officials of the two countries and within structured frameworks governing the relations of the two countries, unless unpredicted situations arise in the relations of the two countries which would require immediate attention by both parties.

What gave urgency to the current situation in the relations of Iran and Pakistan was the ongoing popular uprising in Bahrain and the seemingly divergent positions of both countries toward the political crisis in that country. More specifically, Iran’s declared solidarity with the uprising of the Shiite majority in Bahrain and its strong opposition to any kind of military assistance provided by foreign governments to the Bahraini regime with a view to suppressing the public struggle for democracy in that country has meant that Pakistan had some explaining to do to Iranian officials in order to salvage its growing economic ties with Iran.

What touched Iran’s nerves was Pakistan’s recent decision to authorize the recruitment of thousands of its retired security officers by the Bahraini regime in an attempt to quell the public uprising there. Following this announcement, Iranian foreign ministry officials summoned the Pakistani charges d’affaires in Tehran and conveyed Iran’s strong reservations over Pakistan’s move and warned his government of serious diplomatic consequences if Pakistan followed through with its decision. The recent trip by the Pakistani interior minister to Tehran to deliver a special message from the Pakistani president to his Iranian counterpart can be understood as an effort to patch up political differences between the two countries over Bahrain and to prevent further diplomatic fallout between them.

The statements of the Pakistani embassy officials in Tehran over the political developments in the region in prelude to Malik’s trip to Tehran also indicate that Islamabad has meant to give assurances to Tehran that it does not intend to take sides in the political conflict in Bahrain. According to the Iranian media , the Pakistani charges d’ affaires in Tehran recently stated that "Pakistan's policy is maintaining neutrality and refraining from interference” in the ongoing political developments in the region including the political conflict in Bahrain. In a recent joint meeting, the Pakistani interior minister and the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi also expressed their common view that the ongoing popular uprisings in the region are not of sectarian nature.

The degree of Pakistani concerns about Iran’s possible retributions over its position on Bahrain has been to the extent that some Pakistani media interpreted the recent announcement by the Iranian defense minister Ahmad Vahidi that Iran plans to build concrete security fence along its border with Pakistan to prevent border crossing by terrorists and drug traffickers as a response to Pakistan’s decision to deploy security personnel to Bahrain. Although building a security fence along its common border with Pakistan would make Iran less reliant on the not-always-forthcoming Pakistani security cooperation, such a strategic and long-term plan may clearly not have been motivated by short-term developments in the region. Nonetheless, border security arrangements were a major issue on the agenda of the Pakistani interior minister’s meeting with his Iranian counterpart. In this line, the Iranian interior minister Mostafa Najjar has reportedly called on the Pakistani government to step up efforts in disrupting the safe haven of the Jundallah terrorist group across the Iranian border in Pakistan.

In the past, Pakistan has extended limited cooperation to Iran by arresting and extraditing some wanted Jundallah terrorist members in its territory but it has been only a matter of time before Jundallah terrorists have regrouped and renewed their terrorist attacks against civilians in southeastern ethnic Balouchi region of Iran which borders Pakistan’s Balouchistan province. Although Pakistan suffers from a by far worse security condition in its own tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, to the extent that it presents the impression of a failed state to observers in those regions, it is capable of providing wider cooperation to Iran in fighting cross-border terrorism by dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist network in its border areas or allowing Iran’s security forces to use its soil in border areas to pursue and eradicate Jundallah’s terrorist elements.

Pakistani officials may think that putting a decisive end to Jundallah’s terrorist activities in its border areas may not be in their best interests as it might dampen Iran’s incentives for cooperation with Pakistan in other issue areas, especially in the energy sector, once the threat of terrorism is gone for good. In other words, Pakistan may consider its cooperation over combating cross-border terrorism as a bargaining chip for gaining economic concessions from Iran and would thus prefer to keep the option open for a long time by extending a limited rather than full-fledged security cooperation to it . While this may work in Pakistan’s interests for a short while, its drawback is that it would erode Iran’s trust and jeopardize Pakistan’s long-term interests in its relations with Iran. Under such a situation, Iran may be forced to seek a permanent and long-term solution to the threat of cross-border terrorism and thus end its reliance on security cooperation with Pakistan. Iran’s recent decision to build a concrete security fence along its entire border with Pakistan can be interpreted as a response to Pakistan’s irresolute cooperation with Iran in dismantling Jundallah’s terrorist safe haven in its border areas.

The stakes for Pakistan are high in its relations with Iran given the ongoing investment projects between the two countries in the energy sector. The existing natural gas pipe line project which is expected to become operational in 2014, will supply the bulk of Pakistan’s domestic natural gas needs from Iran’s massive South Pars gas field. Forging a strategic relationship with a neighboring country which possesses the second largest natural gas reserves in the world and is expected by official accounts to supply ten percent of the world’s natural gas needs in a not so distant future, owing to enormous investments in its natural gas sector over the past couple of decades, would be on top of the foreign policy agenda of every astute state leader. Pakistani politicians seem to be looking to that horizon despite some contradictory signals emanating from Islamabad every now and then, as in the case of their recent dispatch of security personnel to Bahrain .