'Minus-Iran' Muslim alliance impossible: Pak leading paper

Daily ‘Express Tribune’ in its editorial comments said that the stated primary objective of the newly formed joint force is to protect the Muslim countries from all terrorist groups and terrorist organizations but would this be possible with Iran, Iraq and Syria not being part of this coalition?

The Pakistani daily was commenting on a so-called military alliance recently formed by the Saudi regime to allegedly protect Muslim states from terrorist attacks.
A former Pakistani military chief is reported to lead the so-called allaince.

When reports came that Pakistan former army chief Gen (retd) Raheel Shareef had been offered the job of leading the joint force put together by Saudi Arabia and he had accepted the offer, definitely affect our ‘policy of neutrality’ towards Saudi Arabia and Iran given that all 34 members of the coalition are Sunni majority nation.

“Is there not this sectarian shade in this military alliance given the 100 per cent Sunni dominance of the countries that constitute the alliance?” it asked.

“The alliance is also expected to deploy military forces in Syria to fight Daesh as is being felt universally in Pakistan such a development would be a great military mistake,” it viewed.

It said Pakistan and Saudi Arabia enjoy a longstanding relationship particularly in the field of defense. However, their ties saw an unprecedented hiccup last year when parliament refused to allow Pakistani troops to join the Saudi-led offensive in Yemen.

The newspaper said that statement by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa during a meeting with Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, Abdullah Marzouk Al-Zahrani that Pakistan Army held the defense of Saudi Arabia “at par with its own” –can have no more than rhetorical value.

“We ourselves are fighting within an existential war and being challenged at the same time by a three times bigger, Eastern neighbor on the one hand and a hostile one from across our north-western border so in the current circumstance the statement of army chief is just a diplomatic courtesy.”

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