The developments in the Middle East are about to accentuate the rise of two power blocs that will shape the future of the world including regional foes India and Pakistan.
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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has boycotted Turkish goods and products, a move estimated to cost Turkey’s businesses some USD 20 billion in losses. While on the other hand, the slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée has sued MBS, the KSA crown prince, in Washington on 21 October, charging him with ordering Khashoggi’s killing.
The Saudi prince was indicted by the CIA itself, a revelation which had been slid under the carpet by US President Donald Trump, who disputed the agency’s claims. If that was not enough, MBS has also been slapped with another case by his own intelligence official Saad Al Jabri, accusing the crown prince of sending death squads to kill him too on the lines of Khashoggi in October 2018.
If things go like this for MBS, he may end up being banned from entering the United States. And if Trump fails to win the ongoing presidential election, it could make things worse for the Saudi prince. Forget the bad-press thereafter.
No wonder, in order to placate the US, MBS has offered the UAE and Bahrain normalisation deal with Israel to the country on a platter. According to a new book authored by investigative journalist Bob Woodward, Trump said of MBS, “I saved his ass,” referring to his efforts to shield the crown prince from the Congress.
New geopolitical developments have resulted in the rise of KSA, UAE, Israel, India, supported by the US, emerging as a new bloc, and very soon, the world is likely to see the official bonhomie between KSA and Israel, along with 22 other Arab states.
In fact, the covert intimacy between the UAE and Israel came to the fore when UAE allowed ‘visa-free’ travel to Israel citizens, a facility which notably, even Israel’s closest ally, the US, has so far refused for the Jewish state.
The US-led bloc is accelerating the formation of a counter front, between Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, supported by China and Russia. Since the last week of September 2020, the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan is accentuating this new bloc through the participation of Russia and Turkey in the conflict. Turkey is supporting Azerbaijan, and so is Pakistan, while the Arab states are fuming at the development.
Perhaps, this war is a dress rehearsal for the upcoming larger war between India and China or Pakistan, in which the US is to support India after BECA is signed.
Although India has not officially declared support for Armenia, yet it has been Armenia who offered its support to India on the issue of Kashmir, which is a bane of conflict between India and Pakistan since 70 years.
On the other hand, Azerbaijan had quite understandably supported Pakistan on Kashmir and Pakistan as a reciprocity gesture has supported Azerbaijan against Armenia.
Turkey has acted as the main backstage support for Azerbaijan and so has Pakistan, most likely because of Turkey involvement, as Ankara supports Pakistan on Kashmir. The KSA had desisted from supporting Pakistan’s Kashmir position, which led to Pakistan Foreign Minister on 6 August 2020 saying that Pakistan ought to move away from KSA-sponsored Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) and form a new bloc.
The move led Pakistan having to return 1 billion USD loan, with China’s help, to the KSA and also KSA to annul the supply of oil-on-deferred-loan to Pakistan.
It’s when Azerbaijan came to Pakistan’s rescue again and offered its supply of oil to the cash-strapped country. The KSA-Pakistan meltdown might finally lead to KSA and UAE banishing Pakistani workforce, replacing them with Indians.
Meanwhile, India is accusing Pakistan of sending its army to fight alongside Azerbaijan, according to a report by India’s ZEE News, which Pakistan denied as being baseless.
However, Pakistan’s outright and unequivocal support to Azerbaijan had led to a great demand for Pakistan flags, which were seen fluttering in Azerbaijan in large numbers. Pakistan Foreign Minister later spoke to his Azerbaijani counterpart to express complete solidarity with Baku ‘at this difficult time.’
Armenia in its last-ditch efforts started shelling Armenian positions on October 21, while having lost close to 772 of its soldiers in the conflict, as both countries called for talks with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has also declared to have liberated 13 villages from Armenia’s occupation.
Azerbaijan’s glorious Army has liberated Dordchinar, Kurdler, Yuxari Abdurrahmanli, Gargabazar, Ashagi Veysalli, Yuxari Aybasanli villages of Fuzuli district, Safarsha, Hesengaydi, Fuganli, Imambagi, Dash Veyselli, Agtepe, Yarehmedli of Jabrayil district,
— Ilham Aliyev (@presidentaz) October 20, 2020
As the picture of the war unfolds, UAE, which means KSA, is in alliance with Armenia as the UAE and KSA are anti-Turkey. UAE had already sent its F-16 fighter jets to the aid of Greece against Turkey in the Mediterranean sea, as reported by Eurasian Times on 26 August 26.
But, Turkey is playing its card to drive a message to the Arab states that it is helping Azerbaijan have an upper hand in Nagorno-Karabakh war zone, solely for the purpose of finally reclaiming its ’22 lost Arab states,’ along with Jerusalem, which were all dismembered after World-War-I by the Britishers, and which, obviously, all the Arab states along with Israel are likely to oppose with their full-might.
The fires of the Armenia-Azerbaijan war are yet to be doused and who knows what plans the US has after its November 3, 2020 elections. But the war is going to spill-over to the overall tense scenario brewing around China and US over Taiwan, India and China & Pakistan in the Himalayas and with Turkey and Greece in the Mediterranean Sea, and a likely war against Iran by Israel and US with KSA to its aid.
The future points towards bloody days ahead!
