Summary It is felicitous to take a deep dive of Iran's history for better understanding of current strikes
By Shakir Ahmad Shahid
The recent Iranian missiles’ attack on Pakistan has put many patriotic Pakistanis into a state of cognitive confusion, especially whose faith dictates that they should sympathise with Iran while their loyalty to the state of Pakistan dictates condemning Iran.
The current belligerent action by Iran has jeopardised all the security doctrines of Pakistan. If Pakistan will not respond, then it will become the new normal, and any country will stand and target any Pakistani national and/or Pakistani place without any fear of retaliation.
The missile attack on Pakistan by Iran has also deflected the world's attention from the plight of Gazan Palestinians and has created chaos among Muslim countries, inevitably damaging the cause of Palestinians.
This unprovoked blatant violation of the sovereignty of a brother Islamic country is appearing strange to world viewers, but actually it is just a well-rehearsed calculus from the strategic book of Iran being exercised for centuries, and a recent repeat of it was witnessed in case of Azerbaijan also.
In the recent war between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, where Turkey and Pakistan helped Azerbaijan, Iran took the side of Armenia. The strange thing is that the Azerbaijani population is predominantly Shia, while the Armenian population is hardline Christian, tracing their roots to the Templer Knights Crusaders, who also helped the Mongols in the decimation of Muslim states in Egypt, Jerusalem, and Syria.
Apparently looking odd, this well-repeated Iranian behaviour against brotherly neighbours is closely linked with the critical event of the sectarian conversion of the Iranian Plateau started with the rise of the Safavid dynasty. In 1501, Shah Ismail I Safvi (r. 1501-24) started the Safavid dynasty in Iran, and at this time, the Iranian plateau was predominantly Sunni.
Despite having Azerbaijani Turkic ancestry and Turkic as his court language, Shah Ismail-I had childhood exposure to seeing Sunni Ottoman Turks as enemies, especially given the defeat of his maternal grandfather Uzun Hassan at the hands of Mehmed II.
The mass conversion of the Iranian population gave a distinct identity to the people of the Iranian plateau in line with their pre-Islamic historical grandeur; there, it gave the Safavid dynasty a bedrock of political stability against the rival Sunni Turkish and Arab’ states. The Iranians, who assert to be sons of great Medes, Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires, had lost their histo-geographic pride with the conquest by Arabs.
However, the rise of a strong Safavid Iran with a distinct sectarian identity served as a metamorphosed renaissance of the magnificent political Iran.
It is said that history repeats itself. However, it would be more appropriate to say that geography repeats its history. And this becomes easy to understand when one analyses the Iranian moves against politically Turkish Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and against Pakistan in Balochistan.
Pakistan, which, by all political standards, is a continuation of Muslim India, has experienced Iranian belligerent posture on a number of occasions in past, first as Mughal Muslim India and then as Pakistan.
In 1540, when Sher Shah Suri (r. 1540–45) took the reins of Muslim India, the defeated Mughal emperor Humayun (at the battle of Kannauj) went to Iran and got shelter and military assistance from Tahmasp-I Safavid (r. 1524–1576). At this juncture, when Tahmasp-I Safavid was also negotiating alliances with the Christian kingdoms of Venice and Habsburg, which were enemies of the Ottomans, Sher Shah Suri wrote a letter to the Ottoman Sultan for help against Tahmasp-I.
During the reign of Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605–27), in the year 1622, the Safavid Shah Abbas-I attacked and captured Kandahar. Being the most important trade route province of Mughal India and the burial place of the first Mughal Emperor Babur, Emperor Jahangir dispatched Prince Shahryar (younger to Khurram - the future Shah Jahan) to repel the Safavids, but without success.
In the year 1626, Jahangir wrote a letter to the Ottoman Sultan, Murad IV, to forge an alliance between the Ottomans, Mughals, and Uzbeks against the Safavid Iran.
During the Mughal India vs. Safavid Iran War (1622–1653), the Mughals made multiple efforts to take back their Kandahar province, but without success. In this regard, in 1636, Emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–58) also wrote a letter to Ottoman Sultan Murad IV expressing his desire for an alliance against the Safavid Iranian Empire.
Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) also desired to take back the Kandahar province but could not as he got entangled in the Deccan quagmire. Interestingly, Safavid Iran sided with the Deccani states of Bijapur and Golconda against Mughal Indian Empire.
It is an enigma for an average Pakistani to unravel that instead of materialising threats repeatedly worded for Israel, Iran backstabbed Pakistan. It is especially perplexing for the people as Pakistani ideology is based on religion, and Pakistanis see religion first and geography, viz., the state, as second.
And Pakistanis are justified in this approach, as the geography of Pakistan emerged as a result of the religio-centric historical exposure of Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Hence, in Pakistan, religion dictates geography both at the individual and state level. However, in the case of Iran, the situation is opposite, as her histo-geography dictated the adoption of a particular religious posture and still dictates her foreign policy.
It is very critical for Pakistani intellectual class to understand where, how, and when faith dictates geography and vice versa. In this faith-geography duet, Pakistanis see Iranians as brothers in the first place, but Iranians see Pakistanis as rivals first and brothers second.
And the same is true of the strategic calculus of Iran for other neighbouring Muslim countries. The historical record of Iranian relations with Pakistan, Mughal India, and Ottoman Turks is testimony to the veracity of this formula. By briefly examining the role of Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, it is not difficult to discover how the Iranian establishment works.
The self-assumed rivalry of Iran toward Pakistan is actually rooted in economic exigencies due to geographical proximity, which over the centuries has become ingrained in Iranian minds as social and strategic constructs. In this context, neither should Pakistanis equate Iran's state policy as dictated by the faith of its people nor confused Pakistanis should consider that, given their faith, they are bound to toe the line of Iranian state policy.
It was the dictates of Iranian geography that resulted in the Iranian attack on Pakistan. It has happened many times in the past and will happen in the future too.
Unfortunately, Pakistan is sandwiched between two neighbours - India and Iran -both under extremist nationalist rules, and both have a histo-geographical baggage of rivalry against Pakistan.
The current Iranian establishment is following the same centuries-old formula, and the religious cloak is only for taking political advantage in the demographic landscape of targeted countries to further her histo-geography-backed hegemonic ambitions.
Actually, at the state policy level, Iran uses all regional conflicts to cultivate her proxies and assets, and inevitably, the most convenient way is to exploit the sectarian faultiness in target countries.
After the attack by Iran on Pakistan, the real issue with which Pakistan is to deal is not any imminent belligerency on the part of Iran but the immediate identification and neutralisation of proxy assets cultivated by Iran’s establishment in Pakistan.
At the moment, there is an overwhelming presence of pro-Iranian outfits in Pakistan in various forms.
It is very essential that Pakistan start sanitising its critical national security apparatus, as many innocent Pakistanis have fallen victim to the trap of Iranian establishment. In the case of Pakistan, the situation is becoming further worse as some recently emerged political organisations, with assistance of Iran cultivated assets, are also working on the same formula that was used in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to paralyse national security institutions. /
