To die for, or from – Newspaper

It was the kind of chocolate cake too rich to die for or die for. Made of imported Belgian chocolate, each layer invited gluttony. Its outer shell shone with gold leaf. The Karachi patisserie had cost Rs 25,000. "Does anyone buy a cake like that?" Asked one. "Many," was the answer, "even at Rs3,500 per serving."

Such a luxurious confection in the city of flies highlighted the disparity between the increasingly rich and the increasingly poor in Pakistan. It is a vacuum that government legislation cannot fill. It complies with the law of insatiable demand and inventive supply.

An incongruous analogy came to mind: overpriced weapons obtained over the years by Saudi Arabia from the United States and other arms exporting countries. What can be the justification for such an extravagant outlay of petrodollars, except for an insatiable demand for a happy kingdom and a supply of the latest inventive toys of the world's arms industry?

No one is sure how much Saudi Arabia and now the United Arab Emirates spend to intimidate their neighbors. The supply of weapons is a secret business, and Gulf Arabs may be more reluctant to their business than most. The actual figures are hidden behind a smokescreen of intention. For example, President Donald Trump announced that his son-in-law Jared Kushner had negotiated a weapons deal with Saudi Arabia worth $ 110 billion. The original Saudi demand of $ 15 billion was not enough for Kushner. He revealed in the National Security Council that the United States needed to "sell them as much as possible."

The Iranians have made a timely change to China.

While a fool and his money separate soon, Kushner found it difficult to get such a large sum of the Saudis. Final purchases in 2018 were closer to the original demand of the Saudis. In 2019, Trump expressed his determination to push a $ 8.5 billion arms deal to Saudi Arabia.

With Saudi Arabia flooded with so much lethal hardware that includes sophisticated surveillance systems and attack aircraft, it was a surprise that, on September 14, several drones and unmanned missiles could penetrate the Saudi defenses with impunity and attack their Abqaiq and El plant. Khurais oilfield. Saudi oil company Aramco admitted that, as a result, it had "suspended the production of 5.7 million barrels of crude oil." This represented 60 percent of the kingdom's total oil production. The Saudis and the United States blame the Houthi and Yemen rebels (and by association, Iran). Iranians deny any complicity.

Read: Attacks against Saudi oil facilities eliminate half of the kingdom's supply

Regardless of who pressed the button, there was an absurd parallel to this episode with the solo flight made by the young German Mathias Rust who, in May 1987, flew a single-engine Cessna from Helsinki to Moscow. Rust managed to dodge the radars of the Soviet Union on the road and land without opposition on the Red Square in Moscow. He became famous not only for the audacity of his feat but for having exposed (without help) the futility of the expensive defense systems of the Soviets.

The victims of the Rust escape were the Soviet Defense Minister Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Defense Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov. They were fired by Mikhail Gorbachev (then secretary general, PCUS). One wonders who in Saudi Arabia would dare to fire the current Saudi defense minister? (It turns out to be Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman).

The Saudis continue to be Iran's adversaries, but the Iranians have secured themselves against the threat of the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through a timely shift to China. After a visit to Beijing by Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, both countries agreed to revive a previous understanding of the cooperation. The new agreement, described as "a strategic partnership," provides for loans from China of $ 10 billion for infrastructure projects, overdue improvements to Iran's Arak IR-40 heavy water reactor and disbursements of $ 280 billion, spread over 25 years, to develop Iran oil and gas fields.

Read: On the battlefield Iran, a crude confrontation between China and the United States

In reciprocity, Iran has granted China the first refusal "to bid for any development of new, stagnant or incomplete oil and gas fields." To protect their interests, China will delegate 5,000 soldiers to Iran. In addition, bilateral trade is expected to expand to $ 600 billion in the next decade. Iran will become the western "hong" of China.

Someone once said that his arms were too short to fight with God. After 40 exhausting years of shadow boxing, Iran has decided that its weapons are too short to fight with the United States. I would rather use them to hug a friendlier neighbor.

With Iran as an additional dimension of China's One Belt, One Road initiative, the dynamics of the region have changed irreversibly. U.S. allies UU. You will discover that expensive arms, such as expensive chocolate cake, may look good, but it is better to leave them without buying.

The writer is author.

www.fsaijazuddin.pk

Posted on Dawn, September 19, 2019