THE RISE AND RISE OF PAKISTAN'S FIELD MARSHAL

Pakistan's army chief could play a crucial role in America's new Middle East policy. The Saudi-Pakistan deal fits into the emerging jigsaw featuring a wounded Iran and an unpredictable US

- MK BHADRAKUMAR

THE 'family photo from the White House after an almost90-minute meeting last Thursday between the US President Donald Trump, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir would have stunned the Indian foreign and security policy establishment. Things are getting to be very serious indeed.

That the meeting was a foreign policy strategy session is apparent from the presence of two other participants― Vice-President J D Vance and the Secretary of State and acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, who form the core group in Trump's foreign policy team. The event underscored the high importance Trump attaches to a constructive partnership with Pakistan in the geopolitical arc of what Americans traditionally called the Greater Middle East stretching from the Levant to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia including Afghanistan.

Trump's first term as president ended with a foreign policy 'scoop' in 2020-the Abraham Accords, aimed at Israel's integration into its Muslim neighbourhood.

But the four years since have witnessed phenomenal changes in regional politics in particular, the October 2023 attacks on Israel and the ensuing Gaza war that has resulted in Israel's regional isolation, a diplomatic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Iran's surge as a nuclear-threshold state. All of this has significantly eroded American influence in the region, as evident most glaringly in the BRICS membership of Egypt, the UAE and Iran, and even Saudi Arabia just outside the tent looking in.

By hedging its bets, Saudi Arabia called attention to its acute need of improved security and political relations by diversifying its network of international partners and its assertion as an independent regional powerhouse.