Strikes in Pakistan: A miscalculation by Iran?

Iran has sparked a significant escalation, extending thousands of kilometers beyond Gaza and its surrounding fronts.

Following Iranian strikes in the Pakistani region of Sistan-Baluchistan, resulting in the deaths of two children on Tuesday, Pakistan responded by recalling its ambassador to Tehran. Subsequently, Pakistan carried out airstrikes on targets within the Iranian part of this separatist region straddling the two countries.

The retaliatory action resulted in nine casualties, including four women and three children — a firm response that Iran appeared unprepared for.

“We respect Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, but we will not allow Iran’s security to be compromised,” stated Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian during the Davos Economic Forum on Wednesday.

Tehran asserted that its targets were militants affiliated with the secessionist group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), responsible for killing 11 Iranian policemen in the Sistan-Baluchistan region in December.

Jaish al-Adl operates with the aim of securing the independence of the provinces of Sistan in eastern Iran and Baluchistan in southwest Pakistan, making it a shared adversary for both governments.

Tehran likely counted on this commonality to justify its strikes and avoid further escalation. However, this reasoning did not appease Islamabad’s anger.

Aside from the violation of its sovereignty, Pakistan viewed the Iranian attack as a source of humiliation, because it occurred the day after joint naval exercises between the two nations in the Strait of Hormuz.

The timing, and the fact that Amir-Abdollahian met Pakistan’s interim Prime Minister Anwur ul Haq Kakar in Davos just hours before the strikes, added to the perceived insult.

“It was highly embarrassing and shocking for the Pakistanis, who have consistently sought dialogue rather than confrontation with Iran on border security issues,” asserted Umar Karim, a researcher at the University of Birmingham.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani said that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) strike “not only constituted a serious violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, but also a blatant breach of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran,” as per a statement from the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.

In light of Islamabad’s responses, the Iranian raids seem to be a miscalculation on Iran’s part.

Iran appears to lack the same degree of control over Pakistani territory as it does in the Middle East, notably in Syria and Iraq, where it also conducted strikes on Monday evening.

Moreover, Pakistan is a nuclear power, primarily seeking to preserve its deterrent capability against India.

For Pakistan, this kind of overreach by Iran is deemed intolerable.

‘A state within a state’

Did Iran take the view that, since the elimination of Jaish al-Adl was an objective shared with Pakistan, the latter would not respond to the attack? Or that, in any case, the economic stagnation in which Pakistan finds itself would make it too weak to retaliate?

“The country is managing to stay afloat thanks to loans from the International Monetary Fund [a $3 billion agreement due to expire in the spring] and is not in a position to cope with a further rise in tensions that could ruin its economy even further,” said a banking sector source in Asia, on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

However, Pakistan is currently governed by an interim government, further weakening political authority in the face of the army, the predominant institution effectively holding the country’s reins.

“The army is often described as a state within a state, and this regularly frightens the political class,” said Sajjan Gohel, Director of the International Security Department at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of the London School of Economics.

“The decisions made by the interim government [including the strike in the Sistan area], might not have been possible if not sanctioned by the army,” Gohel remarked. “Despite Pakistan’s inability to afford new tensions, the army does not always adhere to rational logic.”

The army, boasting decades of experience in combating terrorism and border insurgencies, assumes a predominant role in shaping Islamabad’s foreign policy.

“Furthermore, Pakistan feared that if it allowed this to happen, these strikes from Iran would become the norm,” said Karim.

Allowing such actions would signal weakness to New Delhi, exacerbating the recurring border clashes with India, particularly against the backdrop of the conflict in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Pakistan went so far as to disregard China, which had offered mediation to contain the escalation, but to no avail.

Beijing is closely monitoring these developments with concern, fearing potential impacts on its commercial interests in the region.

“Islamabad wants to show its public that it is not subject to China’s demands, even if it means damaging their relations,” said Gohel.

Yet, it’s worth noting that China holds a significant portion of Pakistan’s debt.

“It has even more influence over Pakistan than the United States,” Gohel added. Despite this, the government appears to prioritize its domestic audience, especially with less than a month remaining before the parliamentary elections scheduled for Feb. 8.

Tehran also appears to have factored in this calculation.

The aggression in Baluchistan is explained by Iran’s need to rebuild an image of power and security among its population. This became more pressing following the Jaish al-Islam attack on a police station and, especially, the assault in Kerman that claimed the lives of 103 people on Jan. 3 during the commemoration of military leader Qassim Soleimani’s assassination.

Additionally, the Baluch separatist group is accused of fatally shooting an IRGC member in Iranian Sistan-Baluchistan on Wednesday, the day following the Iranian strikes, as reported by the official IRNA news agency.

Calming things down

Ties between Iran and Pakistan have long been burdened by mistrust, characterized more by a pragmatic working relation than close cooperation.

Both countries accuse each other of insufficient efforts to combat “terrorist” cells in Sistan-Baluchistan, a region historically plagued by various forms of trafficking.

Despite these challenges, both countries had previously aimed to enhance their economic ties.

In August of the preceding year, Tehran and Islamabad signed a trade agreement designed to elevate their trade, which currently stands at a modest $2.5 billion. However, bilateral trade often encounters disruptions due to attacks along their shared 900-kilometer border.

Iran appears to have recognized its mistake and is now working to de-escalate tension.

Iranian authorities said that the individuals killed in the Pakistani strikes on Thursday were all foreign nationals, suggesting that retaliation may not be necessary.

“Iranian propaganda even claims that the mutual attacks were coordinated between Tehran and Islamabad,” said Ali Alfoneh, a researcher at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.

The Iranian narrative presents the situation as Iran targeting Iranian Baluch separatists on Pakistani soil, while the Pakistani army addresses Pakistani Baluch separatists on Iranian soil, according to Alfoneh.

“The problem with this argument is that there is no evidence that the victims are ethnic separatists, and it generally reflects badly and damages the prestige of states when their sovereignty is violated by foreign bombing,” he said.

It remains to be seen how Iran will be able to repair the damage done to its relations with Pakistan, which in recent years has grown closer to the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

This article was originally published in L'Orient-Le Jour. Translated by Sahar Ghoussoub.