 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Professor Ajaz Ahmad and we are going to discuss the issue of the Arab NATO, which has been there for some time. Ajaz, this so called Arab NATO, which of course includes Israel as well, attempt to include also Pakistan, essentially not the old NATO which had Turkey, but an anti-Iranian, shall we say immediate configuration, anti-Russia, anti-Iranian, anti-Hezbollah and with Israel in its fold. How do you see this playing out? Do you think it has any long term potential? Do you think it's a short term attempt and it is not going to go anywhere? I think it might be just phrase wrongly because all it means is really the new now explicit open alliance between the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC or rather parts of GCC, Saudi Arabia, Emirates and Israel. Pakistan cannot afford to be part of that because Pakistan has very multiple relationships with China, Russia and Iran. Pakistanis actually play a balancing act with Iran and Saudi Arabia, seeking some money from them, some money from them and so forth. So Pakistanis are out with a begging bowl to China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so forth, so they can't really take a serious position on this and in Pakistan itself Israel is so deeply hatred that any explicit relationship with that would not be possible. You would recall that at the time of the Saudi Qatar spate, Pakistan and Morocco actually stood with Qatar as did Iran and Turkey against Saudi Arabia. When Saudi Arabia asked Pakistan to take part in the invasion of Yemen, Pakistanis refused. So I don't see Pakistanis joining any of this. Iraq, Syria, Qatar, Oman, all of North Africa and so on. Half or more of the Arab world is not part of this. It's really UAE and Saudi Arabia and Israel and that is actually already in place. You know, you can sort of, Americans love to have this kind of phase mongering, you know, Arab network and so forth, etc. So that's how I actually look at it. However, I would say that this new alliance between Israel and these two UAE and Saudi Arabia poses a very, very serious problem for the region as a whole. It's a, that is a major development and that is I think at the Warsaw Conference, the great victor of it was Nathaniel in the Warsaw Conference. That's right. In every other respect, in my view, that was a great failure for the United States. I was about to say embarrassment, but they don't get embarrassed. So it was a great failure. So I think it's phase mongering. But something's very serious is afoot between Israel and Saudi Arabia. I'm going to get into that just a moment later. But I wanted to ask you also, you talked about Pakistan and Iran. But the recent attack were three weeks back, which almost took place the same time at the Pulwama blast. There was a similar bombing inside Iran bordering Pakistan. And Iran has taken a very tough position against Pakistan on that one, saying that you have been fostering these elements and they came from across the border. So how do you see Pakistan-Iran relationship in this context? This thing happens every year or six months or so. Pakistan sponsored group carries out terrorist attacks in Iran, Iran highly, etc. And then the life goes on. In this case, I think for demonstration effect, the Saudi Crown Prince was coming to the subcontinent. Imran Khan was playing for maximization of Saudi finance money. And therefore, I mean, Pakistan had two interests, I think. One, to maximize the money and a terrorist attack inside Iran in both Balochistan and Sista. What's the demonstration effect? If you give us money, we'll do these things for you. We'll continue to do these things for you, etc. And on the other side, of course, India. Pakistan is very, very perturbed that the relationship between Saudi Arabia and India may flourish. I mean, the Crown Prince, the Saudi Crown Prince promised 100 billion dollars worth of investment in Iran. So, therefore, these terrorist attacks, these are things Pakistan needs to do. This is their idea of diplomacy. Okay, leaving out both at the moment Pakistan and India's ideas of what diplomacy is. Coming back to what you raised, what you raised regarding the Warsaw Conference and Netanyahu's emerging stronger out of it. He's basically saying this is a plan for attack on Iran. That's almost the subtext, if not the text of his speech over there. We also have the Astana grouping, which is coming up, which is, of course, with respect to Syria. But it has seen Russia, Iran, as well as Turkey come together. And Turkey, of course, is a bigger player in that region than Israel is, giving its economic and its military strength. Do you think that is also building up a counterweight and it's actually going to, in that sense, go against the larger NATO-American interests? There are certain, you see, I look at it as a moment in which the three, the three bars, Iran, Turkey and Russia, have some minimal common interest and therefore this process will actually go on. The main problem is that the Iranis know that the war in Syria began with the Turks giving arms and weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood. And because they did that, Saudis came in and gave weapons and so on and brought to the United States and Al Qaeda and so forth. And the Muslim Brotherhood just got beaten out of the game. And since then, Turks have been trying to play various games in Turkey. So no in Syria. So neither the Russians nor the Iranis have any deep interest in believing that Turkey will be a reliable partner. And at the same time, they need Turkey to, you know, to extricate themselves from the war in Syria. So there will be a negotiation as to what they can give the Turks in order for the Turks to sort of withdraw from the territory and so on. Russians, I don't think, would be opposed to creating an autonomous Kurdish zone in parts of Syria, depending on how much autonomy you're talking about. So I think it's that sort of thing. And yet the other thing is that there is an ideological competition between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which of them is going to be the main leader of the Sunni world. One is the Wahhabi Islam, the other is Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood is deeply ideologically committed anti-monarchists. Qatar and Turkey are sponsoring Muslim Brotherhood. They have an alliance, but Turkey, as soon as the Saudis threatened military action against Qatar, Turkey said that they would send in the troops. So, you know, all of this is going on. At the same time, Turks have what they call strategic, something, cooperation, council with Saudi Arabia. So, you know, these are high stakes games in which no one actually has a settled position. I mean, China, Russia, I'm not talking about them, but these regional players, none of them have a settled position. Turkey has been allied with everybody at one point or the other. And yes, it's an alternative process and a much more solid process, but in the long term. Looking at what you just said, will we say that three countries have actually relatively fixed positions? One is Saudi Arabia, other is Iran and other is Israel. And all others are somewhere in between? Yes, you could say that. Certainly, they have interests that are long-term interests. Certainly. Among these three, I would say that Saudi Arabia, yes, it has a fixed long-term position and a strategic, you know, very aggressive role in the region in pursuit of those fixed positions. But a lot of what they are going to do is, I think, undermining, you know, so it is the least stable of the three of these countries. But otherwise, you're right, at least these are the people who are. I would say, but that also has, you know, quite a consistent line at no point in the last 15 years. So, since this young man took over, they have not made any serious turn around here and there and so forth. So, what you are saying that the Arab NATO is more phrase-mongering. It really does not have any long-term strategic goals or salience as the earlier NATO extension in that region did, the Baghdad fact. This is much more transient, temporary and shall we say it will also play out with respect to other competition and other developments in the region. What I want to see in terms of this so-called Arab NATO is whether there emerges some sort of a document, agreement, open or secret, which gives the Americans the right to station large-scale, you know, large number of troops and so on, pre-position weapons inside Saudi Arabia. That is something I would like to, because that, if they are going to talk about, you know, NATO etc. etc. That is something to be seen. However, you know, the situation is very unstable. Netanyahu is about to be indicted. Attorney General has actually announced that. He is going to just look into three investigations a little more and he won't have said that if he was not intending to indict. He has made Netanyahu in his desperation, has made this alliance with Israeli Nazis. I mean, they are very fashist and they are known as such. And American liberal Jewry for the first time, the pro-Israeli Jewry just doesn't know which way to look. Inside Israel, it's a storm. You read heartaches and so on, there are newspapers, it's a storm. So on the one hand, you go and talk to the anti-Semites out there. You come home and you talk to Jewish fascists, whom Jews call fascists. You do this at home, you do that at home. And one of the ministers said that yes, they are anti-Semites, but they are our friends. So there is a lot of internal turmoil in Israel. That's right. The Democrats have said in the United States that they have given a list of 81 counts on which they are going to investigate Trump for criminal conduct. So these policies are from inside in the turmoil. So it's stable in Israel. And America is the only one that is stable is U.A. So we don't know where any of this is going to go. In two years there will be presidential elections. If somebody, if not Sanders, Warren or somebody, more progressive Democrats happens to win, all of this will go for a toss. Thank you very much Ajals for being with us. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick.