Created around the same time, how Israel, Pakistan have since helped the US

Israel and Pakistan were created within months of each other, the results of many forces shaped and shepherded by the West, led by the US and the UK. In their nearly eight decades of existence since, the two countries have served two of America’s most important aims — countering Communism, and influencing the flow of oil.

Oil and Israel

Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908 and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (which later transformed into the Anglo Iranian Oil Company and then British Petroleum) started operations in 1913. Around the same time, the Royal Navy took note of the fact that oil was a better source of fuelling its ships than coal.

Oil was, thereafter, discovered in the 1930s in Iraq, Kuwait and the Dharan region of Saudi Arabia. This made the Middle East a critical geography for the supply of a key raw material for global power play — and hence was born the need to keep the region under friendly dispositions and for forces that could aid in this.

Israel’s creation owes much to the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British agreed for a homeland for the Jews in Palestine. The events of World War Two, particularly the holocaust, ensured fast movement thereafter, with major support in the West, particularly the US, for the creation of Israel.

On November 29, 1947, UN resolution 181 was adopted, with 33 affirmative votes (out of a total of 57 UN member states at that time), including both the US and USSR. Israel declared itself an independent nation in 1948.

Israeli tensions with Iran since the advent of the Islamic Republic in Tehran are well known, but it bears pointing out that the Israelis have been active elsewhere too in the oil-rich geography of the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the most important was their 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, which was kickstarted with French help. This was, perhaps, the first signal for ending any autonomous role for the country.

Ally in Asia

Pakistan was formed on August 14, 1947 by partitioning India. While Hindu-Muslim polarisation, assiduously encouraged by the British since 1857, undoubtedly dragged the country to Partition’s door, most studies over the past few decades also point to a strategic design for the West in the creation of Pakistan.

This was being an ally of the West in the containment of the Soviet Union post World War Two. India was too too big and strategically autonomous to fit such a bill. But Pakistan duly joined Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO), a Cold War-era military alliance of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and the UK, largely US-led.

The Soviet containment role may have ended but Pakistan is still useful in various ways, including in helping keep the oil-rich parts of the Persian Gulf friendly to the West and be there to support their governments if needed.

One of the first international acts of independent Pakistan was to apply for UN membership, which it secured in September 1947. It thus voted on resolution 181 joining India, Iran, Iraq and nine other countries, mostly in the Middle East, to oppose its adoption.

Unlike India, which recognised Israel in 1950 (they opened a Consulate in Mumbai in 1953) and established full diplomatic ties in 1992 with a visible display of bilateral bonhomie now, the Pakistanis till date don’t have diplomatic ties with Israel.

Today, as the assume significant positions in a war threatening the entire region, what binds Israel and Pakistan is the complex geopolitical web of US interests, which has replaced the UK as the pre-eminent player of the West block.