The gulf has always existed, drawn largely along sectarian lines. But the geopolitics of the Cold War brought the two countries on two ends of the sectarian divide, Saudi Arabia and Iran, to stand together with the United States. The Iranian Revolution changed this equation and the sectarian fissures reemerged with full force.

Subsequent years saw Saudi Arabia stand with the Western world while Iran suffered a life of diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions. In a fast changing world, this too started changing in the last few years. But the major shift came in 2015 with the US signing a nuclear deal with Iran that was supposed to not only ease sanctions for the country but also bring an end to its isolation.

This brought both the countries to a virtual standoff, though the actual cause has been the execution of a Saudi Shia cleric Nimr Al-Nimr. There has been a lot of diplomatic re-posturing as a consequence of which Saudi Arabia is not the only country that has severed ties with Iran. An actively troubled Middle East is everyone’s nightmare and the first impact has come on the Syrian peace talks.

There have been many other developments before and alongside the current dispute. A year ago was an attack by Saudi Arabia on neighbouring Yemen which has reached a stalemate-like situation and more recently the country has cobbled together a 34-country military alliance against ‘terrorism’ which is largely touted as a Sunni alliance, because it excludes all Shia countries.

Experts have tried to argue that the alliance would remain largely toothless or ineffective considering each country’s geopolitical alignment, in diplomacy such posturing matters.

And this brings Pakistan into the picture. The fact that Pakistan claims to be a part of this 34-country Sunni alliance matters a lot because it sends all the wrong signals to its other neighbour Iran with which it wants to have close economic and diplomatic ties. Pakistan needs to balance this widening gulf because it simply cannot afford to let its soil be used for another proxy war.

Read the title story: The gulf widens