Iran’s attacks in Pakistan, Iraq to avoid ‘losing face’ risk irking China, wider confrontation

China has key economic interests in Pakistan and may ‘look dimly on attacks’ in the Balochistan province by Iran

Tehran may have miscalculated that its attacks in Pakistan would not trigger retaliation from Islamabad, analysts say

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Miniature soldiers in front of Iranian and Pakistani flags. Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:30pm, 19 Jan 2024

Iran’s role in the deepening Israel-Gaza war has been curiously understated and through other actors but over the past week, a slew of retaliatory attacks it undertook directly is prompting renewed speculation about Tehran’s strategic stance.

Whether China may again be called upon to mediate between Iran and its neighbours is also a question being asked as analysts believe Tehran might have miscalculated when it conducted air strikes against non-state actors in Pakistan and Iraq earlier this week because it assessed neither country to have the willingness to retaliate.

But Islamabad responded in kind on Thursday by bombing a haven in southeast Iran of an ethnic Baloch rebel group, which has fought Pakistani security forces for the last 20 years.

Both Pakistan and Iraq have recalled their ambassadors from Tehran and expelled Iran’s envoys in response to its missile and drone attacks on the alleged bases of Israel’s Mossad spy agency in northern Iraq and a separate ethnic Baloch insurgent group based in western Pakistan fighting Iran in its southeast province of Sistan and Baluchistan. The attacks were carried out on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

“In Pakistan’s case certainly, Iran has miscalculated by assuming it would not retaliate” out of fear of being dragged into the wider Middle East conflict emanating from the Israel-Gaza war, said Abdul Basit, a senior associate fellow of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

In fact, “Pakistan had no choice other than to retaliate” because failure to do so would have signalled weakness both to perennial enemy India and Taliban insurgents currently waging war against Pakistani security forces from bases in Afghanistan, he said.