Some threats start out local and end up belonging to everyone. When a militia with no state behind it can strike far past its own borders, the problem stops being regional and becomes a worry for every capital that depends on stable energy and trade. The Houthis fit that description. A fight over Yemen’s future has grown into a challenge to state sovereignty, regional security and freedom of navigation, and into a test of how much the world will tolerate from armed groups. The Middle East is facing a more dangerous reality, and Pakistan cannot treat it as somebody else’s problem. It has made a point of spelling out its position plainly rather than leaving it to guesswork.

The Houthis have worked out that location is power. Drones and missiles have been sent against sovereign soil, and merchant ships have been made to pay for sailing through the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb, the narrow gates through which a large share of the world’s goods must pass. Any country that imports what it consumes feels the effect, and Pakistan is no exception. Saudi Arabia, though, is a different matter altogether. It matters to Pakistan as a partner, and it matters even more as the guardian of the two Holy Mosques. An attack on Saudi territory, above all one that endangers the Haramain Sharifain, crosses a red line of a different order. It touches security, livelihood and faith at the same moment. No Pakistani planner can leave that out of the equation.

Where the Holy Sites are concerned, the stakes rise above ordinary politics.

Where the Holy Sites are concerned, the stakes rise above ordinary politics.

This is why Islamabad has chosen plain speech over careful murmuring. It condemns the strikes on Saudi Arabia, the menace hanging over the Holy Sites and the assaults on commercial vessels, and it describes each of them........

© Daily Times