Dissolution of GCC would be significant loss for U.S.
This is the second column in a two-part series about developments in the Middle East.
In 1981, when the Gulf States controlled the price of oil through OPEC, six states of the region formed the Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia (the unofficial leader), United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.
Their primary purpose was to control OPEC’s pricing of crude oil by uniting with such strength that would require countries such as Venezuela or Libya to follow their direction. A secondary purpose was to ensure security in the region, mostly by pressuring the U.S. military.
Saudi Arabia passionately labels Egypt’s political party — known as the Muslim Brotherhood — as a terrorist organization. The Brotherhood won the election following the 2011 removal of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak. The 2013 partially-boycotted election of the Muslim Brotherhood and the one-sided new constitution it pushed through the legal system was thrown out by the judiciary.
The army threw out the Brotherhood’s leaders and now controls the nation.
The Saudis’ royalty reviled against a democratically-elected government — fearing one might become vogue in their own country — and supported the army’s autocratic takeover as they did for 30 years during Mubarak’s leadership.
However, the Saudis cannot persuade other Arab countries to side with them in support of the Egyptian army. Nor can they gain support on their position regarding Syria — not even their special friend, Jordan’s King Abdullah II — leaving them standing pretty much alone geopolitically.
The Saudi policy is more or less one of the past, leaving them stuck in the desert sand, losing, or having lost, traction with their regional neighbors. The Arab Spring changed nearly all of the Middle East except Saudi Arabia.
Seeking any port in a storm, the Saudis now are buddying up with Pakistan as the last country of choice. But Pakistan is loaded with Taliban domestic terrorism, a fractured economy going nowhere, a meaningless military and convoluted political turmoil. What the Saudis will gain with Pakistan is everyone’s guess.
But as the Saudis might gain a little hegemony with Pakistan, they have lost their unofficial leadership of the GCC. They are approaching the verge of being totally ignored.
Charting their own geopolitical path, Qatar has banned Saudi intellectuals from its newspapers and continues to fund Al Jazeera’s region-wide radio and TV broadcasts. Qatar also plays host to senior leaders of Hamas — the Palestine anti-Israel group in Gaza, designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Confounding the region’s geopolitics, Hamas recently merged with the West Bank’s more moderate Fata in an attempt for both factions to gain more clout as a larger, united front.
To antagonize the Saudis further, Qatar remains a staunch supporter of Egypt’s democratically-elected Muslim Brotherhood government — as did the U.S. Qatar is a rich, liberal kingdom and is no one’s lap-dog.
President Barack Obama’s inaction — to put neither boots on the ground or wings in the air — after his Syrian “red-line” proclamation has reverberated beyond the Middle East to both Moscow and Beijing.
All this turmoil has caused the Saudis, U.A.E. and Bahrain — half of the GCC members — to withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar, as reported in the Wall Street Journal (March 21).
Located at the far southern end of the Sinai Peninsula is Oman, the furthest away from the Persian Gulf. As a country, it simply became fed-up with the cloak-and-dagger episodes and summarily resigned from the GCC.
The great danger is that Oman might be a trigger for similar action by the other five GCC members.
The GCC has billions of dollars of intra-council trade. A devolvement of the council would cause a significant economic setback, not only for only the members but for the entire region.
More important, the GCC provided a “go to” forum for the U.S. to float diplomatic proposals and advise of them of planned geo-economics and/or military activities in addition to the reverse-processes.
The devolution of the GCC will be a significant loss for America — and the West.
Richard Scamehorn is Ohio University’s executive-in-residence emeritus.