The Gulf Cooperation Council

Moderation And Stability In An Interdependent World

John A. Sandwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000302080
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Gulf Cooperation Council represents both a model of development and unity in the Arab world and a working example of interstate cooperation to other nations. In this volume, contributors describe the rationale for Gulf unity and cooperation and analyze the financial, economic, and legal institutions of the GCC member states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar). They focus on the GCC's role in maintaining stability in the Arabian peninsula, an area that is clearly vital to U.S. interests. Contributors pinpoint the essential elements of GCC unity, including its efforts to obtain optimum economic self-sufficiency, to maximize market share and revenue from oil production, and to establish an integrated legal framework. The GCC's unique security needs, given the member states' vast combined area and thinly spread populations, are also discussed. An overview of the strategic interests and policies of both superpowers toward the region reveals a history of decline in their influence and prestige that is a result, it is argued, of misperceptions and misguided policies. Finally, documentation and bibliographic sections enhance the book's usefulness as a handbook on the GCC and the Arabian Gulf states.

Chapter 1
History and Development of the Gulf Cooperation Council: A Brief Overview

John Christie

Mr. Christie is editor of the London-based Middle East Newsletters, one of which covers Saudi Arabia, the other, the Gulf States.

Any alliance or close combination of countries is founded, in the first instance, on the perceived identity of interests among the parties involved and on an assessment that there is more to be gained in association than there is to be had from isolation. The identities of interest may be of almost any kind; political, economic, military or cultural; but a common denominator is essential if a coalition of states is to have real substance and explicit purpose. The many existing international groupings, such as the Arab League, the Warsaw Pact, the European Economic Community, the Islamic Conference Organization, may be disparate in constitution and differ widely in their objectives, yet they all possess the thread of commonality that binds together their members into an organizational fabric.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), formed by six nations of the Arabian peninsula—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—is no exception to the general rule. Where practically all other alliances of separate countries must absorb different languages, cultures and political systems, the GCC can—and does—emphasize the close similarities the GCC countries enjoy. There is the common language—Arabic, a common religion—Islam, closely comparable social structures, roughly the same standards of economic development, very similar systems of government, a collective culture and a shared geography. And, perhaps among the more important factors in the composition of the GCC, the people of the six nations recognize and understand their fraternity in the wider implications of Arab nationality.

All these common qualities had been in existence for centuries, yet, despite the apparent advantage they brought to ideas of coalition and coordination among the Gulf Arab states, the past levels of official cooperation among the six countries were so slight as to be of little effect and without lasting importance. Under the previous umbrella of British political and military suzerainty, the sheikhdoms of the Gulf littoral kept to their separate and largely independent ways and the contacts between them of a cooperative nature were desultory and inconsequential. Saudi Arabia, outside the direct British orbit, followed its national preoccupations and policies with only a passing regard to the regional reference. Although Saudi Arabia was a fully independent state and the Gulf countries had, technically at least, the responsibility for their own internal affairs, there was neither political nor popular enthusiasm for moves towards closer ties. As long as Britain remained in effective control of all the larger and wider issues affecting the region, there was no necessity or incentive for the individual states to take any initiatives in the field of cooperation.

But by the early 1960s the course of events had begun to sharpen Gulf perceptions of the possible political future unfolding before them. The accession of Kuwait to full independence in 1961 was a watershed in the political development of the Gulf, serving as it did a tacit notice that Britain would eventually relinquish its overall authority in the rest of the area. Around this time, the British began to give mild encouragement to the smaller sheikhdoms of the so-called Trucial States to consider some forms of greater cooperation and integration among themselves. The development of the oil industry in the Gulf was also having its marked effect, bringing economic independence in place of former financial subservience and offering a proper economic support to independent statehood. By the late 1960s, the British were telling the Gulf rulers of their intention to withdraw entirely from the Gulf and were urging specific measures of cooperation and association upon them. The forewarnings of the British were met. in some instances, with incredulity mixed with alarm; a not entirely surprising reaction to the impending end of a dominant foreign presence stretching back almost 150 years. However, when it was clear that the British did mean to go, the prospect wonderfully concentrated minds on the practical aspects of life in an independent and unsupported state.

In 1971 the Dubai Agreement was reached, under which Bahrain, Qatar and the seven Trucial Sheikhdoms of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Shaijah, Ajman, Ras al Khaimah, Fujairah and Umm al Quwain were to consider joining together in some kind of federation or union. The following year, after Britain had made its official announcement that it was withdrawing from its bases and colonies east of Suez including the Arabian Gulf, the nine emirs and sheikhs signed an agreement to form the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But it took three more years of negotiation before the UAE came into being, and then it was without Bahrain and Qatar, who both decided against joining the federation and opted for independence on their own. Nevertheless, with the former British-protected states fully independent and with Oman having ended its era of isolation with the accession to power of Sultan Qaboos, by the 1970s all the countries of the region were in a position (if not then ready) to forge closer links in a common unity.

In 1976, from an initiative by Sultan Qaboos of Oman, the foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman met in Muscat to discuss the Omani suggestion that a coordinated regional security and defense policy be established. But the ministers were not able to agree on a common position and the conference came to an end without any conclusions reached. The issue was never followed up and no further action took place on the Omani initiative. Then, also in 1976, another effort was made to arrive at an Arab regional consensus. Sheikh Jaber al Ahmad al Sabah, the present amir of Kuwait and at that time crown prince and prime minister, toured the Gulf countries to discuss joint action to "preserve the region's security and stability in the face of political, economic and security challenges threatening this strategic area." Sheikh Jaber formally proposed the establishment of a Gulf union as a vehicle for this joint action, with the objective "of realizing cooperation in all economic, political, educational and informational fields."

As much as anywhere, the genesis of the GCC lay in the Kuwaiti proposal although it was another five years before the idea became a reality. However, Kuwait's exploratory talks with the UAE led to the establishment of a joint ministerial council of the respective prime ministers of the two countries. The consultations with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman were fairly successful and all officially endorsed the concept of a Gulf union.

Over the following five years a series of meetings and discussions took place on the subject of a regional grouping, now refined in concept to include only the six countries which eventually did form the GCC. But the pace of negotiation was leisurely. To the six governments concerned there was no difficulty in agreeing on the virtues of cooperation or, indeed, to practice it in certain fields; but the necessary impetus to action was lacking. Had it not been for outside events, the agreeable discussions on the shape and substance of a formal association among the six states might have continued interminably. Then, a real and alarming urgency was brought to the deliberations of the six by major developments involving other powers. The overthrow of the shah of Iran in 1979 and the establishment of the revolutionary regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini totally changed the security picture of the Gulf region. The apparent power vacuum created by the British withdrawal was supposed—in some eyes—to be filled by Iran. With strong U.S. support, especially in the defense field, the shah had happily accepted the role of Iran as "policeman of the Gulf." The acquiescence if not the approval of the Gulf Arab states to this arrangement was assumed, although the lukewarm reception the Arabs gave to it suggested considerably less than enthusiasm for Iran being cast as the prime regional power. However, the plan had its de facto advantages, at least as far as maintaining a desired level of security in the area was concerned. But, the change in nature and character of the new regime in Tehran quickly dispelled any sense of comfort or complacency in the Gulf Arab states about regional security.

Next, in December 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the area's defenses began to look very thin indeed. Also, by this time, the worsening relations between Iran and Iraq were apparent. In September 1980, after border clashes and artillery exchanges, Iran and Iraq became locked in open war. The vulnerability of the countries of the Arabian peninsula was chillingly exposed and the six countries of the embryonic Gulf union needed no further spurs to action.

In early February 1981 the foreign ministers of the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia met in Riyadh and unanimously agreed on the establishment of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), aimed at fostering cooperation and coordination among the member states "in all walks of life" and intended to present a unified Gulf position on major political, economic and social issues. A GCC charter was quickly drawn up and the basic structure of the Council agreed upon. Three months later, on May 25, 1981, the six heads of state met in Abu Dhabi and signed the Charter and the GCC came into formal existence.

The terms of the GCC's constitution are both comprehensive and far-reaching. It speaks (Article 4) of "the ultimate aim of unity" and an eventual confederal union emerging from the GCC framework. However, the Charter was carefully worded to take account of the larger Arab canvas and to mollify potential Arab opposition to the new organization. The GCC, the Charter states, "conforms with the national aims of the Arab Nation as expressed in the Charter of the Arab League . . . .The GCC can be seen as confirming the support of these states for the Arab League, its Charter and objective, and Islam as a whole."

From the outset the GCC took pains to emphasize its economic and social aims and, other than affirming the members' determination to defend their independence and territorial integrity, any suggestion that a military alliance was in the making was studiously avoided. Nevertheless, beyond the agreeable premises of kinship, fellow feeling and shared values, the GCC states were fully aware of the implicit threat to their survival from the overall situation in the Gulf. If the press releases were about economic cooperation, the urgent discussions within the GCC were about defense and internal security.

The organizational structure of the GCC reflected the Council's collective view of the best means and methods for the new body to function to its maximum advantage. The collective view involved, inevitably, some areas of compromise. When the Charter was being drawn up the ministers had before them two working papers, one submitted by Kuwait and the other by Oman. The Kuwaiti paper suggested the administrative constitution of the proposed organization and the broad outlines of the policies it might follow. With only minor alterations, the Kuwaiti paper was accepted and became the blueprint on which the Charter was based.

Oman's written proposals were concerned with the extremely sensitive issues of defense and security. The Omani paper said, in essence, that there should be the closest military cooperation among the member states, leading to an eventual objective of full military integration in command, communications, supply and strategy. More significantly, the Omani paper pointed out that the six GCC states, even at the point of full military integration, were inadequate by themselves to ensure the successful defense of the region against a substantial external attack. Therefore, the Omani paper maintained, the GCC should plan its combined military defense in open cooperation with a major friendly power whose security perceptions were close, if not identical, with those of the GCC. The only friendly power with the required viable military strength and with the desired political profile was, the Omani working paper propounded, the United States. Whether the ministers accepted or rejected the military analysis put forward by Oman, they preferred to delay any decisions—even in private—concerning the military and defensive strategies the Council should adopt. The Omani paper was shelved and the foreign ministers drafting the Charter said the time was not ripe to come to conclusions on the question of defense.

The makeup of the GCC owes much to the forms of other supranational and international organizations. The GCC's highest authority consists of a Supreme Council composed of the heads of state of the six member countries. When required, the Supreme Council can constitute itself as the Disputes Settlement Board. In the Council each country has a single, equal vote, and a unanimous vote is required to approve any substantive measure or policy. The Council lays down the guidelines of the higher policy objectives of the GCC and its approval is necessary to implement proposed executive action. The chairmanship of the Supreme Council is held for one year by each country in alphabetical order; currently (1986) the chairman is Oman. Succession to the chairmanship is made at the regular annual meeting of the Supreme Council, usually in November of each year when the GCC summit takes place.

Below the Supreme Council comes the Ministerial Council, made up of the foreign ministers of the six member states. The Ministerial Council is the working policy group of the GCC. It considers the proposals, policies and projects, winnows the recommendations and suggestions put forward by other GCC ministerial and expert-level committees and formulates the final proposals put forward to the Supreme Council for its approval.

If the Supreme Council is the captain and the Ministerial Council the officers on the bridge, then the Secretariat is the engine room of the GCC ship. The GCC Secretariat General, headquartered in Riyadh, plays a significant and influential role in the GCC scheme of things; it has much of the power and style of the United Nations Secretariat-General. In addition to its expected administrative functions, the GCC Secretariat initiates in its own right many studies and reviews of actual and potential cooperation and integration among the member states; it commissions outside feasibility studies on suggested and potential projects; it creates committees and subcommittees to look into the prospects of new or possible fields of GCC action; and it drafts the legislation required to implement agreed GCC policies. The secretary-general, H.E. Dr. Abdulla Yacoub Bishara, is the first and, so far, only holder of the office. Bishara, an articulate and energetic former diplomat, was Kuwait's ambassador to the United Nations for many years. His two associate secretaries-general are H.E. Ibrahim Subhi, an Omani, who is responsible for political affairs, and H.E. Dr. Abdullah El-Kuwaiz of Saudi Arabia, who oversees economic affairs at the GCC headquarters. With the Supreme Council meeting but once a year and the Ministerial Council at three-month intervals, the importance of the GCC Secretariat is not to be underestimated.

There are over 60 official pan-Arab and inter-Arab organizations currently in existence, covering almost every kind of political, technical, economic, social and cultural field known. This multitude of associated entities, all officially sponsored, paid for, and manned by the Arab countries has—in common with other similar international and national combinations—a varied record of success and a largely unquantifiable measure of value to the Arab nation.

Among the burgeoning bureaucracies of the Arab world, does the GCC have a justified place and a commendable role? The question is neither unfair nor superfluous, when the recent history of previous creations of Arab unity is considered. Egypt, Syria and North Yemen as the United Arab Republic, a brief confederation of Jordan and Iraq in the 1950s, the short-lived unities of Libya and Sudan, Tunisia and Libya, and Sudan and Egypt—none of which survived or developed into a marriage of political or economic substance—were all fatally flawed in conception or execution. Is the GCC any different from these? And does it have a genuine and viable future?

The GCC itself will give a stout affirmative to the questions and point to a dozen or more kindred characteristics of the peoples of the GCC states. But the GCC's credibility and its likely durability rest heavily on a factor which the GCC itself chooses not to make too public. With only parochial differences of a minor nature, the systems and forms of the governments of the six GCC member states are consistently alike in style, principle and circumstance. Throughout the GCC-member nations one finds an easy familiarity in the uniformity of government and the application of its rule. Common language, religion and culture may be the bricks of the GCC edifice; the coincidence of matching government rule is the cement that binds them together.

This unity of form in government is both an advantage and a disadvantage to the GCC. In one sense, it allows the GCC to operate on a set of basic domestic assumptions which, if workable in one member country, should be equally valid in any other of the member states. New ideas and developments acceptable in one member country should find a ready approval in another. But the look-alike systems of government of the GCC six have few parallels in the wider international scene—and none at all in the rest of the Arab world. It is difficult to imagine another Arab government, outside the GCC, being entirely comfortable within as closely knit an organization as the GCC. A few years ago Yousuf Shirawi, Bahrain's minister of development, gave a talk in London in which he suggested that there was nothing to prevent the enlargement of the GCC group by allowing other Arab states—by invitation—to join the association. Shirawi cited the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) and Iraq as two potential member candidates; the first on the grounds that the Yemen has at least a geographical linkage with the rest of the peninsula countries, and the second on the basis that Iraq is, in maritime terms, a Gulf state. The other conforming Arab characteristics of Yemen and Iraq were, reasonably enough, assumed by Shirawi to be self-evident. However, such suggestions have not been heard again from the GCC. In fact, the tacit current premise from the GCC itself, made in its official statements and comments, is that membership in the GCC is not really open to other Arab states. Moreover, it is a reasonable conclusion that the GCC's composition as an exclusive club of traditional and benevolent autocracies is a fairly permanent condition, and not unless and until the GCC governments and their systems of rule change very radically could an Arab state with a markedly different political pattern qualify for entry into the GCC.

Still, exclusivity has its virtues and values in the political field and the GCC uses its unique characteristics skillfully and to advantage. Some sections of Arab opinion have a somewhat critical view of the GCC, seeing in its separation and distinction a detraction from the struggle for the goal of Arab unity. The GCC is also sometimes regarded as having walled itself off from the Arab League, the main organizational body in which all Arab countries are represented. Responding to such criticism, the GCC says that its formation fully complies with the objectives of the Arab League charter, which specifically encourages regional cooperation as a means of strengthening the Arab nation. The GCC, it says, is a "confirmation of these states' support for the Arab League and a promotion of their role in realizing the objectives of its charter, which serves Arab and Islamic causes equally."

Within the general frame of the Arab world, the GCC has been a force of moderation, conciliation and mediation. Its overt essays into inter-Arab affairs have been few and far between, although its private collective voice has undoubtedly carried weight in Arab councils. In November 1983, when the GCC was holding its fourth summit conference in Qatar, an envoy from the Palestine Liberation Organization appeared in Doha and appealed to the GCC leaders to mediate in the factional fighting that had broken out among PLO groups in Lebanon. After several hours of deliberation and debate, the GCC decided to send the foreign ministers of Kuwait and Qatar to Damascus to try to negotiate an end to the internecine fighting. The two ministers were partially successful in that they persuaded the two PLO factions to call a cease-fire and sit down to discuss their differences. The cease-fire did not last very long, it is true, but at least the GCC had tried and managed to achieve something.

The GCC was also active in helping to end the longstanding hostility between the Sultanate of Oman and the Peoples Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). Through the good offices of the UAE and Kuwait acting at the behest of the GCC, the two disputing sides were brought together in a series of formal and informal meetings. Eventually, in 1983, after two years of negotiations, Oman and the PDRY agreed to the "normalization" of their diplomatic and political relations. The GCC can claim some credit for this modest improvement in the regional security situation.

In other purely Arab affairs, the GCC usually adopts the "consensus position," a policy exemplified by the Council's stated attitude to the convening of the frequently postponed Arab summit meeting. The GCC was, is, and will be willing to attend an Arab summit wherever and whenever there is a large official Arab agreement to do so; lacking such agreement, the GCC endorses the majority view that a continued delay is the wisest course. This nimble negotiation of the tightrope of interArab politics is typical of the GCC's skill—and desire—to be, politically, all things to all men. Given the limitations of the GCC's power and influence and remembering that the Council's first responsibility is to its own membership, th...