The GCC and the International Relations of the Gulf

Diplomacy, Security and Economic Coordination in a Changing Middle East

Matteo Legrenzi

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780857733863
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic Theory
• Index: Economics

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), made up of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is one of the most resilient sub-regional organizations in the world, and the most successful in the Arab world. it has been the forum through which much security cooperation in this volatile sub-region has taken place, as well as the main representative for the UAE's territorial dispute with Iran over the Abu Musa and tunbs islands. the organization aims to enhance defence cooperation between its member states. it also has significant potential to foster economic integration and to present an alternative form of leverage over the international oil markets. Very little is known however about how the organization really works: how decisions are actually taken, as opposed to how this process is formally articulated in its charter, and what the GCC's real impact on member states, the gulf and international relations is.Drawing on cutting-edge ir theoretical perspectives as well as unique firsthand access to GCC decision-makers, Matteo Legrenzi explains the mechanisms of Gulf cooperation - and its limitations - in the context of economic globalization, diplomatic regionalization and the rise of Iran.
Combining historical context, primary source investigations and theoretical analysis, this is a comprehensive guide to the GCC and an indispensable resource for anyone concerned with the Gulf and the Middle East.

1

THE CREATION OF THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES AND THE FIRST INTEGRATION EXPERIMENTS OF THE ARAB STATES OF THE GULF

The trouble as always, is that each state imagines that a proposal of any sort from any other is motivated by self-interest. Generally speaking, this is true.¹

Ronald H. M. Boyle

Sir William Luce and the Peninsula Solidarity Project

The idea of cooperation among the Arab monarchies of the Gulf predates the independence of a majority of them. Sir William Luce, who was British Political Resident in the Gulf between 1960 and 1966, identified in Nasserism the prime threat to the survival of the shaikhly system of government.² Sir William tried to promote a cooperative arrangement between the nine protected states and Saudi Arabia based on what he saw as their fundamentally shared interests and their common hostility to Nasserism. It was a belief widely held by foreign observers in the 1950s and 1960s that the shaikhly regimes of the nine protected states would find it extremely difficult to survive the departure of the British. Nasserism had made inroads among the populations of these states, particularly Bahrain. Both the rulers and the British saw Nasserism as the gravest danger to traditional systems of rule. The project could not take off then as too many border disputes remained unresolved.³ Additionally, the rulers of the nine protected states felt secure under British protection and feared the predominance of Saudi Arabia.⁴

However, it is striking to observe the similarities between Sir William’s blueprint for Gulf cooperation elaborated in the early 1960s and what became the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) two decades later. Cooperation followed by integration in the economic, cultural and, most crucially, internal and external security fields were all envisaged. Saudi Arabia was to play a leading role in the new organization that could then present a common front on the international scene. This cohesion on the Arab side of the Gulf was in turn to be coupled with an understanding between the Saudis and the Shah of Iran to set up and preserve a security regime in the waterway of the Gulf. The importance of this second element was recognized in London and a dialogue was encouraged between Saudi Arabia and Iran. On the other hand, 15 years had to elapse after the departure of Sir William from his post as Political Resident before the now fully independent Gulf Arab monarchies were in a position to give birth to the GCC.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. On the one hand, the historical background to the creation of the GCC is illustrated by discussing the relevant material. On the other hand, GCC integration can best be understood by looking at the previous experiments in political integration and administrative cooperation.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) as a precursor of the GCC: myths and realities

Along with the independence of Kuwait in 1961, the establishment of the UAE in 1971 is widely seen as one of the two crucial junctures in the modern history of the Gulf. The founding of the UAE is moreover viewed within the literature as proof that Arab states can indeed experiment with novel forms of integration, leading, in the case of the seven Arab emirates, even to the formation of a federation.⁵ I will argue that the UAE, in addition to having been throughout its history a sui generis federation, in fact owes its origins more to a concerted diplomatic effort orchestrated by outside forces than to the genuine will of the peoples of the seven emirates or indeed their rulers. In fact, after the initial thrust the constituent emirates could not agree on a replacement for the provisional constitution that was originally intended to elapse in 1976. After several rounds of negotiation to replace it, the provisional constitution, a woolly and deliberately vague document, was declared permanent on the 25th anniversary of independence in December 1996. This episode illustrates the painstaking search for compromise and incessant negotiations that characterize the workings of the federation.⁶ From the start the seven leaders deliberately eschewed a clear institutional structure for fear that it would encroach on the prerogatives of the individual rulers. Leadership is still very much a personal affair.

My argument on the origins of the federation is founded on documentation released in 1998 by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. British diplomats were players throughout the negotiations leading to the establishment of the UAE. They could also count on the assistance of their colleagues posted in Jeddah, Washington and, crucially, Teheran. They also continuously monitored the local press and included the most important articles in their dispatches. Therefore, they seem to be the best source to follow the complex processes leading to the establishment of the federation. While a number of good memoirs by some of the key local players have appeared, the archives of the Gulf emirates are still closed. Therefore, we are still short of documentation on some key meetings that took place without any British representative present.

By debunking the myth of a federation freely entered into by the seven emirates, it is possible to demonstrate how fallacious is the ancillary argument, made in some of the most partisan literature, that the GCC is bound to thrive and succeed in its integrative efforts on the strength of this precedent. Indeed, the formation of the UAE may well provide insights into the subsequent creation of the GCC. The parallels, though, have more to do with the continuous quarrels between the rulers up to the very eve of British departure and subsequently each emir’s desire to retain as much sovereignty as possible than with the creation of a truly federal state.

Other less ambitious and purely functional forms of cooperation, which began in the 1970s, shed much more light on the origins and development of the GCC. These will be analysed in the second part of the chapter.

The official narrative and the myth of ‘free will’

Traditional accounts of the founding of the UAE correctly emphasize the feeling of insecurity and estrangement that gripped the rulers of the nine protected states in 1968. That was the year when Britain, following a severe domestic economic crisis, announced its intention to withdraw from commitments east of Suez by the end of 1971.⁷ It is worth reviewing the accepted historical account of the establishment of the UAE.⁸ As this chapter will show, the conventional account consistently underplays the role of external powers such as Iran and Britain and the disagreements between the rulers of the nine protected states.

Following the announcement by Prime Minister Harold Wilson on 16 January 1968 that the British withdrawal from east of Suez would be completed by 1971, the rulers of the nine protected states of the Gulf started searching for the political means to secure their small, vulnerable entities in what was, and is even more today, a turbulent regional environment.⁹ The idea of forming a federation became the subject of frequent meetings and discussions. It built on the existence of the Trucial States Council of rulers, a consultative council that had been established by Britain in 1952 to further the development of the seven Trucial states, which held 30 sessions between 1952 and 1968.¹⁰ The workings of the council offer a good insight into elite interaction and administrative practice in the protected states. Meetings were very long and there was a tendency, according to British representatives, to drift into somewhat sterile abstract arguments. The strenuous search for compromise caused severe delay in reaching important decisions. The same decision-making approach continues in the new federation where the situation is aggravated by the absence of the British arbiter.

The first concrete initiative on the tortuous path of establishing a federation came from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Their rulers met in Simayh on 18 February 1968 and announced the decision to federate the two emirates and devolve responsibility for the areas of foreign affairs, defense, citizenship, health and education to the future federal government.¹¹ At the end of the joint declaration the two rulers extended an invitation to the other five Trucial emirates to join the incipient union. They also extended a more cautious invitation to the rulers of Qatar and Bahrain to discuss the future of the region with a view to forming a federation of all nine protected states.

In fact the union of the nine never materialized. After a first enthusiastic meeting held in Dubai between 25 and 27 February 1968, differences began to appear between the nine rulers over many aspects of the future federation. A draft prepared by the Government of Qatar provided the basis of the discussions between the nine delegations. Much of the text of this draft was actually incorporated in the first agreement between the nine.¹² The Dubai proposals dominated negotiations between the nine rulers for the next three years. The framework was loose enough to serve as the launching pad for extended negotiations which centred on the need to reconcile the traditional privileges of the ruling families with the institutions required to establish a modern state.¹³ Ultimately, a dilemma surfaced that would come back to haunt the GCC repeatedly. The ruling families of the Gulf shaikhly regimes find it difficult to relinquish some of their sovereignty to a supranational entity when they refuse, with the partial exception of Kuwait, to hand over much of the same sovereignty to their own citizens. Admittedly, it is easier for a Shaikh to defer to a fellow ruler than to public opinion. However, a number of prerogatives are closely guarded by the rulers of the region. First and foremost of these is control over the distribution of the wealth derived from the exploitation of mineral resources.¹⁴ This fundamental question is supplemented by other factors such as the long-running dynastic rivalries between the ruling families of the Gulf and the vexed question of border disputes.

The failure of the federation of the nine is generally attributed to Qatar and Bahrain mainly due to their territorial disputes and the historical rift between the two ruling families.¹⁵ It is certainly true that the federation of the rest of the emirates proved to be more practical. However, even in the case of the remaining emirates, at the end of three years of argument and negotiation, only six out of seven were in a position to promulgate even a provisional constitution. The exception was Ra’s al Khaimah.

Ra’s al Khaimah joined the federation only on 10 February 1972 when its ruler realized that continuation as an independent entity would not be viable. It is possible to identify three reasons why Ra’s al Khaimah did not join the UAE until three months after its formation.¹⁶ These are worth discussing as they epitomize general issues that would continue to hamper integration efforts between Gulf states for the coming decades.

Firstly, Ra’s al Khaimah’s ruler, Shaikh Saqr bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, resented the fact that throughout negotiations between the nine states it did not rank equally with Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai in such matters as the number of delegates and voting rights. Issues such as prestige and reputation will prove considerable stumbling blocks throughout the life of the UAE and later of the GCC. Underlying these issues is a concrete fear on the part of the smaller members that their bigger brethren would assume a hegemonic role. This concern is indeed the cause of continuous tensions between Dubai and Abu Dhabi within the UAE and, to a lesser extent, between Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states. In the context of associations of states with great power disparities between their members, what may seem prima facie trivial gestures, such as the venue of a particular meeting or the arrangement of the national flags, may hold important symbolic meaning for both constituents and the outside world.¹⁷ This phenomenon is particularly relevant in the Arab Middle East for reasons that will be scrutinized later in this thesis. Symbols and rhetorical discourse have played a prominent part in intra-Arab relations in the past 40 years. The symbolic drive towards some form of unity, however hesitant in practice, remains a defining characteristic in the international relations of the Arab Middle East.¹⁸

The second reason for Ra’s al Khaimah reluctance to join the UAE was that explorations were underway at the time for oil off the coast of the emirate. Shaikh Saqr hoped that Ra’s al Khaimah would be able to join the UAE on the wave of a successful oil strike. This would have enabled him to negotiate much better representation on both the Union Council and the cabinet. Unfortunately for both the people and the ruler of the shaikhdom, when the results of the strike were revealed it transpired that oil had not been found in sufficient quantities and the ruler had to resign himself to joining the union as a relatively oil-poor member. The difference in wealth of the constituent emirates of the UAE and, later, the member states of the GCC has constituted a persistent problem. If a budgetary structure is adopted whereby wealthier members contribute the most, such as in the UAE, the power asymmetry is institutionalized and eventually one member assumes a leading position in relation to the others. This creates recurrent crises as poorer members try to resist further integration as the frequent Dubai/Abu Dhabi quarrels within the UAE demonstrate. If, on the other hand, members are required to contribute an equal share to the budget, as is the case in the GCC, the organization will always be limited in its activities since poorer members such as Bahrain or Oman will not be able to contribute enough to establish a regional organization able to assume some of the sovereign prerogatives of its members.¹⁹ These preliminary considerations will be further examined later in this work.

Finally, the thorny issue of the Abu Musa and Tunbs islands has its origins in this turbulent period. The issue, which remains high on the UAE’s political agenda today, has influenced the international relations of the Gulf for a considerable time and will form the subject of a separate discussion. Suffice it to say here that the three islands, two of which are sparsely inhabited, had belonged to the two shaikhdoms of Sharjah and Ra’s al Khaimah for the past century or so.²⁰

The Shah of Iran who had surrendered his long-standing claim to Bahrain in 1970 was in no mood to compromise about the two islands. After a series of fruitless negotiations with the British, who were managing the external relations of the Trucial states, he decided to issue an ultimatum by which Iran would gain a military presence on the strategic islands while letting the Arab inhabitants continue with their lives free from interference. Sharjah eventually accepted the Iranian diktat regarding Abu Musa, but Ra’s al Khaimah held out. On 29 November 1971, shortly before Britain was to relinquish its obligations, Iranian forces seized the two Tunbs killing four Arab policemen and expelling all the inhabitants. The invasion put the issue of the islands on the agenda of relations between the two sides of the Gulf for a long time to come. Ra’s al Khaimah did not agree to join the UAE until the other emirates decided to adopt the question of Iranian occupation of the islands. The other six rulers agreed to consider the issue a federal one.

The dispute over the islands highlights the vexing question of security dependency of the Gulf states. Ra’s al Khaimah had long relied on Britain for external defense; when British assistance was not forthcoming there was nothing it could do. Its appeals to fellow Arab states were met with muted responses and a call for moderation in its dealings with Iran.²¹ This impotence vis-à-vis one of the two regional powers, Iran and Iraq, will be a recurrent theme for the six states of the GCC. The need to resort to external powers to guarantee their external defense informs the foreign policies of the six monarchies despite the public protestations of neutrality expressed in the early 1980s.

The role of outside powers in the formation of the UAE

The documents declassified a decade ago cast a fresh light on the bargaining process that led to the formation of the UAE.²² These documents indicate how the global and the regional level of analysis must be the focus of attention when one looks at the genesis of the UAE. In other words, the interplay of the great powers and their interaction with the main regional powers had a much greater influence on the genesis of the UAE than had previously been realized.

This is in contrast to the unit level of...