Gulf Alliances: Regional States Hedge Their Bets
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No. 074/2015 dated
31 March 2015
Gulf Alliances:
Regional States Hedge Their Bets
By James M.
Dorsey
Synopsis The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen designed to prevent Iranian-backed forces from gaining
power
symbolises the Gulf’s new assertiveness. Potential US-Iranian agreement on
resolving
the
nuclear crisis has fuelled concern among Arab Gulf states about the
reliability of the United
States
as the region’s ultimate security guarantor.
Commentary THE CURRENT SAUDI-led intervention in Yemen designed to prevent Iranian-backed forces
from
gaining power symbolises the Gulf’s new assertiveness. This is unfolding as
the various
Gulf
states seek to hedge their bets with different strategies that complement
rather than
replace
the regional US security umbrella.
Qatar this month signed a military agreement with Turkey which gives the two parties the
right to
deploy soldiers in each other’s territory. Qatar is the latest Gulf state to
seek alliances
as a way
to enhance security in a world in which a post-nuclear agreement Iran would
join
Turkey and
Israel as the region’s foremost military powers. The agreement is rooted in
shared
attitudes
towards tumultuous developments in the Middle East that potentially threaten
long-ruling
autocrats and spawned civil wars and spiralling political violence and
could rewrite
the
region’s nation state cartography.
Subtle and not-so-subtle strategic shifts If invoked in a time of crisis, the likelihood is that tiny Qatar’s alignment with the second
largest
standing army in NATO would mean that Turkish forces would be sent to aid the
Gulf
state and
recognises that Qatar’s 12,000-man military will never be capable of
defending the
emirate.
The agreement supplements Qatar’s soft power strategy that seeks to embed the
Gulf state
in the international community through sports, arts, airline connectivity,
investment
and high-powered mediation of regional disputes in a way that it could call
on it
in times of
emergency.
While the Qatar-Turkey agreement is between governments that are politically aligned on
one side
of the Middle East and North Africa’s multiple political divides, concern
among
Gulf
states has also sparked subtle shifts that are bringing erstwhile opponents
closer
together.
Qatari and Turkish relations with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and
Egypt had
soured since the military coup in 2013 that toppled Egyptian President
Mohammed
Morsi because of the two states support for Islamist groups like the Muslim
Brotherhood
and Hamas.
The subtle realignment of alliances prompted by fears that the United States will conclude
a deal
with Iran that they believe fails to ensure that the Islamic republic will
not become a
nuclear
power was first noticeable in the willingness of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to
be
more open
about their political and security relations with Israel. The two Gulf states
refuse
to
establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state because of its
unresolved conflict
with the
Palestinians but share Israel’s perception of Iran as an existential threat.
“Everything is underground, nothing is public. But our security cooperation with Egypt and
the Gulf
states is unique. This is the best period of security and diplomatic relations
with the
Arabs,”
said General Amos Gilad, the Israeli defence ministry’s director of policy
and
political-military
relations, during a visit to Singapore last year. Gilad played a key role in
forging
Israel’s alliance with Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al
Sisi.
Unprecedented moves In unprecedented public moves, Saudi officials reached out to Israel they had long shied
away from.
Saudi officials, contrary to past practice, refrained in December from
commenting
on
unconfirmed news reports that quoted Saudi oil minister Ali Bin Ibrahim
al-Naimi as saying
the
kingdom would be willing to sell oil to Israel.
Six months earlier former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the US and UK Prince
Turki Al
Faisal called on Israel to resolve the Palestinian issue as a way of
facilitating enhanced
Israeli-Saudi
relations. Besides opening direct flights between Riyadh and Jerusalem,
“commerce,
medicine,
science, art, and culture between our two peoples would develop,” Turki wrote
in the
first ever
op-ed submitted by a member of the Saudi elite to an Israeli newspaper.
A second indication was a decision last December by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain to paper
over their
differences with Qatar over the Muslim Brotherhood. The three states had nine
months
earlier withdrawn their ambassadors from the Qatari capital in a failed
attempt to force
Qatar to
break its ties with the Brotherhood and expel Brothers from the country.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia, which views Iran as a far greater threat than the Brotherhood, has
signalled
that its attitude towards the Brotherhood was changing despite its backing
for Sisi’s
brutal
crackdown on the group in Egypt and the kingdom’s banning of the Brothers as
terrorists.
The moves
are part of a Saudi effort to forge a Sunni Muslim alliance against Iran that
paved the
way for
this month’s visit to Riyadh by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A recent conference in Mecca that brought together Muslim clerics to denounce terrorism was
hosted by
the Muslim World League, a body established by Saudi Arabia but long
associated
with the
Brotherhood. Earlier, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud bin Faisal declared that
the kingdom
has “no
problem with the Muslim Brotherhood”.
Creating opportunity for China Gulf states’ fears of Iran are likely to create further opportunity for China to strengthen its soft
military
ties in the region in a balancing act that is designed to ensure that it does
not challenge
US
hegemony in the region. China said this month it had agreed to sell Turkey a
US$3.4 billion
surface-to-air
missile system that could prove difficult to integrate with its NATO allies.
China’s approach could potentially further involve temporary deployment of armed forces for
overseas
military exercises as well as the deployment of military patrols,
peacekeeping forces,
military
trainers and consultants; also the building of overseas munitions warehouses,
joint
intelligence
facilities, aerospace tracking facilities, earthquake monitoring stations,
technical
service,
military replenishment stops, maintenance bases, and military teaching
institutions.
The nibbling at the fringe of the Middle East’s security architecture is however unlikely to
improve
regional security as long as it includes policies by states like Saudi Arabia
that
exacerbate
rather than soften sectarian divides and that seek to box in regional powers
rather
than
include them on equitable terms.
James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS),
Nanyang
Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the University of
Würzburg’s
Institute
for Fan Culture, a syndicated columnist, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle
Nanyang
Technological University
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