Division and disunity
Despite a range of current shared threats, perceived or otherwise, and despite the invasion of Kuwait remaining fresh in the minds of many Gulf nationals, the Gulf monarchies nevertheless seem further away than ever before from enjoying basic co-operation and collective security. Although, as discussed in the following chapter, there have been a number of recent actions that have been branded as ‘collective action’ in the wake of the Arab Spring, in practise these have been effectively unilateral or bilateral efforts on the part of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to head off regime collapse in their most precarious neighbours. Indeed, while formal councils and various mechanisms now exist on paper, there is still no effective body to bind together these largely similar states into a meaningful alliance. In the short term this means the Gulf monarchies remain highly vulnerable to foreign aggression and petty disputes between themselves, and in the long term means that their dependency on external security guarantees and the resulting exposure to its associated pathologies will remain high.
The Co-operation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, better known as the ‘Gulf Co-operation Council’ is the organisation many had expected to present a ‘united front’ for the Gulf monarchies. Founded in 1981 in Abu Dhabi, the Council’s creation was spurred by the Iran-Iraq War and, in particular, Kuwaiti concerns of collateral damage or attack from its warring neighbours. On an economic level the Council was supposed to foster joint ventures between the monarchies, remove barriers to trade, and establish a common GCC currency by 2010. While there has been some limited success in establishing a GCC customs union, more serious economic integration has remained elusive, as a number of disputes have prevented stronger ties. In particular, Oman announced in 2006 that it would be unable to meet the requirements of the common currency, while in 2009 the UAE announced its complete withdrawal from the project, seemingly as retaliation to the GCC’s announcement that its central bank would be located in Riyadh, not Abu Dhabi. Within days of the UAE’s secession thousands of its truck drivers were left stranded at the border with Saudi Arabia. Described in a leaked US diplomatic cable as a ‘humanitarian crisis’ the problem was publicly blamed on a new, unexpected Saudi fingerprinting system,[758] but most analysts agreed that it was a tit-for-tat response to the UAE’s currency stance. Moreover, although a GCC common market was launched in 2008, some Gulf monarchies have continued to sign bilateral free trade agreements with other states. Bahrain, which has developed an extensive FTA with the US, has been viewed by Saudi Arabia and other GCC members as having bypassed the GCC’s common market.
On a military level, the GCC was intended to provide collective security for all members via its Peninsula Shield Force. Founded in 1984, the force was supposed to comprise 10,000 soldiers representing all six monarchies. However, even after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 the force only had 5,000 servicemen, and because it had played no active role in the conflict it was temporarily disbanded, with participating units being returned to their respective national armies.[759] In recent years there have been claims that the force has grown to 40,000,[760] but it is unclear how many how many soldiers are actually based at its headquarters in Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid Military City, while its command and control structure remains ambiguous. The force’s existence has also been continually undermined by security disputes and even clashes between the Gulf monarchies. Even in the twenty-first century there is much evidence that nineteenth- and twentieth-century border problems and other old grievances remain unresolved. Between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, for example, there continues to exist a bitter dispute over their frontiers. Dating back to the earliest Wahhabi attacks on Abu Dhabi’s territory, a 1950s standoff over the Buraimi Oasis, and a contested border settlement in the 1970s, the subject remains highly controversial. Several institutions in Abu Dhabi today continue to produce maps that show the emirate’s territory still including land that was ceded to Saudi Arabia years ago, and in March 2010 it was widely reported that a naval clash took place in disputed waters. According to The Daily Telegraph’s UAE-based reporter, a UAE vessel had opened fire on a Saudi vessel that had allegedly strayed into UAE territory. The Saudi vessel surrendered, but its sailors were taken to Abu Dhabi and held in custody for over a week before being deported. Although a spokesperson for the UAE’s Ministry for Defence confirmed that the incident took place he was unable to provide any details. However, a Gulf-based diplomat stated that ‘…it looks as though attempts were made to keep this quiet, which is predictable given the important relationship between the two countries… But it does remind us of the simmering rows that there are in this part of the Gulf’.[761]
The ongoing disputes between Oman and the UAE have also undermined any sense of GCC collective security. For many years territorial issues were at stake, but over the past decade the situation has become much tenser. In 2003 the UAE began constructing a giant wall stretching across the desert border between the two states. Completed in 2008, it has effectively sealed off the UAE, closing the previously open border between the Abu Dhabi-controlled city of Al-Ayn and the adjoining Omani-controlled city of Buraimi. Greatly resented by residents of both cities and local agricultural businesses, who now have to use checkpoints to cross the border, the wall is seen as damaging centuries-old trade and familial ties between the two communities.[762] More seriously, especially at an inter-governmental level, was the widely reported cracking of a UAE spy ring in Oman. In late 2010 Omani bloggers began claiming that arrests of ‘UAE agents’ had taken place, and in early 2011 the Omani authorities confirmed these suspicions. Although the UAE authorities initially denied the existence of the spies, stating that ‘The UAE expresses its full willingness to co-operate with… Oman in any investigations that it carries out in full transparency to uncover those who try to mar relations between the two countries’,[763] the problem was only resolved following Kuwait-brokered personal visits to Oman by the Abu Dhabi crown prince and the ruler of Dubai.
Connected to the Gulf monarchies’ divisions over relations with Iran, it also transpired that the UAE spy ring may have been seeking information on Oman’s possible security links with Iran. As a prominent analyst at a Dubai-based think tank described ‘…one possibility is that the UAE wants to know more about Iran-Oman relations because of Tehran and Muscat’s long ties in security and military co-operation’.[764] Indeed, shortly before the Omani authorities’ revelation, it was reported in Iran’s state-backed media that their minister for the interior[765] had recently visited Muscat. Upon meeting with Oman’s ruler the minister reportedly described Oman as ‘an old friend of Iran which has always been seeking to develop ties with Tehran’ and praised Oman for ‘sending the Zinat Al-Bihar vessel to Iran’s southern waters with a message of peace and friendship’ and releasing 101 Iranian prisoners that had been held in Omani jails. Meanwhile Oman’s ruler had reportedly ‘…called for expansion of bilateral ties, especially in economic areas, and said Iran can serve as a route for transition of goods from Oman to Central Asia’ before concluding that ‘Iran and Oman stand beside each other like two brothers and nothing can make a split between them’.[766]
759
102. Cordesman, Anthony H. and Obaid, Nawaf,