Читать онлайн "After the Sheikhs : The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies" - Davidson Christopher Michael - RuLit

Further down the Indian Ocean coastline, the port city of Muscat had been controlled interchangeably by the Portuguese, the Ottoman Empire, and Persian governors until Abu Hilal Ahmed bin Said was elected as Imam of Muscat in 1744 following the final expulsion of Persian influences. Consolidating his hold over other parts of Oman, Ahmad had effectively founded the Al-Said dynasty, which, under his second successor — Sultan Said bin Sultan Al-Said — assembled a slave-trading empire in the early nineteenth century stretching from the island of Zanzibar off the east coast of Africa to Gwadar, in present day Pakistan. However, following Britain’s outlawing of slavery in 1833 the Al-Said’s revenues began to decline, as much of Oman’s trade was with British colonies. And in 1856, following Sultan’s death and a subsequent succession struggle within the family, British mediators intervened, effectively separating the Sultanates of Muscat and Zanzibar in 1861. In 1871 the Al-Said dynasty was again re-shaped by British interests, with London becoming concerned that Sultan’s Muscat-based successor, Azzam bin Qais Al-Said, was becoming too powerful after uniting tribes from the interior. Funding his main rival, Turki bin Said Al-Said, Azzam soon lost the struggle, and Turki manoeuvred Oman into a much closer relationship with Britain, with his successors signing a treaty of friendship in 1908.[74]

Britain and the early order

The origins of all the Gulf monarchies were thus to some degree moulded by British interests, or in some cases disinterest. The ruling dynasties of the Trucial States were direct creations, while Kuwait’s Al-Sabah and Oman’s Al-Said owed much of their survival to British protection. Meanwhile the Al-Saud benefited from the power vacuum in central Arabia resulting from the weakness of the British-backed Emir of Mecca. One of the most important aspects of Britain’s control over the region was the political support provided to specific families. This was especially evident in the Trucial States, where the various peace treaties provided rulers with protection from external and internal threats — including rival families and tribes inhabiting the same territory. Moreover, the documents all included clauses requiring the rulers to sign on behalf of their ‘future heirs’,[75] thus guaranteeing further British support for their dynasties.

By the beginning of the twentieth century Britain’s position became even clearer, with the Viceroy of India[76] remarking in 1903 that ‘…if [internal disputes] occurred, the sheikhs would always find a friend in the British Resident, who would use his influence as he had frequently done in the past, to prevent these dissensions from coming to a head, and to maintain the status quo’.[77] Similarly, in the late 1920s, following a series of fratricides in the region,[78] the Political Resident called for an even stronger British position, claiming that ‘Unless and until [the British] are prepared to interfere much more than they have done in the past, and are prepared, if necessary, to bolster up a weak sheikh, however much they might regret it, the only other course will be to continue shaking hands with successful murderers.’[79]

In parallel to this protection, most of the Gulf monarchies were obliged to cede much of their control over foreign policy to Britain. Again, the Trucial States provide the best example, as although they remained ‘independent Arab sheikhs in special relations with His Majesty’s Government’[80] and had transferred no territorial sovereignty to Britain,[81] they were nonetheless required to sign collectively an ‘exclusivity treaty’ in 1892. Three clauses were included, forbidding the rulers from entering into agreements with non-British parties, from allowing non-British parties to visit their territories, and from selling or mortgaging any part of the territories unless it was to British agents.[82] In practice, the clauses helped Britain thwart other European powers from gaining a foothold in the Persian Gulf, especially France which had been trying to increase its influence in Oman, and Germany which had begun to construct the Baghdad railway.[83]

Also helping Britain to keep the Gulf monarchies, or at least the Trucial States, within a dependent and sustainable relationship were the new economic structures that began to form, especially in the early twentieth century. Having previously relied on animal husbandry, basic re-export trading and — in the coastal towns — fishing and pearl diving, the various sheikhdoms began to move away from mere subsistence activities in the 1920s, with Britain seeking to channel large sums of ‘locational rent’[84] to most of the ruling families with whom it had entered into protection agreements. In particular, rent was provided in return for landing rights for British aircraft en route from Europe to India and the maintenance of British-built airbases in their territories. After building military airbases in Salalah in southern Oman and on the Omani island of Masirah,[85] a base was also established in Sharjah,[86] and in the early 1930s agreements were signed with both Sharjah and Dubai to allow civilian aircraft to land.[87]

Similarly, oil, or rather oil exploration concessions, provided another means of channelling rent directly to the ruling families. In 1922 fresh agreements between most of the Gulf’s rulers and Britain required the former to eschew any oil concessions that were not supported by the British government.[88] And in 1935, after sizeable oil discoveries had already been made in Kuwait and Bahrain, the London-based and British Government-backed Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC)[89] formed a wholly owned subsidiary, Petroleum Concessions Ltd., which was to be the sole operator of concessions for all of Britain’s Gulf protectorates.[90] Unsurprisingly, a British ultimatum was then issued, binding the rulers to deal only with Petroleum Concessions.[91] By the late 1930s, the concessions were providing a very high stream of income for the ruling families, even in those territories where oil had not yet been discovered, a good example being the 1937 concession signed by IPC with the ruler of Dubai. Even though oil was not discovered in the sheikhdom until thirty years later,[92] the ruler nonetheless received an ‘advance’ lump sum of 60,000 rupees, and was given an annual income of 30,000 rupees. Moreover, he was promised a 200,000 rupee payment upon the discovery of oil, and a further three rupees for each barrel extracted during the prospecting process.[93]

Together, these air landing rights rents and the various oil concession payments were viewed by Britain as strategic subsidies which would help reinforce the status of the Gulf monarchies and thus prolong the selfenforcing, low-cost nature of the peace treaties. On the one hand, the new rents were understood to reduce the likelihood that Britain would have to resort to coercive measures to maintain its relationships. In 1939 the Political Resident even remarked that ‘…a key reason for the goodwill between the British and the rulers was that negotiations over air and oil gave the rulers a square deal which carried a money bag rather than a big stick’.[94] While on the other hand, according to the India Office, the new rents were understood to have provided ‘greater protection for the chiefs of tribes who were willing to co-operate… and to protect them from any danger that they might face as a result of their co-operation’.[95] Specifically, the new rents facilitated the setting up of prototype, pre-oil versions of the aforementioned rentier states. Received directly by the ruling families and their governments, the rents were in turn used to distribute some wealth to their populations rather than having to rely on taxation from merchants.