Last week, at an international conference on Persian Gulf security, United
States Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that the Barack Obama
administration's policy toward the region lacked any new vision and would
continue the main contours of the George W Bush administration's policy, above
all, containing Iran.
This is hardly surprising, given Gates' role and the absence of any significant
sign of a new vision for Persian Gulf security on the part of Obama. So far,
rhetoric aside, meaningful novelty with respect to burning Middle East issues
is in short supply on the part of Obama's foreign policy team and, as a result,
any high or
even above moderate expectations of a US change in the Middle East are likely
to be frustrated.
Old habits die hard, and Gates, who in his 2007 speech at the same forum in
Bahrain warned that Iran could "restart" its nuclear weapons program "at any
time", has now gone further and irrespective of the contrary conclusion of the
US Intelligence Estimate, stated, "Iran has continued its pursuit of a nuclear
program that is almost assuredly geared towards developing nuclear weapons."
Anticipating Gates' Iran-bashing, Iran declined to send its high-level
officials to the conference.
To Iran's dismay, none of the speakers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
states rebuffed Gates' Iran-phobic statements, which collide with the recent
visit to Iran by the GCC's secretary general, Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah, who
voiced support for Iran's peaceful nuclear program (see
A strike against Iran-phobia Asia Times Online, November 4, 2008.). The
GCC countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates (UAE).
As a clue to the public relations ploys employed against Iran nowadays, less
than three months later, the same GCC officials have all but recanted their
earlier statement and are now increasingly in league with the US and its allies
on the Iran nuclear issue.
For example, last week GCC representatives met at the United Nations with
representatives of the "Iran Six" - the US, France, Britain, China and Russia
plus Germany, the countries involved in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear
program.
Gates' assurance that the US under Obama will not go soft against Iran, and his
other message about "continuity" in the US's Persian Gulf policy, are connected
with the to-date futile US politics of alliance that sought to create a broad
anti-Iran front in the greater Middle East. There is still the idea that even
today's Iraq has a role to play in this alliance, thus the headline of a UAE
newspaper's lead article, "Embrace Iraq to limit Iran, Gates tells region."
But, this is not likely to happen for the foreseeable future and Attiyah
swiftly rebuffed Gates' suggestion, previously aired by US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and her insistence that Iraq should be "integrated into the
Arab neighborhood". The hegemonic US policy of divide and conquer has now taken
on the surrealistic tone of "unify and conquer", although even here the tinges
of a paradox of preferences can be seen aplenty.
After all, today's Iraq is closely aligned with Iran and no matter how Gates
and other US officials push the line with the GCC, the latter is unwilling to
bring into its fold a Shi'ite-dominated government that would likely echo
Iran's sentiments for regional security, instead of acting as a bulwark against
"meddling" Iranian influence. In other words, Iraq's inclusion in the GCC would
have the net effect of tipping the balance of power further in Iran's
direction, not the other way around.
At the same time, Iraqi officials are resolute in convincing the GCC states
that they must reckon with "Iraq's new political reality". Building a new
relationship between Iraq and the GCC states has been tediously slow and we
have yet to witness a major adjustment or reorientation toward Iraq on the part
of the GCC's nucleus state, Saudi Arabia.
Despite noticeable movement on the part of other GCC states with respect to
forgiving Iraq's debt and restoring full diplomatic relations, Riyadh continues
with its cold approach toward Baghdad, as if still harboring the illusion of a
political turnaround that would remap Iraq's landscape away from the present
pattern of Shi'ite-led state building. The sooner Saudi Arabia and other GCC
states bracket this illusion and come to terms with Iraq's new status quo
reflecting the sentiments of its Shi'ite majority, the better.
Walking a tightrope between outright disdain and benign neglect, Riyadh's Iraq
policy since 2003 is no longer tenable and should be adjusted in favor of a
more proactive approach that would make Saudi Arabia a key partner in Iraq's
economic reconstruction.
Gates has failed to see that before the GCC can embrace en bloc, individual GCC
states must first normalize their relations with Baghdad, in this case
bilateral comes ahead of multilateral and forms a precondition for the latter.
The Saudi-led policy of keeping the new Iraq in isolation guarantees the
growing "complex interdependence" of Iraq and Iran and, at the same time, a new
Saudi approach that would embrace Iraq must come in tandem with a new approach
toward Iran.
Concerning the latter, given President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's participation at
the December 2007 GCC summit in Doha, Qatar, where he proposed a "new chapter"
in Iran-GCC relations, the GCC has yet to set aside its misgivings and fully
engage Tehran in various economic, trade and security dimensions. Iran has
tendered ideas for trade cooperation, following the lofty objective of a
Persian Gulf free-trade area, and the GCC states would be remiss to ignore such
constructive moves on Iran's part that aim to build confidence between the two
sides, which share a great deal in terms of geography, religion and history.
At the moment, however, the GCC is more concerned about economic integration
among its member states and the GCC summit at the end of December in Muscat,
Oman, promises to be economically inclined, by focusing foremost on monetary
union.
Such improvements in closer inter-GCC economic relations, causing a greater
homogenization of the six oil monarchies, may in turn introduce further hurdles
on the path of potential new members, such as Iraq and Yemen, whose uneven
economies and disparities compared to the affluent GCC states complicates the
GCC's current efforts in the realm of coordination of economic policies.
But, while such concerns may postpone the formal inclusion of Iraq for a long
time, this does not preclude the idea of creative new methods on the part of
the GCC states to forge better relations with the new Iraq, beginning with
observer status at the GCC and extending it to designating special areas of
cooperation both bilaterally as well as multilaterally.
One advantage of closer Iraq-GCC relations is that through the Iran-friendly
Baghdad, acting as both a traditional buffer as well as mediator between Iran
and the southern Gulf states who are members of the GCC, the latter's security
anxieties over Iran can be reduced. Contrary to what Gates has said, quoted
above, the GCC should embrace Iraq to maintain healthy and normal relations
with Iran.
In turn, this calls for the adoption of post-Cold War lenses, whereby the
simple calculations of balance of power are replaced with more sophisticated
lenses that are not reductionistic and do not operate based on a Manichean
image of us and them, Arab versus Persian, Sunni versus Shi'ite, etc.
Also, it requires a new understanding of the GCC's initial elan, not simply as
a "third pillar" operating on "balance-of-threats" perceptions, but rather as a
coalition of opportunity that has fostered sub-regional cooperation since 1981
in a difficult regional environment.
Today, more than ever, opportunities exist for expanding the GCC's logic of
regional cooperation, inferred from its discourse on "Gulfanization" and the
like, and these raise the prospect of a qualitative deepening of the GCC's
economic ties with both Iraq and Iran. These opportunities have been only
sub-optimally utilized, and, in light of the US's present efforts to form an
anti-Iran front via such proposals as a "Middle East NATO", the chances are
these opportunities will go to waste.
With minimum foresight by GCC leaders, hopefully this will not happen and they
will not allow themselves to be duped by the latest example of US hegemonist
predilections that utilize the Iran scare tactics mentioned above.
Vested interests born and cemented by economic interdependence have
historically proved good antidotes to security competition and that means the
GCC must rethink its approach toward Iraq and Iran in tandem.
Again, history is instructive here. It is not unusual for former enemies to
begin earnest cooperation under new conditions. A good example is the Quadruple
Alliance's embrace of Napoleonic France after defeating it in 1815. Changing
historical contexts demand changing policies and, yet, this is one area in
which the GCC considerably lags.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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