Christopher Davidson - After the Sheikhs - The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies

The increasing belligerence demonstrated towards Iran in recent years by some Gulf monarchies is symptomatic of the latter’s reliance on Western security guarantees and the presence of Western military bases on their soil; thus they have little choice but to align themselves with Western policies regarding Iran, and if that involves helping to enforce sanctions or otherwise limit Iran’s influence in the region then in practice there is little room for them to manoeuvre. Moreover, given the associated requirement of purchasing massive quantities of armaments from their principal guarantors, it can also be argued that it is in the interests of the governments and military-industrial establishments of the vendor countries to pit the Gulf monarchies against their most powerful neighbour. Ideally, in terms of arms sales, this should develop into a tense and bitter cold war situation where both sides view each other as a posing a military threat, thus encouraging the further militarisation of the region and further expensive procurements. In this light, the Gulf monarchies’ present stance against Iran can be explained in the context of a dependent, core-periphery relationship: [707] 50. For dependency theory in the context of the Arab world see for example Amin, Samir, Unequal Development: An Essay on the Social Formations of Peripheral Capitalism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1976). even if the centre of gravity of the Gulf monarchies’ economic relations may be steadily shifting eastwards, the Western powers are nevertheless still recognised as their principal security providers and can thus dragoon them into hawkish positions.

There are increasing signs that the posturing against Iran — no matter how dangerous — is also being viewed by certain Gulf monarchies as a convenient mechanism with which to contain domestic opposition. In addition to the routine creation of a nearby bogeyman state with which to frighten their national populations and thus help distract from some of the various socio-economic pathologies and pressures that are building, the branding of Iran as a dangerous and unpredictable Shia-dominated enemy intent on acquiring nuclear weapons also helps to justify the sectarian manipulation that is taking place in several Gulf monarchies. It also serves to delegitimise any revolutionary actors and tarnish protestors on the grounds that they are agents of Iran. Indeed — as will be shown in the following chapter — since the beginning of the Arab Spring the Gulf monarchies’ governments have gone to great lengths to highlight the presence of any Shia in opposition movements, and to some extent this has allowed them to brand their opponents and critics as being fifth columnists rather than as pro-reform activists. Thus far, the strategy has enjoyed some limited success, with large sections of the national Sunni populations being quick to accuse Shia activists of being traitors, and with many Western opinion-makers continuing to lend support to the Gulf monarchies on the grounds that the alternative would be Iran-style theocratic, revolutionary and anti-Western governments. Such opinions have helped fuel what some writers have described as the ‘geopolitical fantasy’ of a ‘Shia crescent’ that would extend all the way from Afghanistan to the Lebanon, including the Gulf states, which would be headquartered in Tehran. [708] 51. Filiu, Jean-Pierre, The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (London: Hurst, 2011), p. 145.

The risks of such rabid elite-level anti-Iranianism in the Gulf monarchies are undoubtedly serious, and possibly existential. Self-evidently these states are allowing themselves to be considered legitimate targets, or the ‘front line’, of any fresh conflict in the Persian Gulf. In this sense, their external survival strategies — in particular relating to the distribution of development aid in the region and the long-running efforts to position themselves as benign, active neutrals and peace-brokers — are being badly undermined by the current generation of Gulf rulers. It is unlikely that their fathers would have allowed such an escalation to have taken place, no matter how much they distrusted Iran. Most previous confrontations — including even the 1971 seizure of three UAE islands by the Shah’s Iran — were usually sidelined in favour of shared economic interests or the substantial Iranian-origin expatriate populations resident in many Gulf monarchies.

At the forefront of the antagonism are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE — or more specifically sections of the Abu Dhabi ruling family. According to a recently leaked US diplomatic cable, in 2008 the Saudi king had ‘repeatedly exhorted the US to cut off the head of the snake’ in reference to Iran, its perceived military capabilities, and the nuclear weapon-building programme that Iranian officials continue to deny exists. [709] 52. Reuters, 29 November 2010. The former Saudi intelligence chief has gone on the record stating that Saudi Arabia should ‘consider acquiring nuclear weapons to counter Iran…’, [710] 53. Reuters, 7 December 2011. and in another leaked cable from 2008 the veteran Saudi minister for foreign affairs [711] 54. Saud bin Faisal Al-Saud. suggested a US or NATO-backed offensive in southern Lebanon to end the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s grip on power. Warning US officials that a Hezbollah victory in Lebanese elections would likely lead to an ‘Iranian takeover’ of the state, he claimed that the situation in Beirut was ‘entirely military… and the solution must be military as well’. He also argued that of all the regional fronts on which Iran was advancing, Lebanon would be the ‘easiest battle to win’ for the ‘anti-Iranian allies’. [712] 55. The Guardian , 7 December 2010. Similarly, in a cable despatched in 2009 the Bahraini king had urged US military officials to ‘forcefully take action to terminate Iran’s nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary’. Moreover, he argued that ‘…the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it’. [713] 56. Reuters, 29 November 2010. Closely connected to the sectarian policies in Bahrain and in particular the discrimination against its Shia population, the kingdom took maximum advantage of the region’s anti-Iranian sentiments in early 2011 by announcing that it would deport all those Shia ‘with links to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’. In practice, this meant expelling hundreds of long-serving Lebanese expatriates, much as the UAE had been doing since 2009, suspending all flights between Manama and Beirut, and warning Bahraini nationals not to travel to Lebanon due to ‘threats and interference by terrorists’. [714] 57. Agence France Presse, 24 March 2011.

The reaction from Abu Dhabi appears originally to have been more hesitant — perhaps because the more moderate policies of its former ruler still prevailed. In a leaked cable from 2006 the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi claimed that the UAE believed ‘the threat from al-Qaeda would be minor compared to if Iran had nukes… but that it was reluctant to take any action that might provoke its neighbour’. The cable also explained that UAE officials had asked US officials to ‘…only seek their help as a very last resort’ and had stated that ‘if you can solve something without involving the UAE, please do so’. [715] 58. Reuters, 29 November 2010. Nevertheless, as Abu Dhabi’s forceful crown prince, Muhammad bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and his five full brothers gained control over most aspects of foreign policy and the security establishment, the emirate’s views quickly began to fall into line with those of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Since 2007 Western embassy officials have been repeatedly encouraged by the crown prince’s circle to get more troops on the ground in an effort to counter Iranian hegemony. And in summer 2009, as recorded in another leaked US diplomatic cable, the crown prince had warned the US of appeasing Iran and had stated that ‘Ahmedinejad is Hitler’. [716] 59. New York Times , 28 November 2010. A few months later, the Qatar-based commander of US CENTCOM appeared to express his agreement with the UAE’s new stance, stating on the record at a major security conference in Bahrain that ‘the Emirati Air Force itself could take out the entire Iranian Air Force, I believe, given that it’s got… somewhere around 70 Block 60 F-16 fighters, which are better than the US’ F-16 fighters’. [717] 60. Foreign Policy , 17 December 2009. Even more belligerently, in a summer 2010 interview with the American magazine The Atlantic , the UAE’s ambassador to the US (an Abu Dhabi national) [718] 61. Yousef Al-Otaiba. openly stated his country’s preference for war. When asked ‘Do you want the US to stop the Iranian nuclear program by force?’ he replied on the record with ‘Absolutely, absolutely. I think we are at risk of an Iranian nuclear program far more than you [the US] are at risk… I am suggesting that I think out of every country in the region, the UAE is most vulnerable to Iran. Our military, who has existed for the past forty years, wake up, dream, breathe, eat, sleep the Iranian threat. It’s the only conventional military threat our military plans for, trains for, equips for, that’s it, there’s no other threat, there’s no country in the region that is a threat to the UAE, it’s only Iran’. [719] 62. The Atlantic , 6 July 2010.