A Union of Arab Kingdoms Should the US and Israel Worry?by Mudar Zahran
A Union of Arab Kingdoms
Should the US and Israel Worry?by Mudar Zahran
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2174/union-of-arab-kingdoms
Leaders of the member nations of the Cooperation Council of the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) gathered on May 10, 2011, in Saudi Arabia, and took the Arab world by surprise by announcing the acceptance of Jordan to join the GCC, and even extending an invitation for Morocco to join.
The move was unpredictable to the point that even discussing the potential acceptance of Jordan into the GCC was not on the official agenda; nor, apparently, was the idea of inviting Morocco to join.
Further, the Palestinian Authority’s cabinet chief, Naim Abul Huomos, announced that “the PA may actually be joining the GCC after it achieves its statehood” — a statement the GCC has not dismissed.
Is the GCC’s sudden openness to fellow Arabs a pragmatic initiative by the Gulf States, or simply a recipe for a disaster? What is going on here?
The recent history of Arab states suggests that each time a union is formed, disaster arrives. It was the newly formed Arab League that started the Arab-Israeli war in 1948; it was the newly unified Egypt and Syria that established hostility toward both the US and Israel, and that rejected UN-sponsored peace offers; and it was a member of the least-known “Arab Cooperation Council” –Iraq– that invaded Kuwait in 1990, igniting the first Gulf War.
The GCC, established in 1981, is second only to the Arab League as the oldest surviving unifying body of Arab states. The GCC is composed of five oil-and-gas-rich nations — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman — in addition to Bahrain, which enjoys a healthy economy, thanks to regional tourism and huge investments by its petro-dollar-rich fellow GCC members.
Historically, the GCC has been a private club. Iraq — a major oil producer that enjoys a coast on the Persian Gulf, (or the Arabian Gulf as GCC members like to call it) — could not join, even in the “good old days,” when Saddam was a close ally of both the Gulf States and the West.
By comparison, Morocco has never sought a membership in such a body of states, far away, and with no direct regional mutual interests. Morocco had never before even exhibited an interest in joining the GCC; it therefore, politely, yet firmly, turned down the offer of its rich Arab allies.
Jordan however, has been seeking to join the GCC since the days of King Hussein.
After many unsuccessful attempts by the late King Hussein either to join the GCC or obtain a special status with it, he made up for the GCC’s rebuffs in 1989 by establishing the Arab Cooperation Council. This short-lived body included Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen; and was apparently envisioned by King Hussein as a rival to the GCC.
This ambitious move cost Hussein much: shortly after he established the Arab Cooperation Council, his allegedly loyal Bedouin tribesmen launched an armed revolt against him. Initial bewilderment over the causes of the revolt was cleared up by King Hussein himself. In an interview with the Egyptian political author, Muhammad Hasaneen Haikal, Hussein said that the tribesmen revolt against him was orchestrated by a major Gulf state as a punishment for him for including Yemen in his newly-found council. Despite its proximity to the GCC states, Yemen is considered a regional underdog, especially as it is a republic rather than a monarchy. The GCC, at least then, may have considered itself an exclusive club of Arab royal regimes; Hussein’s cooperation with Yemen was possibly viewed by the GCC as a stab in the back.
King Hussein’s Arab Cooperation Council ended in disaster, and evaporated when, shortly after establishment of the Council, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Saddam had spoken of “re-distributing the Arab oil wealth on the rest of Arabs” and had received full political support from King Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, a bond that remained between the king and Arafat until their last days.
Hussein and Arafat’s stance was seen by the GCC and their Arab allies, especially the Egyptians, as a betrayal. The fiasco Saddam created by invading Kuwait ended up dragging outsiders into it: the US and its Western allies had to involve their military might, while Israel had to see its citizens bombed almost daily for 42 days by Saddam’s scud missiles, even though Israel had never chosen to get involved in the conflict. Saddam may have thought he was pressuring the US by attacking its ally, Israel.
Such precedents suggest that political stunts envisioned by Arab regimes could evolve into bigger conflicts and could once again drag the West and Israel into them, regardless of how neutral or distant from the situation they might be. Nonetheless, the GCC’s desire to include Jordan and Morocco, and even possibly the Palestinian Authority, neither a monarchy nor a recognized state, raises questions about the reason: why now?
The most convincing guess would be that the Gulf States would like to borrow Jordan’s police force to pacify any revolutions that might erupt in their countries. This is about the only analysis that seems to hold ground as opposed to other explanations, such as forging an alliance against Iran. While fear of Iran’s hostility might be a good cause for the GCC to involve two more monarchies in their union, both Jordan and Morocco offer little military leverage compared to Iran’s might. Besides, the US already supports massive military bases in the Persian Gulf — some present even before the first Gulf War — to which Jordan and Morocco can contribute little. Jordan and Morocco do not have significant military powers even by the standards of some GCC states. The United Arab Emirates, for example, enjoys the world’s most modern fleet of F-16 fighters, based on the “F-16E”, apparently even more advanced than those US Air Force flies (now that the US has moved on to other aircraft, such as F-35s); comparing those to Jordan’s old F-16 fighters would be very humbling to Jordan’s military significance.
On the other hand, both, Jordan and Morocco have a history of pacifying local unrests with their police forces, rather than their armies; these police forces could provide the GCC states with a quick guns-for-hire to suppress unrests and revolts which have already hit some GCC countries such as Bahrain and Oman. Having Jordan joining the GCC would therefore give the cover of legitimacy to Jordan in involving its police force in any GCC country that oppresses protesters. Jordan might find an interest in sending its servicemen to oppress citizens in GCC countries as that might entitle it for more grants from its oil-rich allies who have stopped being so generous with Jordan since 1990 when the late King Hussein politically supported Saddam. Between 1990 and 2003, the year Saddam was toppled, Jordan received free oil from Iraq in exchange of good ties and serving as Iraq’s window to the world when it was under UN-imposed trade sanctions. After Saddam was toppled, the new Iraqi government refused to give free oil to Jordan, which has been paying regular market prices for the oil it purchases from the GCC states since then.
Hussein’s son, King Abdullah, has retained his father’s wish to join the GCC; his media has been reporting “significant progress” on that front for the last ten years, nonetheless, until the GCC’s announcement on May 10th, nothing had happened.
In their press statement, GCC leaders claim they have chosen Jordan and Morocco to join their private club because “the ruling regimes of Jordan and Morocco are similar and consistent with those of the Arab Gulf states” — presumably meaning that the GCC is an exclusive club of monarchies. Should Jordan and Morocco join, the GCC would include all Arab kingdoms. Had this initiative been an issue of strategic or regional agendas, Yemen — closer geographically to the GCC countries than Jordan — would have been invited to join, as well.
Broadening the GCC indicated that GCC would probably like to send a message of solidarity among Arab kingdoms now confronted by Arab revolutions, which have already done away with two of the strongest absolute rulers of Arab countries, Mubarak of Egypt, and Bin Ali of Tunisia.
Such a political display of royal solidarity exhibits the level of fear and insecurity through which Arab regimes are going. It also raises the alarm for what is worse: trouble for outsiders, such as the US and Israel. An expanded GCC could well bring more hostility and threats to Israel and the US, as members of the GCC have been the true heavyweight decision makers at the Arab League, which has a lavish history of working against Israel, obstructing the peace process, and pressuring the Palestinian leaders not to compromise on their demands from Israel. In 1999, for example when former PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, was holding talks with Israel and the Clinton administration, the Arab media, and particularly those funded by some Gulf States, launched a massive attack on Arafat, claiming he was going “to give up the right of return for Palestinians refugees.” They, thereby, contributed to his already radical stance, which resulted in the failure of the entire process.
Modern history in the Middle East shows that countries run by one-man-shows can easily turn theoretically progressive ideas into disasters; the new expansion of the GCC must be scrutinized by the US, and observed cautiously by Israel. The US should probe questions about its GCC allies’ intentions and the purpose of such a move at this time, as the US will most likely find itself involved in any instability resulting from the GCC’s intended expansion. The US also has a responsibility to examine effect of the newly expanded GCC on Israel’s security, as the new GCC will have the longest border with Israel: that of Jordan. When and if Jordan becomes a member, citizens of the GCC will be able to move freely across all GCC borders.
Both Israel and the US, should expect, and prepare for, the worst while watching the GCC unfold. The US has provided much blood and treasure to all GCC counties, and should not tolerate political decisions that American taxpayers and soldiers eventually will have to pay for.
Nor should Israeli citizens be subjected to the outcomes of unilateral decisions by their non-democratic Arab neighbors.
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