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A New Security Architecture for the Gulf

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A New Security Architecture for the Gulf Issue Brief # 218 May 2013 Innovative Research | Independent Analysis | Informed Opinion Indian Perspectives A New Security Architecture for The Gulf Amb Ranjit Gupta Distinguished Fellow, IPCS The Gulf region consists of the six countries physical and theological heartland of of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Islam for both the major sects - Shia and Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Sunni. The location of this sub region of Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as West Asia has enormous strategic well as Iran and Iraq. Together they are significance. For all these important the world's largest repository of oil and gas reasons all major countries of the world resources. have a great interest in the stability and security of the Gulf region. Between Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, they have massive financial resources at their disposal for investment abroad and I backing their policies both domestically The Gulf: Changing Scenario and abroad. Both Iran and Iraq are potentially exceedingly rich though they Consequent on the absolutely are in difficult circumstances currently. unprecedented winds of change blowing through the Arab world for the past two These countries also constitute the years, in outcomes which no one had predicted or could have even imagined, dictators exercising absolute power for The author is also a retired Indian Foreign Service officer. He was a decades were overthrown in Egypt, Libya, member of the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisory Board Tunisia and Yemen. A destructive civil war for the term 2009-2010. He had served successively in Cairo, New is raging in Syria with the overthrow of yet York (at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN), Gangtok (at another authoritarian ruler the most likely the time of Sikkim’s merger with India), Jeddah (Deputy Chief of outcome. In other Arab countries, Mission), Frankfurt (Consul-General) and Kathmandu (Deputy particularly in the monarchical states, Chief of Mission). Later he was successively India’s Ambassador to regime preservation and security has Yemen (North), Venezuela, Oman, Thailand and Spain. become the preeminent priority of the Views expressed are author’s. rulers, whatever the costs incurred in the 1 A NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FOR THE GULF 2 process. component of the country’s ruling dispensation for the first time in modern Islamist parties have been elected and history. Iran now has much more influence formed governments in Egypt and Tunisia in Iraq than fellow Arab countries. The but both countries continue to be Shias of Iraq and the GCC countries have wracked by very considerable political been consistently treated as second class instability; the situation is far worse and citizens. Shias see Iran as an inspiration. quite unstable in Libya and Yemen. There is a huge and unbridgeable asymmetry between the GCC countries’ Since Syria is an overwhelmingly Sunni national power and that of Iran in terms majority country, in the backdrop of the of demography, institutional capacity, increasing sectarian divide in West Asia, military manpower strength and any new governmental set up in Syria will indigenous capability. All these features inevitably have a distinctly Sunni Islamist provide Iran enormous potential leverage hue. Both moderate and extremist Islamist in exploiting Shiite identity to disturb, even groupings are very active in all these five reshape, the balance of power in the countries as well as in Iraq. The rise of Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region. political Islam and the resurgence of Saudi Arabia has become increasing radical Islam are potent new phenomena more acutely aware and traumatically which will have security consequences afraid of these realities. and also have a transforming impact on the external relations of these Arab The Arab Spring fever spread to Bahrain countries with the outside world. from North Africa very quickly and Saudi Arabia immediately accused Iran of The estimated Shiite population instigating the huge daily protests and percentages of GCC countries are: demonstrations and soon thereafter Bahrain around 70 %; Kuwait about 30 %; dispatched troops to Bahrain making it Saudi Arabia about 18%; Qatar and UAE abundantly clear that the regime there about 10 %; and, Oman about 8 %. About will not be allowed to fall or indeed in any 65 % of Iraqis are Shia. Including Iran – GCC state. Adopting the principle that which is 90% Shia, more than 60 % of the offence is the best form of defence, Saudi combined populations of the 8 countries Arabia and other GCC countries, of the Gulf region are Shia. Yemen has a launched a high profile campaign 35-40% Shia population. against Iran. Syria has been Iran's staunchest ally in the Arab world and the More than 50 % of the Arab Gulf region’s main conduit of its influence in the oil reserves are located in the Shiite Levant. If Assad’s regime were to fall, Iran populated parts of the region. Following would find it virtually impossible to the US engineered downfall of the Sunni continue supporting Hezbollah and regime in Iraq, Shia political forces Iranian influence in the sensitive Levantine emerged as the predominant region would be dealt a virtual death blow. Iran’s ability to play a role in Arab politics would be severely curtailed. What had begun as domestic protests Since Syria is an overwhelmingly Sunni majority against President Bashar Al Assad’s country, in the backdrop of the increasing regime has quickly transformed into a sectarian divide in West Asia, any new virtual civil war partly because of Assad’s governmental set up in Syria will inevitably have misplaced and arrogant self confidence that he could crush the ‘rebels’. And also a distinctly Sunni Islamist hue. Both moderate partly due to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and and extremist Islamist groupings are very active Turkey funding and arming the dissidents in the region. and making Assad’s removal a publicly announced objective, an objective fully 2 2 IPCS ISSUE BRIEF # 218, MAY 2013 shared by US and Western countries. Thus, Syria has become the big prize in the Saudi-Iranian confrontation. GCC-Iran relations have deteriorated sharply, The existing security architecture was created by further exacerbating the edgy salience of the US which essentially offered to safeguard the Iran’s internationally worrisome nuclear security and control of the ruling dispensations programme. over their domains and populations and in return the latter ensured that US interests in the region would be looked after. II Existing Security Architecture in the Gulf The existing security architecture was Though hardly mentioned in academic created by the US which essentially discourse on the subject, Pakistan has offered to safeguard the security and had a traditionally strong role and control of the ruling dispensations over involvement in regime security in the GCC their domains and populations and in countries and it may come into play if return the latter ensured that US interests there is large scale internal unrest in GCC in the region would be looked after. This, countries, as has been witnessed in over time, has entailed a growing US Bahrain. In other new developments, presence on the ground in the Gulf Turkey has emerged as a player of rising region to meet changing security importance and Egypt is a putative exigencies. player of great significance. The Carter Doctrine has defined US China and Russia have provided Iran with approach to the region since the 1980s; it diplomatic protection from being found expression in the “dual completely crippled as a consequence containment” policies against Iraq and of American policy and their roles are a Iran in the 1990s and provided the part of the regional security scenario. fundamental rationale for military China has had a major arms supply operations in and around the Gulf region relationship with Iran and has been starting with the first Gulf War in 1990-91, involved significantly in the nuclear field the war in Afghanistan since 2001 and the too as has Russia. China and Russia are second Gulf War in 2003. providing Iran’s closest ally, Syria very significant diplomatic support by All this has resulted in a permanent and preventing any UN approved punitive growing US military presence in the region measures against it. These relationships through the 1990s to the present. All US have obstructed the furtherance of the troops, which had reached a high of over US brokered attempt to cripple Iran 500000 in 1991, were pulled out of Saudi strategically. Arabia by the summer of 2003 and bases closed. However, recently it has come to One significant new feature has light that US has been operating drones emerged, and that is to be welcomed, against Yemen from a secret base in since regional countries should have the Saudi Arabia. US troops were finally primary responsibility for the security of withdrawn from Iraq in late 2011 and early the region. The GCC countries had been 2012 and are slated to be withdrawn from passive spectators of security threatening Afghanistan by 2014. However, bases with developments in the region in the past varying numbers of troops exist in the but have become proactive participants other five GCC countries with Bahrain in shaping outcomes in Libya, Syria and hosting the Fifth Fleet since 1995 and Yemen in the past two years. Overcoming Qatar the Central Command since 2002. the inertia of the past, GCC countries, 3 3 A NEW SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FOR THE GULF 4 individually and collectively, have been continuing basis is readily available in the playing uncharacteristically proactive public domain that suggests that and substantive roles in supporting and possibilities of non confrontational co- helping each other and taking existence should not be dismissed. The adversaries head-on. Both Qatar and challenge is to convert these possibilities Saudi Arabia have provided huge into probabilities.
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