Gulf Rivalry. Qatar the Wild Card and her Arabian Hillary Clinton. Oman’s Wider Horizons. UAE Reassertion in Crisis. Bahrain’s Small-Minded Elite and Their Hessian Mercenaries
First, there is the open and public competition between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Qatar has for long represented a strong ‘rejectionist’ front against perceived Saudi hegemony within the GCC. This was made clear since the mid-1990s when Qatar founded the first openly political and free-speaking television network in the Middle East, al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera became the most popular Arab network by covering controversial political (and religious) issues that are normally swept under the rug in Arab countries. For the same reason al-Jazeera became the most feared and most hated media outlet among Arab regimes. They have all been trying to create their own al-Jazeera. Qatar has also insisted on remaining on good terms with theocratic Iran, as has the UAE, even though both countries host American and Western military bases. In the case of Qatar, it looks now as if the opening to Iran is more an act of self defense: Iran is Persian and safely across the Gulf, while the big Saudi brother is Arab and right across the border.
Saudi diplomacy and especially the vast media have regularly savaged Qatar, going so far as to directly attack the wife of the Emir of Qatar, Princess Moza, something never done in inter-Arab rivalries. Shades of Hillary Clinton of Arabia and Republican politicians.
Then a more recent rivalry has emerged between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but with deep historic roors that have something to do with borders. Perhaps this was bound to happen, given the large size of the UAE economy, its cosmopolitan openness, and its land mass. This rivalry was brought to light in recent months after the UAE decided to withdraw from the GCC plan for a shaky Gulf currency union. That happened after the Saudis forced through the selection of their capital Riyadh as the site for the planned common central bank- a choice most should agree with me is the worst possible.
A media tit for tat has been escalating between Saudi and UAE outlets, with each publicizing the scandals and problems of the other.
So, we have a triangle (it would have three sides, in case you didn’t know that). Saudi Arabia is at the apex, and Qatar, and the UAE at the other two points.
What about the other Gulf states: Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait?
Oman has always been in a world all its own. You feel it as soon as you land there. It is a Gulf state, but it is also an Indian Ocean nation. It used to be an Indian Ocean power. Until the nineteenth century it had territories in Zanzibar and the East African coast. It used to have influence as far as India. Ethnically it is more of a mix of Arab, Subcontinental, and African. It also has a huge land mass that is diverse in climate and geography. It has had to go through a grueling civil war.
Oman always seemed to be a reluctant Gulf partner. It always has at least one eye peeled away toward the south and the east, or the northeast, rather than west or northwest where the Arab heartland is. It has also recently publicly emphasized its distance by exchanging visits with Iranian officials. It also hosts Western military facilities.
Kuwait used to be the example for the Gulf: earlier developed, more sophisticated (after Bahrain), more open, more free. But that was then- not anymore. The UAE and Qatar have overtaken Kuwait in finance, commerce and industry. They have also overtaken Kuwait in the quality of education. Kuwait University is still spread among various abandoned secondary school (high school) campuses, some with portable shacks for offices: that is forty years after the university was first established. The main campus is a disgrace, not fit for a fourth world state in West Africa. It looks like a squatter's university.
The rest of the Gulf states have moved forward while Kuwait has remained mired in a huge bureaucracy and infighting fit for ancient Egypt (actually a carbon copy of the modern Egyptian bureaucracy is running things there, thank you). But Kuwait has one thing going for it (some Arabs, especially the Saudis, would say against it): its restored electoral system.
But will that make up for the long descent into Egyptian-style bureaucratic bliss (or is it stupor)?
As for Bahrain, that is another sad story of the Gulf. It used to be the Jewel of the Gulf: most open, most educated, most free, etc, etc. Not anymore. The change started when the governing elite broke its covenant with the people after independence and banned elections for many years. When its hand was forced, it changed the constitution so that half the parliament is now appointed by the king (he promoted himself from Emir unilaterally). Since then, the ruling oligarchy and their influential retainers, almost all Sunnis, have become even meaner and more smaller-minded. A sure sign of insecurity. Salafi (Sunni Wahhabi extremist) movements were somehow encouraged, for they have sprouted in Bahrain in recent years, forcing restrictions unknown on the island. In the process they have fanned the flames of sectarianism.
Then the elite started to deliberately change the population mix, in order to dilute the 70% or so of the Bahraini citizens who are reported to be Shi’as. The process of recruiting and naturalizing Sunnis from places like Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Pakistan to man the security services and reduce the Shi’a composition of the population may have backfired. Even original Bahraini Sunnis are now beginning to show anger at the influx of foreign mercenaries into their security and military services. The Hessian Mercenaries did not succeed two centuries ago, their Middle East reincarnation most likely will not succeed now.
It will be interesting to watch all these interactions, fears, and rivalries, among the various jealous oligarchies of the Gulf. All played out in the shadows of larger regional rivalries between the bigger powers that now determine the fate of the Middle East: America, Iran, Israel, and increasingly Turkey.
Cheers
mhg
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