For a long time, the GCC was effective in resolving regional disputes and ensuring balance of power.

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Four Arab countries - Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt - triggered the Qatar-Gulf crisis by cutting their ties with Qatar on Monday June 5, 2017 [Reuters]
Four Arab countries – Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt – triggered the Qatar-Gulf crisis by cutting their ties with Qatar on Monday June 5, 2017 [Reuters]

As the first anniversary of the blockade on Qatar approaches, theĀ main protagonists have settled into a modus vivendi of sorts.

After overcoming the initial psychological and financial shock, Qatar has doubled-down onĀ security relationsĀ with the US andĀ TurkeyĀ and expandedĀ diplomaticĀ andĀ trade tiesĀ with partners old and new across the world.

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The blockading nations led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) continue to blame Doha for thisĀ breakdown in intra-Gulf relations, though increasingly they also look to downplay its importance. Speaking in Cairo in March,Ā Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described the ongoing standoff as a “very trivial”Ā matter that merits almost no attention back home.

The clash withĀ QatarĀ may not be the top priority in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi or Cairo, but it is not trivial. Its fault lines run deep, it is unprecedented in its scope, and its implications are far-reaching.

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It underscores the rising influence of ambitious crown princes in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi who do not feel bound by the more cautious and conservative foreign policy approaches of their predecessors.

Instead, having consolidated Abu Dhabi’s position as the dominant force in the UAE, Crown PrinceĀ Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is pushing ahead with plans to transform the federation into aĀ strategic, as well as economic, actorĀ of the first rank.

Since becoming theĀ key playerĀ inĀ Saudi ArabiaĀ following his father’s accession to power in January 2015,Ā Mohammed bin SalmanĀ has demonstrated a similarĀ willingness to take big risks to project power and extendĀ influence well beyond the Gulf.

The upshot has been a novel alignment between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh that has attempted to overturn the traditional security architecture in the region. Central to this has been an attempt to replace a defensive security model based around theĀ GCCĀ with a more offensive approach based on the pro-active ratcheting up of tensions with opponents and the break-up of existing regional structures.

In these terms, the launch of the blockade last June by the UAE-Saudi axis was intended to diminish Qatar’sĀ political autonomy and economic independence, as it was perceived as an obstacle to these wider strategic ambitions.Ā That such a move was deemed necessary, as much as the blockade itself, has exposed the deep cleavages that have undermined and overshadowed intra-Gulf cooperation for decades.

Saudi domination

Saudi Arabia is not only home to Islam’s holiest sites. It is also home to the Gulf’s largest territory, population, economy and army, as well as much of its oil. This explains why its Gulf neighbours, who after 1981 became its partners in the GCC, have been consistently preoccupied with the Saudi threat.

They have been particularly wary of Saudi attempts toĀ achieveĀ regional dominance in the security sphere. AĀ majority of GCC members – the UAE, Oman and Kuwait, as well as Qatar – have repeatedlyĀ vetoed Saudi-sponsored proposals for a Gulf-wide security framework since the 1980s. This culminated in December 2011, whenĀ the Riyadh Declaration,Ā the Saudi attempt to transform the GCC into aĀ fully fledged union with a joint GCC military command, was backed only by Bahrain.

In 1992, the same year that Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al ThaniĀ became de facto ruler, border clashes between Qatari and Saudi troops over a long-running territorial dispute resulted in two deaths. In the summer of 1995, relations deteriorated further as Saudi Arabia took a stance against Sheikh Hamad when he took over from his father. This failed intervention shaped Qatar’s evolving foreign policy approach.

Over the next two decades, until he handed over power to his sonĀ Sheikh TamimĀ in 2013, Sheik Hamad oversaw his country’s development into a key player in global energy, financial, investment and property markets. Qatar also became a significant foreign policy actor in these years, in the process challenging theĀ Saudi position as the Gulf’s dominant diplomatic and political player.

These efforts were facilitated by close security ties with Washington, rising gas income and the unprecedented influence of Al Jazeera, the cable news network founded a year after Sheik Hamad became emir.

In 2002, an indignant Saudi leadership, furious at Al Jazeera for providing a platform for the kingdom’s dissidents, withdrew its ambassador from Doha in a diplomatic spat that lasted five years.

Though the UAE and Qatar also clashed over Al Jazeera and were involved in their own territorial dispute, they often cooperated insideĀ the GCCĀ to close the power gap with Saudi Arabia. In a highly symbolic move staunchly opposed by Riyadh, in the early 2000s, they even announced their plan toĀ build a causewayĀ over the Khor al-Odeid waters that, if completed, would have enabled them to bypass Saudi territory, demonstrating their independence from their larger neighbour.

Yet, as their foreign policy paths increasingly diverged, the UAE moved closer to Saudi Arabia in its confrontation with Qatar. This crystallised during theĀ Arab Spring, when they found themselves on opposing sides in several major issues, including the revolution in Egypt, the rise of theĀ Muslim BrotherhoodĀ and the future of post-QaddafiĀ Libya.

These tensions illuminated contrasting Qatari and Saudi-Emirati visions for the future of theĀ Middle EastĀ that were greatly exacerbated by the parties varying perceptions of “smallness”.

Qatar never saw its tiny population and territory or its lack of military might as a barrier to an independent foreign policy or regional influence. Saudi Arabia and theĀ UAEdisagreed and, after the turmoil of the Arab Spring, they pushed for Qatar to accept its subordinate status.

This explains the brief withdrawal of ambassadors from Doha by the UAE and Saudi Arabia (andĀ Bahrain) in 2014, a move intended to send a clear message to Doha that its disparate policies would no longer be tolerated by its bigger Gulf partners.

Traditional hierarchies, as much as tribal identities, are stillĀ a source of power in the Gulf.Ā ThisĀ also explains why theĀ rhetoric and demands coming out of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh in the present crisis have not only targeted Qatar’s foreign policy but also its history, legitimacy and sovereign rights.

The demise of the GCC

The biggest casualty of all this is the GCC. It hasĀ proven itself incapable of serving as amechanism to resolve the crisis. Nor has it been able to provide any reassurance to either Oman or Kuwait as they deal with the fallout from this clash between their regional partners.

Kuwait’s emir, Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, was his country’s foreign minister when the GCC was launched in 1981. His attempt to find “rapprochement among the brothers”Ā has earned him the praise of the international community but has achieved little so far.

This impotence was amply demonstrated last December when Qatar’s Sheik Tamim was the only GCC leader to accept an invitation to attend the first GCC summit since the crisis began. That the rulers of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman stayed away from Kuwait City was bad enough. Worse, just hours before the ill-fated meeting began, the Saudi and UAE governments announced the launch of a newĀ joint economic and military cooperation committee.

The message was clear – going forward these two Gulf powerhouses would no longer use existing GCC structuresĀ toĀ discuss important regional matters.

This very public move to undermine theĀ GCC is deeply problematic.

The GCC has a far-from-perfect record, failing in particular toĀ institutionalise military and security cooperation. But for almost four decades prior to the blockade, it did provide an effective mechanism for members to chisel out a united response to regional crises. This was evident during the brutal and destructive 8-year war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s and following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the start of anti-government protests in Bahrain in 2011.

The GCC was also a forum through which its members couldĀ contain and resolve major disagreements between each other before they escalated, including the 2014 withdrawal of ambassadors from Doha. This was a key reason why membersĀ never militarised their differences beyond localised and irregular clashes over the last 40 years.

For all its faults, this made the GCCĀ one of the most reliable and resilient regional organisations in the world. It even deserves some credit for the widely held perception of the Gulf as an oasis of stability in an otherwise dangerous neighbourhood.

The blockadeĀ has made it harder to developĀ inter-regional trade, attract more foreign investmentĀ and build on recent successes in turning the region into aĀ global hubĀ in travel, communications, finance and logistics.

It also makes itĀ difficultĀ to envision formal moves to improve security cooperation in traditionally sensitive areas like counterterrorism and intelligence sharing as this relied primarily on the trust generated byĀ shared external threats, bonds of language and religion and deeply rooted business and familial ties.

Once hugely influential, in the post-blockade era, these factors seem to count for little. Yet theĀ UAE-Saudi coalition has not yet offered a plausible alternative to the GCC framework that it jettisoned last June. This has destabilised the most stable part of the Arab world as local actors now search for newĀ ways to deal with the vacuum they face.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.Ā 

Qatar: Beyond the Blockade

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Qatar: Beyond the Blockade


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