Gulf rift on pause — for the time being

The outcome of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers’ meeting in the Saudi port city of Jeddah on August 30, that discussed the six-month old Gulf dispute, was a huge relief. Basically, the foreign ministers of the six GCC states decided to pull back from the uncharacteristic brinkmanship politics and press the pause button for the time being. The dispute is not resolved, but it was just prevented from going into a free fall.

More than a week later, the three recalled ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE are not yet back in Doha. Most likely, Riyadh, Manama and Abu Dhabi will not send their ambassadors back to Qatar any time soon. The no-return of the ambassadors is the clearest sign that the Gulf rift is not entirely over. It is on hold, pending further notice.

Nevertheless, the Jeddah meeting was seen by many as positive. Basically, the foreign ministers reviewed the final report prepared by the GCC technical committee formed early on to look into how far Qatar fulfilled the articles of the Riyadh accord. The conclusion of the final report was not what many hoped for. It succinctly stated “Qatar didn’t live up to [all of its] promises”.

Despite all the frantic mediation by Kuwait and Oman, and the pressure exerted by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain, on Qatar, Doha was either incapable or simply unwilling to honour its commitments. The report said Qatar ignored six items of the Riyadh accord and only partially delivered on three. That was as far as Qatar was willing to accommodate its GCC partners, which was not good enough for Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. However, it seems the GCC ministers preferred to place the collective interests of the group above all other disputes.

One of the main sticking points had to do with policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar has always considered Muslim Brotherhood as an ally and a strategic asset, whereas the others view it as an enemy and strategic threat to the status quo. Saudi Arabia has declared Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, the UAE considers it as an outfit that intends to destabilise Egypt and the region. However, to the maverick Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood is the legitimate choice of the people of the region and deserves its sympathy and support. In the spirit of cooperation, Qatar finally conceded to the demand from other GCC members and has asked many of the Muslim Brotherhood leaders to leave Doha. It has arranged for the Muslim Brotherhood leaders to regroup in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, where they will be closer to their home base of Egypt. Most likely, Qatar will continue to provide them with financial support. That was the most Qatar was willing to give in. The differences were sharp and it looked bad for the image of GCC as security community when it failed to agree on who was on its list of friends and enemies.

A few days before the Jeddah meeting, one highly-placed Gulf official pondered: “Qatar has failed the test miserably”, leaving the door open for all kinds of punitive actions. Among the many options considered were gradual steps to isolate Qatar from GCC meetings and functions. Thanks largely to the last-minute move by the Saudi leadership, which literally asked everybody to take a deep breath and cool down. The sudden burst of high-profile Saudi shuttle diplomacy between Doha, Abu Dhabi and Manama, led by Prince Saud Al Faisal, helped deescalate the growing tension in Gulf politics. Riyadh applied the brakes at the right time and succeeded in stopping the Gulf dispute from spilling over to a point of no return. It pressed the pause button momentarily and pause it is for now.

However, there was also the issue of the sudden rise of the genocidal Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) — the new monster in town. No matter how fundamental the dispute is between GCC capitals, they are realistic enough to recognise that they cannot afford to be distracted by internal squabbles and brotherly grudges during times of imminent danger. The threat presented by the extremist Isil is looming large on the horizon and is spreading in all directions. Already hundreds of Saudi nationals have joined the deadly Isil. Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz has warned that “extremism and terrorism will spread in the region and beyond unless we unite to take a decisive collective action”. Security is invariably the top concern for the vulnerable GCC states and regional threats tend to bunch them together. They had to think and act as a group once again as they have been doing since the inception of the GCC in May 1981. They were also expected to join the newly formed anti-Isil front led by Nato and Washington.

Indeed, the menacing Isil is proving to be a unifying factor, producing many unintended alliances. It is serving as a political super glue that has momentarily fixed the many shattered glasses, including putting on pause the Gulf rift. However, more precisely, it was the decisive Saudi intervention that prevented the differences from going from bad to worse with no declared winner or loser.

Dr Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is professor of Political Science. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Abdulkhaleq_UAE