In the autumn 2014 issue of Middle East Policy, a US quarterly academic journal, I penned an academic article titled The GCC-US Relationship: A GCC Perspective, advocating the resetting of GCC-US relations and calling for efforts to get back on track in the pursuit of a win-win formula for both sides — as both the US and the GCC states have invested handsomely in their strategic relationship.

As I concluded and advised in my article, “it is in both sides’ national interest to have a stable and prosperous Gulf region. Both sides have more to lose than to gain if their shared interests are not harnessed into a shared agenda to reset and reinvigorate this strategic partnership”.

As a follow-up to my last column in Gulf News, A Message to President Obama (published on April 20) was written on the eve of Obama’s attendance at the GCC summit last month — the first American president to do so — and to clear up the air.

The GCC states fear a diminished US commitment towards them that doesn’t match the promises made by Obama at a Camp David summit in May, 2015. A lot of water has since gone under the bridge from the Camp David summit — a first between GCC heads of state and Obama — where they endorsed and supported the Iran nuclear deal. In his provocative paper, ‘Obama Not to Blame for Region’s Failure’, Thomas Lippman from the Middle East Institute quotes Philip Gordon, a former Middle East policy adviser in the White House, who says Obama has learnt three lessons from the Middle East’s unending turmoil: “From Iraq, the president learnt all-out American intervention to engineer regime change in an Arab country results in disaster. From Libya, he learnt that limited intervention results in disaster. And from Syria, he learnt that no intervention results in disaster.” So, what is a president to do

But what kind of conclusion are the region’s decision-makers expected to have after seeing the hands-off approach of the US and such dismissive attitudes by one of the White House’s Middle East advisers about the role of the US? Add to that Obama’s remarks in the March edition of the Atlantic describing the GCC states as “free riders” and his conviction that “the price of inaction is less than the price of action”.

What was provocative was Obama’s advice to Saudi Arabia and Iran that they find a way to share the region, in addition to accusing both rivals of fomenting sectarianism and proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. This is something the Saudis and other GCC states find offensive and condescending. And even if the US has a core interest in the Middle East, which according to Obama it doesn’t, then the US can’t fix everything and it won’t be dragged into the Middle East’s problems and “grinding sectarian conflicts far away from core [US] interests”.

That narrative was repeated again at the GCC summit last month when Obama repeated: “I reaffirmed the policy of the United States to use all elements of our power to secure our core interests in the Gulf region and to deter and confront external aggression against our allies.”

King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia lauded the summit as “constructive and fruitful”, and pledged the “desire and commitment of GCC countries to continue developing their ties with the United States”. Nevertheless, there is a sinking feeling about such commitments and an agreement to hold annual GCC-US summits, as well as meetings with US foreign and defence ministers to coordinate and collaborate on security issues, including a joint marine patrol and military exercise in 2017.

I suspect such commitments by Obama have not diminished the trust deficit between the two countries. GCC states feel they are under-appreciated by a US in favour of a rapprochement with their rival, Iran. This feeling was vindicated less than a month after the GCC-US summit in Riyadh when the US Senate passed legislation — the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act — that allows families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, despite objections by the Obama administration. As a result, Saudi Arabia has threatened to pull out billions of dollars from the US if the bill is enacted. The US Treasury Department revealed that Saudi Arabia holds $116.8 billion (Dh429 billion) in US debt after keeping the figures secret for over 41 years.

Leadership vacuum

From a GCC perspective, they are not to blame for the upheaval and chaos engulfing the region, or the failures in Iraq, Syria and Yemen and they are certainly not fomenting sectarianism. These blunders have been exacerbated by a lack of leadership, which has encouraged the Russians, Iranians even the Saudis to fill that strategic vacuum.

The GCC states should not be blamed if they have their doubts about the sincerity of US commitment, notwithstanding US reassurances and rhetoric. US rhetoric has not matched its behaviour as the US has dismissed issues and tolerated Iran’s meddling in GCC affairs where it has upped the ante in Syria, in addition to fomenting tensions and sectarianism. This has been worsened by the failure to fulfil Obama’s pledge at Camp David to counter Iran’s destabilising behaviour The US is to blame for prioritising the nuclear deal over all other issues, for not banning Iran’s ballistic missiles and for failing to voice alarm or criticise Iran’s meddling in the affairs of the GCC and other Arab countries.

The Obama administration is to blame for not acting forcefully to exact a heavy toll on the butchery of Bashar Al Assad’s regime and stop the open wound in Syria after over five years of bloody mayhem. It is also to blame for wavering after Al Assad crossed Obama’s red line by gassing his own people. To make matters worse, Obama even brags he was happy not to punish Al Assad for crossing his own Red Line. What kind of precedent is he setting The next US administration has to be aware of such divergent, strategic issues and move to reset the relationship with the GCC states.

I end by reiterating: “We have had enough of empty rhetoric. The ironclad commitments we have been hearing of have not come to fruition. The GCC partners judge the US commitments by deeds, not rhetoric... alliances are a two-way street, not one.”

Professor Abdullah Al Shayji is a professor of Political Science and the former chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@docshayji.