The last thing the quagmire and the malaise of Arab politics needed was a rupture in the organs of this frail body. For long, the GCC was considered — as a result of its leaders, its academics and citizens — the healthiest and most intact organisation in the Arab world.

Saudi Arabia along with the UAE and Bahrain, in a surprising and unprecedented move since the foundation of the GCC in May 1981, recalled their ambassadors from Qatar over its maverick, gutsy and interventionist foreign policy.

The rift with Qatar over its policies, from the Saudi, UAE and Bahraini perspective, undermines the GCC’s security and well-being. This includes Qatar’s policy on Egypt, its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Jazeera’s coverage of Egypt. These states view Qatar as having backtracked on a written commitment to adhere to a change of policy over these issues. There was a tripartite meeting between the Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz and the new Qatari Emir Shaikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani in Riyadh in November 2013, which was mediated by Kuwaiti Emir Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah.

This GCC rift has exacerbated the bloc’s security dilemma, and is having a negative impact on the group’s relations with its chief patron and ally, the United States, over many regional issues. This, at a time when it had started to deal with the GCC states as a unified bloc.

Meanwhile, Qatar rejects the narrative of its three GCC partners and views this as interference with its sovereign rights. While Kuwait and Oman opted to remain out of the dispute, all eyes are now on Kuwait to resume its preventive diplomacy to bridge the gap and reconcile the differences within the GCC. The trajectory of the GCC disputes continues to bedevil the relationship within the bloc. While the GCC states have strived for a balancing act for decades to fend off a host of regional and outside threats and crises — from Iraq to Iran to Al Qaida — this is the first self-inflicted wound for the bloc. Moreover, the Gulf states insisted that all outside mediation is off. The dispute would be resolved only from within the GCC. This keeps the door open for a Kuwaiti mediation effort, led by the veteran Kuwaiti emir, who hosted the 25th Arab League Summit on March 25, which was overshadowed by GCC disputes, in the midst of Arab turmoil and divisions.

It is unfortunate that the rift scuttled a US-GCC summit. The Wall Street Journal noted: “The cancellation symbolises the tumultuous political climate in the Middle East ...” It was ironic, as the Wall Street Journal put it, that the GCC states do not see eye to eye not only with their American patron but also with each other. “Yet the countries [of the GCC] are divided over US efforts to work with Iran to scale back its nuclear programme. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain say that Washington isn’t doing enough to force Tehran’s hand, while Oman, for instance, has played a role in mediating the nuclear talks…” It is unfortunate that all this comes at a time when the US started to consider the GCC as a unified bloc, and when it pushed to form the multilateral US-GCC security forum at the end of March 2012. Then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton had stressed Washington’s “rock solid and unwavering” commitment to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE and Oman. Later on this strategic forum was upgraded by US Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel.

Strategic approach

To affirm continued American commitment to Gulf security, Hagel emphasised in his policy speech at the Manama Dialogue the important strategic approach by the US to the GCC states as a group and the “sales of US defence articles through the GCC as an organisation. This is a natural next step in improving US-GCC collaboration, and it will enable the GCC to acquire critical military capabilities, including items for ballistic missile defence, maritime security and counter-terrorism.”

Anthony Cordesman points out: “The US has transferred $50.4 billion [Dh185 billion] worth of new arms deliveries between 2004-2011 out of total Arab Gulf orders of $78.4 billion ... and now has over $70 billion worth of new orders for delivery in the pipe-line. Many of which will give Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other Arab Gulf states some of the most advanced air combat, land-based air defence and naval capabilities in the world.”

The GCC states should not allow the divergent views to harm their strategic partnership with Washington. Their options are limited and they can’t squander that opportunity when the US has started to deal with these states as a unified bloc. GCC fragmentation is not a sound strategy. It is high time for the Gulf states to get their act together and to close ranks by overcoming their rifts and renewing their strategic partnership with the US. They should also consider how the shifting dynamics and American retrenchment from the region could impact their relations with Washington.

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