White House incumbent and GCC fortunes

It seems all around the world, many leaders and people are following, with much anticipation and apprehension, the US Presidential election on November 6. The outcome will weigh on many issues and may affect their well-being and fortunes in the next four years.

However, the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf in particular have borne the brunt of much of US blunders and missteps — which left Iraq shattered, emboldened Iran and upset the fragile balance of power in the Arabian Gulf. Now the US has coined a new phrase for its allies and foes … “Leading from behind”. Is it war fatigue? Or a growing public disenchantment over wars and foreign interventions.

The US was caught by surprise during the early phases of the Arab Uprising, which is still a work-in-progress and where people were mesmerised following elections that went right down to the wires in Egypt, polls in Tunisia and Libya, the mayhem in Syria and the baby-step reforms in the GCC states. In these areas, not many people have been following the run-up to the US presidential election.

There has been a huge let-down in many quarters of the Arab world over the lacklustre performance of US President Barack Obama, who was expected to deliver more and mend the much-traumatised relationship between the Arab and Muslim world and the US, which sunk to its lowest ebb under former US president George W. Bush. With his three wars in Arab and Muslim lands and succumbing to the Neoconservative agenda that made the Mena region more unstable by its costly and bloody occupation, the US allies are now more vulnerable to a hegemonic Iran, fragmented Iraq and a stalled Middle East peace process.

During election year in the US, all foreign issues seem to take a back seat and the incumbent president — too busy with his campaign, travel, debates, swing state visits and so on — appears to be, for outsiders and foreigners, a governor and not the President of the US, since all politics is local and all major foreign policy issues and agenda during the election year, especially this one, seem to centre on local issues.

From the Middle East peace process to the nuclear showdown with Iran, the consequences of the Arab Spring or Arab uprisings and to how to deal with the rising power of the Islamists will be fully understandable only after the US election is over. Today, according to opinion polls in many Arab and Muslim countries, the US favourability rating has sunk again to levels similar to where it was under Bush.

According to a recent opinion poll conducted by BBC News, published a few days ago, there is little doubt who the world is rooting for. According to the survey of 21,797 people in 21 countries, Obama is preferred in 20 countries (Pakistan favours Romney) surveyed, with 50 per cent favouring Obama and only 9 per cent in favour of Romney. The rest had no preference.

I believe in the Arab World and in the Arabian Gulf states, the survey could have mixed results. Not much will change in America’s overarching strategic approach to regional countries and issues. ‘The Change’ will be more in style and less in substance and may be a bit in policy. However, Romney, with his neoconservative agenda, provocative and sabre-rattling statements has come out in favour of war against Iran. He has made an offensive and insulting observation on Palestinians, saying that they are lagging behind the Israelis “because culture does matter”. He was mum on the issue of Israeli occupation, confiscation of land and depriving Palestinians from their rights. He was quite racist and offensive not only to Palestinians, but to all Arabs. For sure, it did not win him friends in the region.

Governor Romney accuses President Obama, saying that his policy over the last four years have made the Middle East more unstable and has led to the loss of US leadership — citing throwing Israel “under the bus” and not standing up to defend it; the continuing war in Afghanistan, the Arab Spring and the return of Al Qaida, which led to the killing of the US ambassador in Libya. Not to mention, China and Russia.

However, what Romney fails to point out, and this worries US allies in the region, is that the US is on the decline — having pulled out from Iraq, scaling down its forces in Afghanistan, withdrawing and down-sizing its military power and trimming its military spending. The new US defence strategy announced this year pivots on its new stand on Asia — China and the Pacific — from its traditional Europe and Middle East regions.

It was a welcome move by the US to engage the GCC states this year to elevate its strategic ties from bilateral, country-to-country contact in the GCC to dealing with the GCC collectively as a single entity. I had said in an earlier piece in Gulf News, that this move represents a major shift in US strategic thinking and a shift in US ties with its GCC allies. It is a move from alliance to partnership and should serve both sides well. The GCC has become, with its soft power and a bit of its hard power, the de facto leader of the Arab world due to its role in navigating, leading, initiating and steering the Arab world in times of crises. GCC constitute less than 7 per cent of the Arab world’s population, but accounts for more than 70 per cent of its GDP. It is an economic powerhouse with $1.4 trillion (Dh5.14 trillion) of resources, making it the largest economy from Spain to India. US can count on the GCC for burden-sharing and play a role in stabilising the region.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in a meeting with the GCC foreign ministers last March, had reiterated the US commitment. “I underscore the rock-solid commitment of the US to the people and nations of the Gulf,” she had said. The US has promised to provide its GCC allies with a missile defence system to protect the GCC’s oil wells and ports from possible Iranian attack.

The US shares with the GCC states the need to combat a host of regional challenges that require collective effort, rather than approaching them in an ad hoc, bilateral fashion. Clinton had pointed out at the Strategic Forum in March that the challenges for the US and GCC include ”terrorism, nuclear proliferation, piracy, as well as broader economic and strategic ties. Among other things, it should help the American and GCC militaries pursue in concert a set of practical steps, such as improving inter-operability, cooperating in maritime security, furthering ballistic missile defence for the region and coordinating responses to crises”.

As I concluded my piece in Gulf News earlier, the GCC states, their leaderships and people yearn for security and peace for we are living in tough neighbourhood and are fed up with endless crises and wars. There is no declared preference as to whom we would like to see in the White House over the next four years … because we know very little will change for us.

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