As the US made strides towards signing an agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme this month, the Gulf emirate of Bahrain was calling for a new security architecture in the region that would bring together the Gulf states and Israel.
Bahrain’s Ambassador to Israel Abdullah bin Rashed spoke publicly of Manama’s call but was less vocal about pointing to Iran as the target of the new security order. However, it was hard to miss the many insinuations in his interview with the Jewish Insider magazine that was published on 18 March.
The new security order advocates bringing together the Gulf countries, Arab states that are already signatories of peace treaties with Israel, and Israel along with the US. The prospects for this were first proposed under the former US administration of Donald Trump. Meetings of defence officials from regional countries had taken place both in Washington and Middle East capitals.
Thus far, the scheme has not progressed too far, due to perceived Egyptian apprehensions about a security scheme that would include Qatar. Doha was earlier the subject of a firm boycott from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain starting in 2018.
Today, informed regional diplomatic sources say that consultations on a new security system that would bring some Gulf countries together with Israel could exclude Qatar. It might not even include the US.
The consultations involve the two signatories of the so-called “Abraham Accords” between some Arab countries and Israel, Bahrain and the UAE. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are being kept informed about or included in the consultations, according to the same sources.
The objective of the currently discussed security system is to associate countries most worried about Iran’s possible comeback in the region. “The most obvious three are Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain,” said one regional diplomat.
This new security plan is designed to be “a message to the Biden administration” on the dismay of these countries over the failure of Washington to accommodate their concerns over Iran.
“We don’t count on the US anymore. We saw how the US abruptly quit Afghanistan, and we don’t think that it is impossible for us to see Washington turning its back on the Gulf,” said an informed political source in one of the three capitals concerned.
This apprehension is shared by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, but not by the other three Gulf states of Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar.
Earlier this month, the US granted Qatar the status of special ally in recognition of a country that is not a member of NATO. Under the Trump administration, Qatar hosted the talks with the Taliban that concluded with the deal leading to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. Qatar is also the host of the biggest US military base in the Gulf.
Kuwait and Oman were not so close to the Trump administration, and they are keeping up close contacts with the Biden administration, according to Gulf-based diplomatic sources.
Last month, according to a source at UN headquarters in New York, the Kuwait Permanent Mission to the UN was working closely with the US Permanent Mission to lobby support for a UN Security Council Resolution that would condemn Russia for its war on Ukraine.
The Kuwaiti mission in New York, the same source said, was also very active in lobbying support for the resolution voted on at the UN General Assembly. Kuwait co-sponsored the resolution.
The Kuwaiti position was very different from that of the UAE, which abstained in the UN Security Council but voted in favour of the later resolution at the General Assembly.
According to informed Emirati commentator Abdel-Khalek Abdullah, the UAE abstention was politically inevitable in view of the fact that most Arab countries were not on board with the resolution, which even the Asian countries were divided about.
As an Arab and Asian country, “the political position of the UAE” was to abstain in the UN Security Council, Abdullah said. Later, it voted in favour of the resolution at the General Assembly, a position that “reflected the ethical standpoint of the UAE,” he added.
Regional diplomats insist that the UAE abstention at the Security Council last month was a message to the US. They suggest that the UAE was conveying a message to the Biden administration that because it had failed to accommodate their and Saudi concerns, the two countries would not be there for the Biden administration in its showdown with Moscow.
According to the UN diplomatic source, the UAE posture must have been “coordinated with the Saudis at a very high level.”
Gulf-based diplomatic sources agree that despite their disagreements both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi seized the opportunity of the confrontation between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine to send a clear message to the Oval Office that they have grievances that need to be addressed.
According to Abdullah, this is a moment of tension between Abu Dhabi and the Biden administration that relates partially, but not only, to Iran.
The Biden administration, he said, had failed to live up to the expectations of Abu Dhabi, traditionally a very close ally of Washington, “not just” on the suspended sales of F-35 fighter jets that had been approved by the Trump administration, but also on other defence systems.
The Biden administration had also failed to put the Houthis in Yemen on the terrorist list, as required by the UAE, Abdallah said.
Gulf-based diplomatic sources say that the Saudis have a longer list of grievances. They explain that Riyadh has been “infuriated” by the failure of the Biden administration to accommodate its demands for the slow lifting of economic sanctions on Iran in order to deny Tehran cash that could be used to expand its already major influence in the direct neighbourhood of Saudi Arabia.
This influence would be felt in both Yemen and Iraq, in addition to over Shia communities in the Arab Gulf countries, including in Saudi Arabia and its closest Arab ally Bahrain.
Riyadh is also unwilling to accommodate what it perceives as an exaggerated emphasis from the Biden administration on the situation of human rights in Saudi Arabia, the sources say.
Until this week, both the UAE and Saudi Arabia had declined to increase their oil production to help stabilise oil prices that had been negatively influenced by the exclusion of Russian oil exports.
The visit of Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed to Moscow earlier this month was unanimously referred to by diplomatic sources as part of the messaging that the UAE has been making to the White House.
According to Abdullah, Bin Zayed’s visit came after an earlier visit by Qatari Foreign Minister Mohamed bin Abdel-Rahman to Moscow.
“At this moment of crisis, regionally influential countries, including the Gulf states, are trying to consult with all the key players,” he said. “The world is now living in a multipolar system, and it is only legitimate for all countries to decide how to position themselves in this set-up.”
Meanwhile, regional diplomatic sources say that the UAE went further when it followed the visit of its foreign minister to Moscow with a visit by Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to Abu Dhabi over the weekend.
The US State Department issued a statement to express its “profound disappointment” at this visit, rare language in the Washington-Abu Dhabi lexicon. Al-Assad is a close ally of Russia, and Syria is the only Arab state that vetoed the UN General Assembly Resolution, along with other four countries.
According to Abdullah, the Al-Assad visit is part of diplomatic moves that the UAE has been pursuing for over a year to bring Syria back into the Arab sphere after its participation in the Arab League was suspended in 2011.
“This is something that the 18 other Arab countries are in agreement with,” he said.
Gulf-based diplomatic sources say that the UAE wants to balance Iran’s strong presence in Syria. According to a regional diplomatic source, “if Al-Assad is willing to make a deal with Israel, this would remove the veto instantly.”
Like the new security architecture that is currently under consideration, the showdown with Iran, and the war in Ukraine, Al-Assad’s re-integration is a point of contention within the GCC. This time, the UAE and Saudi views are not in alignment. Qatar and Oman also do not share the same position on this matter.
According to Abdullah, as it is no longer expected of the Gulf countries to side with the positions of the US in their entirety, it is also no longer expected of the six members of the GCC to take the same positions on all regional and international issues.
“Things are changing,” he said.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 24 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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