tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/bahrain-12477/articlesBahrain – The Conversation2021-05-17T16:21:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1609462021-05-17T16:21:06Z2021-05-17T16:21:06ZIsrael-Palestine conflict: why Gulf leaders are staying quiet – for now<p>It’s generally reckoned to be one of Donald Trump’s few major foreign policy achievements. On August 13 2020, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel signed a historic agreement normalising relations between the two states, and in the weeks that followed, other Arab states followed Abu Dhabi’s lead in what became known as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-next-for-arab-israeli-relations-after-the-uae-deal-144651">Abraham Accords</a>. </p>
<p>The accords, which have now been ratified by UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, were <a href="https://www.unav.edu/web/global-affairs/detalle/-/blogs/the-abraham-accords-and-future-prospects">hailed by many</a> as a major diplomatic breakthrough in Arab-Israeli relations, recognising – as they did – “each state’s right to sovereignty and to live in peace and security”. Yet, although the accords expressed the need to continue “efforts to achieve a just, comprehensive, and enduring resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict”, most observers recognised the agreements as another step in the <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/11/01/the-abraham-accords-and-the-palestinian-issue/">broader abandonment</a> of the cause of Palestinian statehood, simply through normalising relations without a resolution of the Palestinian question. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/11/01/the-abraham-accords-and-the-palestinian-issue/">one analyst</a> put it: </p>
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<p>In the absence of progress or any realistic hope of achieving [Palestinian statehood], standing by the Palestinians has ceased to be a priority for the Gulf monarchies in the face of clear and present threats from Iran, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, combined with the emergence of common economic and security interests. Relations with Israel have simply become more urgent than the Palestinian question.</p>
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<p>This calculation was made against the backdrop of uncertainty ahead of the November US presidential election. Now, less than nine months later, as Israelis and Palestinians enter a new round of violence, questions about the <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/11/01/the-abraham-accords-and-the-palestinian-issue/">abandonment of the Palestinian cause</a> by signatories of the accords <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.xml">have begun to emerge</a>.</p>
<h2>Bad optics</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-the-politics-behind-the-latest-explosion-of-violence-in-the-holy-city-160647">latest violence and airstrikes against Gaza</a> have been afforded blanket coverage on international news outlets and have provoked <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/israels-conflict-in-gaza-tests-limits-of-new-detente-with-arab-world-11620918769">serious criticism at signatories</a> for their lack of support for Palestinians. As you would expect, there has been <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/uae-bahrain-pan-israels-storming-of-al-aqsa-amid-international-condemnation/">condemnation of Israel’s actions</a> in Jerusalem and Gaza from all Arab states. But it has typically been “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/05/13/israel-palestine-arab-league-evictions/">very weak</a>” among signatories to the accords. </p>
<p>As the violence has increased, official responses from states who normalised relations with Israel have largely been absent. Meanwhile, in the UEA – which has very <a href="https://www.mondaq.com/social-media/830586/media-regulations-in-the-united-arab-emirates">strict regulations</a> on social media activity – prominent influencers in the UAE have praised Israeli behaviour, even during the storming of the al-Aqsa mosque – the third holiest site in Islam.</p>
<p>Wassem Yousef, a prominent Emirati cleric, posted a number of tweets <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2021/05/341976/uae-cleric-accuses-hamas-of-escalating-israeli-violence-in-palestine/">blaming Hamas</a> for the escalation, referring to the increasing violence as an “epidemic”. The cleric has previously declared that Palestinians do not “really deserve Jerusalem”, expressing support for Emirati normalisation with Israel. </p>
<p>A strong concern for the UAE – and other signatories to the accords – is the fear about the proliferation of Islamist groups across the region, with a particular focus on the Muslim Brotherhood. This was clear after the Arab Spring uprisings and the <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.xml">counterrevolutionary measures</a> taken to bottle up fundamentalism. So curtailing the actions of Hamas – which possesses <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230106871_7">intellectual and theological ties</a> with the Brotherhood – is an important feature of Abu Dhabi’s broader world view.</p>
<p>But the absence of serious criticism of the Israeli response may also open up unrest among their populations. According to a <a href="https://www.arabbarometer.org/2020/12/taking-arabs-pulse-on-normalizing-ties-with-israel/">recent survey</a> on the normalisation of ties with Israel, ordinary citizens have low levels of support for such developments. In Lebanon, where far the highest level of support for normalisation is found, only 20% favoured peace. Elsewhere, support was under 10%, with only 3% of Jordanians supporting normalisation. </p>
<p>This doesn’t mean any of the states concerned will fully withdraw, given the benefits to be gleaned from maintaining relations. But the optics of providing visible support to Israel at a time when Gaza is under bombardment are potentially damaging. What this suggests is a possible return to the days prior to the accords when relations between Israel and the Arab states conducted their relations behind closed doors. </p>
<h2>Turkey and Iran</h2>
<p>Meanwhile Iran and Turkey, which strongly criticised the accords as “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/14/iran-uae-israel-deal-a-stab-in-the-back-to-muslims">dagger in the back</a>” of all Muslims and a “betrayal” of the Muslim world, have reacted strongly, with both <a href="https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkey-strongly-condemns-israeli-air-raids-on-gaza-strip/2237104">Ankara</a> and <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/News/middle-east/2021/05/16/Iran-guards-reaffirm-support-for-Palestinians-facing-Israeli-crimes-">Tehran</a> roundly condemning the violence. </p>
<p>In doing so, the countries – which have <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/enemies-or-allies-the-new-middle-east-turkey-iran-and-saudi-arabia">strong economic and trade ties</a> – are speaking the words many across the Middle East wished their own leaders would use to condemn Israeli violence. Once again, the Palestinian cause has become a tool through which regional powers can derive legitimacy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jerusalem-the-politics-behind-the-latest-explosion-of-violence-in-the-holy-city-160647">Jerusalem: the politics behind the latest explosion of violence in the Holy City</a>
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<p>Conspicuous by his absence is the US president, Joe Biden. Less than six months into his presidency, the Biden administration has embarked on a bold foreign policy, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-administration-says-it-s-ready-nuclear-talks-iran-n1258299">engaging in dialogue with Iran</a> over the nuclear deal, and working to resolve the Yemen crisis. </p>
<p>Yet the failure to engage with the Israel-Palestine question lays bare the deep schisms in US politics – where the Israel Lobby continues to exert huge influence – and the legacy of the Trump regime. Undoing Trump’s empowerment of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/08/16/trump-israel-global-right-wing-project/">right-wing of Israeli politics</a> is far trickier than undoing his other policies.<br>
All the while, ordinary Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem continue to pay the heaviest price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160946/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mabon receives funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York, and The Henry Luce Foundation.
He is a Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre</span></em></p>The Abraham Accords peace deal was supposed to herald a new era for the Middle East. Yet the fault-lines remain as deep as ever.Simon Mabon, Professor of International Relations, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1543142021-02-10T13:34:25Z2021-02-10T13:34:25ZArab Spring: after a decade of conflict, the same old problems remain<p>As the popular refrain of “<em>ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam</em>” rang out across the Middle East in the early months of 2011, the nature of political life and relations between rulers and ruled began to fragment. The chant – which roughly translates as “the people want the fall of the regime” – became the slogan of the Arab uprisings, a wave of protests in states across the region. </p>
<p>The uprisings highlighted the fractious nature of political life and relations between the people and their governments, resulting in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-27/arab-spring-showed-autocracy-is-anything-but-stable">toppling of authoritarian rulers</a> in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. </p>
<p>But these were limited victories – and protesters elsewhere were not as successful. Over the course of the following ten years, close to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/29/the-guardian-view-on-the-arab-spring-a-decade-on-a-haunting-legacy">1 million people have been killed</a> and more than 10 million displaced from their homes. The protests revealed a profound political crisis that continues to resonate across the region. And in most cases, the issues that provoked the protests – economic inertia, a lack of political accountability, rampant corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor – continue today. </p>
<h2>It begins</h2>
<p>Triggered by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/16/he-ruined-us-10-years-on-tunisians-curse-man-who-sparked-arab-spring">self-immolation of Mohammad Bouazizi</a>, a Tunisian street vendor, the protest movements emerged from longstanding frustration at the economic conditions facing many across the region, fuelled by endemic corruption. With a burgeoning youth population facing serious obstacles to employment, the opulent wealth of those in power and unwillingness to offer even token reforms meant that latent frustrations erupted in protests from Tunis to Muscat. </p>
<p>The responses of regimes varied across the region, ranging from <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/oman-ten-years-after-the-arab-spring-the-evolution-of-state-society-relations/">token reforms in Oman</a>, which involved the removal of unpopular ministers, and economic incentives designed to engender support in the other Gulf states, to more draconian strategies deployed elsewhere. This included the use of emergency powers, detention, torture, the closing down of space for political engagement, citizenship revocation and death. In Syria, Libya and Yemen, the violent repression that followed protests culminated in the onset of devastating conflict that continues today.</p>
<p>Developments in Tunisia and Egypt initially offered hope to many following the toppling of the authoritarian regimes of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zine-al-Abidine-Ben-Ali">Ben Ali</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51630142">Hosni Mubarak</a>. But in Egypt, the coup d’etat that toppled Mubarak’s successor, <a href="https://theconversation.com/mohamed-morsi-death-of-egypts-former-president-shows-deep-state-was-always-going-to-triumph-119031">Mohamed Morsi</a> – the country’s first democratically elected president – reflected broader regional trends of regimes using mechanisms of control to prevent the emergence of protest movements, seemingly crushing the dreams of protesters in the process. </p>
<h2>Divide and rule</h2>
<p>One of the most common strategies was the manipulation of sectarian strife, which saw regimes capitalise on social divisions for their own ends – a form of “divide and conquer”. The repercussions of such processes were devastating. The increased divisions within – and between – states may have arisen from sectarian differences but were manipulated by political self-interest by elites seeking to secure their position in the face of a range of serious challenges. </p>
<p>In Syria, members of violent Sunni Islamist groups who were in jail <a href="https://www.cfr.org/article/syrias-civil-war">were released</a> by Bashar al-Assad in an attempt to frame the struggle against the Arab Spring protesters as a fight against Islamic extremism. Similarly, in Bahrain, the government sought to frame protesters as “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12753727">fifth columnists</a>”, doing the bidding of Iran – albeit with very little evidence to support such claims. </p>
<p>In pursuit of this, key regime officials <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mei/mei/2019/00000073/00000001/art00003;jsessionid=al44536h19ffu.x-ic-live-02">spoke of</a> nefarious Iranian involvement supporting protesters by providing arms and training. After Bahrain’s protest movement was defeated, <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/mena/king-of-bahrain-says-subversive-external-plot-has-been-foiled-1.600506">King Hamad declared</a> that an “external plot” had been foiled, with a clear nod to Iran. </p>
<p>In the years that followed, acts of protest became more isolated as regimes cracked down on oppositions. In Bahrain this involved the revocation of citizenship from <a href="https://salam-dhr.org/?p=3967">990 Bahraini nationals</a> while elsewhere – in other Gulf states and Egypt – it resulted in increasingly draconian terrorism laws designed to prevent both violent extremism and challenges to regime power. In the years after the protests, the spectre of war in Syria loomed large – an example regularly used by those in power across the Gulf to <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.00013.xml">caution against demands for democracy</a>. </p>
<p>The years after the uprisings were largely shaped by this broader struggle for survival and efforts to reassert sovereign power in the face of shifting national and international pressures. At the same time, many of the structural factors that had caused the protests of 2011 remained unresolved. </p>
<p>This unwillingness to address underlying social, economic and political factors is hardly surprising. It reflects decades in which such grievances have remained unresolved, prompting often violent confrontations between rulers and ruled over the nature of the state and its resources. </p>
<h2>Crisis and collapse</h2>
<p>Moments of unrest punctured the region across the 20th century – leaving aside interstate conflict – predominantly emerging from the ability of rulers to address underlying grievances around social, economic and political issues. Processes of <em><a href="https://www.fekr-magazine.com/articles/what-is-neoliberalism-and-infitah">infitah</a></em> (economic liberalisation) took place as part of a broader global move towards neoliberal agendas during the 1980s. </p>
<p>But across the Arab world rising birth rates, institutional weakness and bureaucratic ineptitude left a gloomy picture of unbalanced development and systematic exclusion. This was often exacerbated by regimes becoming extractors rather than distributors – leaders and their coteries taking out money from state resources for personal needs and desires – leading to widespread failures of governance. By 2004, a UN report titled Towards Freedom in the Arab World referred to the Arab “state” as a “<a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/arab-human-development-report-2004">black hole</a>”. </p>
<p>The economic crisis of 2008 had a dramatic impact on the Middle East. At the height of the crisis, Saudi Arabia lost a range of contracts <a href="https://gfintegrity.org/report/2011-global-report-illicit-financial-flows-from-the-developing-world-over-the-decade-ending-2009/">worth US$958 billion</a> (£693 billion) while the UAE lost US$354 billion in contracts. </p>
<p>Estimates of a further US$247.5 billion in capital flight from the Middle East only exacerbated these challenges. The impact on people was devastating. By 2011, the situation was dire: 41% of people across the Middle East were <a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/ResearchAndStudies/Pages/The_2014_Arab_Opinion_Index_In_Brief.aspx">living in need</a>. </p>
<p>Underpinning this was the loss to economies across the region caused by the endemic corruption, which some estimates put at <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/arab-human-development-report-2016-youth-and-prospects-human-development-changing-reality">around US$1 trillion</a> in the five decades leading up to the Arab uprisings. </p>
<h2>Unhappy ending?</h2>
<p>It was hardly surprising that having faced neglect, repression and corruption over the course of the 20th century <a href="https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526126474/9781526126474.00009.xml">people turned to groups</a> such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Fatah, Hezbollah and Hamas. Many of these groups, as well as political and sometimes paramilitary activities, engaged in huge social welfare programmes and accrued a great deal of popular support as a result. </p>
<p>Over the years that followed, structural grievances that had triggered the protests in 2011 once again rose to the surface. But this time they were played out across an increasingly divided region beset by sectarian schisms and geopolitical rivalries, frustration with political elites, and – most recently – <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-middle-east-and-north-africa-and-covid-19-gearing-up-for-the-long-haul/">exacerbated by COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>By 2015, 53% of the region’s population <a href="https://www.dohainstitute.org/en/ResearchAndStudies/Pages/The_2014_Arab_Opinion_Index_In_Brief.aspx">required financial support</a> from non-state actors. In Lebanon and Iraq, protesters <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/19/heres-what-protests-lebanon-iraq-are-really-about/">took to the streets in 2019</a> articulating their frustration at the status quo. It is hardly surprising that widespread anger has resulted in further instances of protest across the past decade, driven by anger at many of the same issues. Understanding the roots of the protest movement and their evolution are essential in gaining awareness of the region’s trajectory into a new decade and under a new US administration.</p>
<p>The root causes of the protests <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2021/arab-spring-10-year-anniversary-lost-decade/">remain unaddressed</a> – and the situation may have even deteriorated as economic crises are worsened by the pandemic. While turning towards authoritarianism has given regimes additional measures to regulate life, until these deeper political issues have been addressed, latent frustrations will result in intermittent acts of protest and broader processes of repression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Mabon receives funding from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Simon Mabon is a Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre. </span></em></p>The underlying issues of inequality, corruption and poverty are still dogging the region, ten years after the protests.Simon Mabon, Professor of International Relations, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1535532021-01-21T14:36:00Z2021-01-21T14:36:00ZGulf blockade: Qatar hugs and makes up with its warring neighbours – but will it last?<p>Shortly after four Arab countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt – imposed an embargo on Qatar in 2017, I flew into the country’s capital Doha. Hamad airport – usually buzzing with visitors from the Gulf countries (<a href="https://qatar-tourism.com/large-influx-saudi-visitors-to-qatar-drives-recent-surge-in-tourism/">one of every four visitors</a> to Qatar in 2015 came from Saudi Arabia) – was eerily quiet.</p>
<p>The four countries <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-55538792">severed ties with Qatar</a> in June 2017 after they accused Doha of supporting terrorism. They demanded the shutdown of Qatari news network Al Jazeera as well as calling on the country to downgrade its relations with Iran. Doha defiantly rejected the accusations and agreed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/04/breakthrough-in-qatar-dispute-after-fruitful-talks-to-end-conflict">mediation from Kuwait and the US</a> to end the standoff.</p>
<p>Qatar has estimated its losses from the blockade in the billions of dollars – citing factors such as “industrial-scale <a href="https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/bein-sports-lays-off-300-jobs-qatar-piracy-beoutq-arabsat">theft of content</a> from its sports broadcaster BeIN by rival Saudi network BeoutQ and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2019/4/8/qatar-sues-uae-saudi-luxembourg-banks-over-riyal-manipulation">manipulation of its currency</a> by the four countries. So, when they agreed on January 5 to lift the embargo and restore diplomatic relations with Qatar, all sides were keenly anticipating any economic benefits the restored detente might bring.</p>
<p>Qatar may be the smallest of the Gulf states – but it’s the richest. So when, hours after the agreement, foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ea1e7058-960d-416c-93dc-f4f8c7945c12">talked about</a> the possibility of the country’s sovereign wealth fund investing in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, his hint would have been well received in Riyadh.</p>
<p>Dangling the carrot of investment is a good way of appeasing Saudi Arabia, which is keen to attract foreign investment to back Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s grandiose modernisation projects as well as respond to the country’s long-term need to secure new export markets and diversify its oil-dependent economy.</p>
<h2>Fraternal relations</h2>
<p>But the biggest sign of the new detente has so far been in the tone of Qatar’s news media. Top of the list of the 13 demands placed on Qatar by the four countries was shutting down Al Jazeera. </p>
<p>Qatar didn’t shut the network down – but watching the network in the days after the blockade ended, one could feel the difference. Bulletins no longer include regular news on "violations” by the Saudi regime. The channel even rebranded the Saudi Crown Prince, who it had vociferously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zcRatILiP0">attacked</a> just a few weeks ago for “tarnishing the image of the Saudi state”. Now Bin Salman is represented as a rising peacemaker engaged in relations of “fraternity”. This was symbolically reflected in the way he hugged Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani when the Qatari emir arrived in Riyadh for their meeting on the sidelines of the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting in Saudi Arabia on January 5.</p>
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<p>Coverage of Qatar by Saudi network Al Arabiya has also softened considerably, something picked up on <a href="https://www.bbc.com/arabic/media-55593393">by the BBC</a>, which even hosted analysts to comment of the repeatedly screened scene of the hugging between the two leaders. “It was a hot hugging”, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FHlXl_VfKc">commented</a> one analyst, of the enthusiastic way the two leaders embraced when meeting at the airport in Riyadh.</p>
<p>The reconciliation has brought a sense of relief in all four countries. Ordinary people paid a deep humanitarian price – many are <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/6/9/saudi-led-blockade-on-qatar-breaking-up-families">linked by close tribal ties</a> and there are thousands of cases of cross-border intermarriage (to give you an idea of how close the Saudi Arabia and Qatar are, consider that it takes just an hour to drive from Doha to Saudi territory).</p>
<p>In Qatar, I heard many stories of families split apart when Qatari nationals were ordered to leave their three Gulf neighbours within 14 days. More than 12,000 residents in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and UAE were also ordered to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/6/9/saudi-led-blockade-on-qatar-breaking-up-families">leave Qatar</a>. Social media is now full of videos of families jubilantly crossing “Abu Samra”, the land border between Saudi Arabia and Qatar within hours of the agreement.</p>
<h2>Happy talk</h2>
<p>This may all sound like a return to normality, but sceptics pointed to the fact that, while the two feuding leaders talked of “brotherly unity” and desires for “Gulf unity”, neither mentioned an agreement on any of the issues that caused the crisis. On the one hand, everyone’s a winner – but, on the other, we don’t know how or why. The situation has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/05/qatar-and-saudi-arabia-breakthrough-is-more-exhaustion-than-compromise">been described as</a> a “detente borne more of exhaustion than compromise”. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-40378221">13 demands</a> made by the other Gulf states of Qatar remain unmet. For example, the Qatari foreign minister <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ea1e7058-960d-416c-93dc-f4f8c7945c12">has already scotched</a> a demand for Qatar to reduce its ties with Iran by shutting down diplomatic posts in Iran or expelling members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, saying a couple of days after the agreement that his country would not alter relations with Tehran.</p>
<p>So this dispute is far from ended and there is a lot of tension brewing under the surface. Saudi Arabia, for its part, sees Iran as an “<a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd/2016/00000006/00000004/art00013;jsessionid=9ruht0p5u9dqp.x-ic-live-02">existential threat</a>” and is unlikely to take no change as a negative answer.</p>
<p>Others believe that for Bin Salman, temporarily easing the tension with Qatar is “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/dbc2e3f9-80f8-447f-9bc1-00188e696dc4">low-hanging fruit</a>” – something achieved with relative ease ahead of the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th US president. Biden is known for his critical attitude towards Riyadh’s approach to human rights.</p>
<p>There is no sign that Qatar is also heeding the other demands, including <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qatar-turkey-military-idUSKCN0XP2IT">closing Turkey’s military base</a> outside Doha. Turkey is popular among Qataris. You’ll see cars with number plate stickers featuring the Turkish flag – or even with the image of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.</p>
<p>With so few issues apparently actually resolved, it’s little wonder that it took just days for new signs of tension to reappear after the agreement. The UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, said following the GCC summit that Doha still has questions to answer, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ea1e7058-960d-416c-93dc-f4f8c7945c12">including</a>: “How is Qatar going to deal vis-à-vis interfering in our affairs through support of political Islam? Is Turkey’s presence in the Gulf going to be permanent?”</p>
<p>These are the same questions asked of Qatar long before the four countries issued their ultimatum in 2017. It’s tension that is likely to outlive the warmth engendered by those televised hugs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mustafa Menshawy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Underlying issues which led to the three-year dispute have not been resolved.Mustafa Menshawy, Postdoctoral Researcher in Middle East Politics, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1469732020-10-08T19:31:01Z2020-10-08T19:31:01ZHow the Abraham Accords could create real peace in the Middle East<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361503/original/file-20201004-13-4wre6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C232%2C5167%2C3117&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the Abraham Accords signing ceremony at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How will history books judge the so-called <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/winners-losers/616364/">Abraham Accords</a>, aimed at normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and two Arab Gulf states, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE)? </p>
<p>Will it be remembered as the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/israel-uae-abraham-accords-documents/index.html">declaration text</a> envisions it: a critical milestone in the evolution of “peace, security, and prosperity in the Middle East?”</p>
<p>Or it will go down the annals of the Arab-Israeli conflict as one in a series of United States-brokered peace treaties that didn’t live up to the hype surrounding it. </p>
<p>The answer may well depend on the choices that the architects of the Abraham Accords make today.</p>
<h2>Education needed</h2>
<p>Two peace treaties signed in the past — <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Camp-David-Accords">Israel-Egypt</a> in 1978 and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Israel/The-Oslo-Accords">Israel-Jordan</a> in 1994 — may help determine whether the Abraham Accords will be able to deliver on their promises. </p>
<p>Bahrain, Israel and the UAE should ensure these accords are not merely an agreement among governments, but also among their citizens. Education can make this possible. The <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/uae/education/mbzuai-signs-first-higher-education-co-operation-plan-between-uae-and-israel-1.1076958">recent agreement</a> between the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science to collaborate on the development and use of artificial intelligence is an important first step. </p>
<p>Education may seem a particularly inauspicious place to start. While education has an undisputed ability to enlighten people and cultivate a predisposition to peaceful solutions, it’s not the first thing typically considered by governments seeking quick results in international politics.</p>
<p>This is partly because the majority of foreign policy officials cut their professional teeth on the considerations of power politics and realpolitik. </p>
<p>International politics don’t follow the moral laws and standards of interaction that govern the behaviour of individuals in society. Rather, it’s power that really matters. The mantra “<a href="https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/18310">might makes right</a>” is probably the most succinct summary of this sort of thinking. Therefore, education rarely wins the day in the calculus of foreign policy interests.</p>
<p>That’s why the news about the UAE’s <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/31/israel-uae-peace-deal-f-35-arms-sales-palestine/">bid to acquire the advanced F-35</a> stealth jet, and how that could influence the balance of power in the region, overshadowed other important developments resulting — or could result from — normalizing relations with Israel.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A fighter jet sits on a tarmac." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361501/original/file-20201004-13-1afh0il.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An F-35 fighter jet is seen in this 2019 photo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Wilson Ring)</span></span>
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<h2>AI agreement</h2>
<p>Chief among those developments is the co-operation in higher education between Israel and the UAE. Their agreement is designed to discredit the knee-jerk accusation that the accords are only aimed at confronting a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/14/israels-peace-deals-are-a-strategic-nightmare-for-iran/">mutual geopolitical threat: Iran</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, there are other issues upon which the Gulf states and Israel see eye to eye, including the potential of technology to secure long-term stability.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/historic-israel-deal-wont-likely-bring-peace-to-the-middle-east-144480">'Historic' Israel deal won't likely bring peace to the Middle East</a>
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<p>For decades now, the Gulf states have undertaken <a href="https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/IMF006/22194-9781498303231/22194-9781498303231/22194-9781498303231_A001.xml?language=en&redirect=true">economic diversification efforts</a> to decrease their reliance on hydrocarbon wealth. Israel has the most technological gravitas in the region. The Israelis, in return, will benefit from access to markets for their hi-tech businesses. It’s a win-win situation, and both sides could use their newfound economic interdependence to convince other Arab neighbours in dispute to find peaceful resolutions.</p>
<p>This paints a rosy picture, and every peace-loving person probably hopes to see the future unfold this way. However, economic and geopolitical interests alone can’t guarantee genuine peace unless the ideas of tolerance and mutual respect are planted at the roots of the consciousness of citizens. Education is probably the best way to pursue this goal.</p>
<h2>Science diplomacy</h2>
<p>The educational accord signed by universities from the UAE and Israel is an important step in this direction. It offers opportunities for <a href="http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/science-diplomacy-collaboration-rapidly-changing-world/">science diplomacy</a> and dialogue from which people may find common ground and form new shared moral understandings. It also demonstrates that both countries are committed to peace.</p>
<p>People of course don’t change their positions overnight simply because of conversations in the study hall. But when these events recur, they offer opportunities for interaction, discussions, the re-examination of values and to identify collaborative projects that could strengthen civil society relationships among countries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan stand together on a balcony." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=39%2C19%2C4389%2C2897&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/361500/original/file-20201004-20-1mtzs0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, President Donald Trump, Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan stand on the Blue Room Balcony after signing the Abraham Accords during a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 15, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the past, <a href="https://dayan.org/content/working-paper-no-2">education was used</a> to ensure that the Arab-Israeli conflict remained in the foreground of people’s thinking, weaving it into the fabric of their domestic and foreign policy at key junctures. </p>
<p>Almost all the revolutions that changed regimes in the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s used the tensions between Israel and the Arab world in one way or another to justify regime change. </p>
<h2>Mullahs stoked Arab-Israel tensions</h2>
<p>The mullah regime in Iran is no different in that it also employed the Arab-Israeli conflict to advance its political agenda. </p>
<p>When the mullahs <a href="http://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2015/11/the-islamic-republic-of-iran-the-genesis-of-its-foreign-policy-since-1979/">seized power in Iran in 1979,</a> they jumped on the bandwagon, and not because it necessarily benefited their people. It was because the religious establishment found the Arab-Israeli conflict a convenient way to gain political leverage and animate their rather messianic vision of <a href="https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/Irans-Islamic-Revolutionary-Guard-Corps/">exporting the revolution</a>.</p>
<p>What did all these so-called revolutionary regimes had in common? Two things. </p>
<p>The first was the emphasis on appearing to be helping Palestinians, even though it was insincere. The second was the removal of human rights by undermining education and development. Instead, they gave their people a common enemy via the Arab-Israeli conflict.</p>
<p>Opportunities for dramatic change rarely arise in the Middle East. But now is such a time. From a combative political atmosphere, some new thinking has emerged. </p>
<p>The need for change is apparent, but most efforts are following a top-down, government-level approach. Education, however, at the grassroots level can help a peaceful co-existence percolate and create connection, based on a shared belief in the unity of God found in both Judaism and Islam.</p>
<p><em>This is a corrected version of a story originally published on Oct. 8, 2020. The earlier story said there was co-operation in higher education between Israel and Bahrain instead of Israel and the UAE.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund Adam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Opportunities for dramatic change rarely arise in the Middle East. But now is such a time.Edmund Adam, PhD candidate of Higher Education (Comparative, International and Development Education) at OISE, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1466212020-09-23T10:51:51Z2020-09-23T10:51:51ZBahrain v Israel: how sport could help cement peace accords in the Middle East<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359329/original/file-20200922-16-9s5rb7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C58%2C6398%2C3053&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sporting events and initiatives could help strengthen ties between the Gulf states and Israel.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/goal-post-3d-rendering-739805059"> EFKS/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Back in 2016, I was excited for the Bahrain Women’s National team to compete in the <a href="https://www.womenssoccerunited.com/aphrodite-womens-cup-2016-match-fixtures/">Aphrodite Cup</a>, an international football tournament held in Cyprus. Bahrain’s team, of which I was in charge, had previously participated in an earlier edition of the tournament. The competition would have offered great exposure for Arab women’s football by giving them an opportunity to play against European teams. Unfortunately, that excitement was short-lived when it fell on me to ultimately decline the invitation when it became clear that Israel would be fielding a team this time around. </p>
<p>The decision to pull out was taken jointly between Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), despite all of the organisers’ efforts to accommodate us by making suggestions to ensure the teams played in separate groups and stayed in different hotels. Such was the tension between the Arab states and Israel that participation in the same tournament was not even an option.</p>
<p>Now, in a historic move, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/11/world/middleeast/bahrain-israel-trump.html">Bahrain</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/trump-israel-united-arab-emirates-uae.html">UAE</a> have <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/israel-uae-bahrain-white-house-analysis-intl/index.html">signed peace accords</a> with Israel. </p>
<p>For the Gulf, a region that has traditionally refused to recognise the existence of the Jewish state, the news has generated <a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/bahrain-move-toward-israel-risks-domestic-reaction2">mixed reactions among experts and public</a>. However, with more Arab countries <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/08/20/the-arab-countries-most-likely-to-recognise-israel">expected to follow suit and take diplomatic steps</a> to normalise relations, sport can help the transition and strengthen ties. </p>
<h2>Football diplomacy?</h2>
<p>Sport has long been used as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bob_Heere/publication/327680234_Sport_Diplomacy_A_Review_of_How_Sports_Can_be_Used_to_Improve_International_Relations/links/5c7d4c42299bf1268d390167/Sport-Diplomacy-A-Review-of-How-Sports-Can-be-Used-to-Improve-International-Relations.pdf?origin=publication_detail">a tool for nurturing international relations</a> between states. A prime example is <a href="https://www.history.com/news/ping-pong-diplomacy">ping-pong diplomacy</a>, which softened relations between the United States and China during the Cold War with the aid of table tennis. There is now an opportunity for sport to play a similar role when it comes to the newly formed Arab-Israeli agreements. </p>
<p>While the use of sport for community reconciliation between Israel and Palestine has been <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1012690206075422">studied</a> in the past, its application to other Arab countries has never been explored. Indeed, the mere thought of such a thing has been so unlikely that the Israeli Football Association was <a href="https://www.uefa.com/insideuefa/member-associations/isr/">forced to switch continental affiliations</a> from Asia to Europe in 1974 due to the refusal of many Muslim nations to play against them. </p>
<p>So could treaties between Gulf States be enhanced through sport? It’s possible, but not likely to be an easy task.</p>
<p>Today, Bahrain and Israel could participate together in the Aphrodite Cup, for example, but marketing such an endeavour would require an effective strategy to emphasise the positives and dispel criticism. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Red and gold logo for Bahrain women's national football team." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/359395/original/file-20200922-14-mc0oxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bahrain women’s national football team was first formed in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain_women%27s_national_football_team">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Gulf region has hosted <a href="https://gulfbusiness.com/rise-sports-tourism-middle-east/">many international sporting events</a> in recent years where teams from different countries participate at the youth and national levels in diverse sports. One way to reinforce ties with Israel could be by inviting Israeli teams and delegations to such events. In fact, the three football associations of Bahrain, Israel and the UAE have already begun marketing such an idea on their social media with a shared post displaying the countries’ football emblems under a banner that reads, “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CFKtq9fgMuM/">Football can unite us. Let’s play!</a>”</p>
<p>Sporting events can also be used as a platform for brand promotion. Much in the same way as we see adverts for companies around the pitch in the Premier League, as well as shirt sponsorship, there is an opportunity for recognised Gulf brands (for example, Fly Emirates) to enter the Israeli market through sport and vice versa. It may seem surprising initially to see Visit Israel advertisements at a Gulf-based sporting event, but over time this could become the norm and as trade relations improve, businesses will be less hesitant to get involved in Arab-Israeli marketing.</p>
<h2>Sport for development and peace</h2>
<p>Sporting events can also be used to educate visiting delegations about the host countries and build positive experiences on the sidelines of competitions. Team excursions and sightseeing trips can help them learn more about the local culture. Again, this would need to be closely managed given the potential escalation that can come from sporting matches and animosities between teams. Take, as an example, the infamous <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/wcwp/research-projects/the-soccer-war/">soccer war</a> that erupted between El Salvador and Honduras as a result of geopolitical tensions that were compounded by incidents during football matches. </p>
<p>Another, safer, strategy that could be used as an alternative to hosting entire team events would be to implement a coach and player exchange program in a similar way to the one the <a href="https://exchanges.state.gov/non-us/subject/sports">US</a> uses in its sport diplomacy programs. Exchange programs are a great way to widen the network of athletes and <a href="https://jsfd.org/2018/06/01/immediate-outcomes-and-implementation-of-a-sport-for-development-coach-education-programme-in-belize/">coaching staff</a> in a country and allow them to broaden their horizons through learning from international experts. </p>
<p>Inter-community programs aimed at integrating the young people of Israel and the Gulf states could also take place in third locations such as the US. Such programs could be used to bridge cultural and religious differences through the commonality of sport to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2018.1506334">build social bonds and linkages</a>. Unlike coaches’ exchanges, the focus of this type of program would be on youth and community as opposed to the professional athletes and their coaching staff. They would include sporting events and team-building activities as well as skill development and leisure activities away from sport.</p>
<p>The historic announcement between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE offers an important opportunity to strengthen relations and bring the Middle Eastern states together. While sport may not offer the ultimate solution to solve the Middle East conflicts, it offers a complementary tool to develop ties between communities that have been separated by years of hostility. It could help them to come together towards a <a href="https://www.khaleejtimes.com/region/mena/bahrain-israel-normalisation-heralds-new-era-of-peace-netanyahu">new era of peace</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hussa Khalid is affiliated with the Bahrain Football Association as the Head of Women's Football. </span></em></p>Sports diplomacy has eased relationships between nations before – here’s how it could help Israel, Bahrain and the UAE as they enter into new peace accords.Hussa Khalid, PhD researcher in Sport for Development and Peace Initiatives, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1461532020-09-16T03:41:39Z2020-09-16T03:41:39ZIs it too soon to herald the ‘dawn of a new Middle East’? It all depends what the Saudis do next<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358266/original/file-20200916-24-15504o0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C35%2C5583%2C3666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JIM LO SCALZO/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump heralded nothing short of “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54168120">the dawn of a new Middle East</a>” as the leaders of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/president-trump-says-uae-to-open-diplomatic-ties-with-israel/2020/08/13/fe655a12-dd74-11ea-b4f1-25b762cdbbf4_story.html">United Arab Emirates</a> and <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/09/11/bahrain-joins-the-uae-in-recognising-israel">Bahrain</a> signed agreements normalising ties with Israel during a ceremony at the White House this week.</p>
<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that sentiment, saying “this day is a pivot of history”.</p>
<p>The diplomatic detente is significant — the UAE and Bahrain will join Egypt and Jordan as the only Arab countries to officially recognise the Jewish state. This will strengthen economic and security ties that have <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/israel-uae-and-pakistan-participate-military-exercises-us-421373309">existed tacitly</a> for years and establish diplomatic missions in the respective capitals.</p>
<p>But despite Trump’s grandiose statements, these agreements are little more than a footnote in the wider chaos of contemporary Middle Eastern affairs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358269/original/file-20200916-16-ipu781.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flags illuminated on Jerusalem’s Old City walls to celebrate Israel’s new diplomatic ties.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ATEF SAFADI/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Less important than you’d think</h2>
<p>The broader Arab-Israeli conflict has been dormant for decades, as the main players have been preoccupied by the threats of internal dissent and civil strife, rather than one another. </p>
<p>Beyond this, the UAE and Bahrain were never central to Arab hostilities with Israel. Historically, they acted as cheerleaders and financiers for the front-line states during the Cold War, such as Syria and Egypt.</p>
<p>The two Persian Gulf monarchies are not great powers, either. The UAE <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/0228/New-Arab-military-force-to-reckon-with-as-Little-Sparta-rises">certainly</a> swings <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/02/world/middleeast/crown-prince-mohammed-bin-zayed.html">above</a> its <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/21/libyan-civil-war-france-uae-khalifa-haftar/">weight</a>, but its small size means it will never be a major factor in regional events. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-increasing-arab-israeli-closeness-matters-119691">Why increasing Arab-Israeli closeness matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In geopolitical terms, Bahrain is far less notable — it’s effectively a <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/14/bahrains-sovereign-hypocrisy/">vassal</a> of Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Regardless of the immediate changes brought by these diplomatic moves, the bigger question is how Saudi Arabia will respond in the coming months. </p>
<p>It is rare in foreign relations to see “beta testing” of bold ideas, but the UAE and Bahrain have provided just such a test case for Riyadh in its own fraught push to normalise relations with the Jewish state. </p>
<h2>The enemy of my enemy</h2>
<p>Since the ascendance of the aggressively reformist <a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabias-liberal-crown-prince-is-a-year-into-his-tenure-how-is-he-doing-99743">Prince Mohammad Bin Salman</a> in 2015, Saudi Arabia has made <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43632905">moves</a> behind the scenes to strengthen ties with Jerusalem. </p>
<p>From the outset, the prince showed little interest in hostile relations with Israel, instead <a href="https://portal.findresearcher.sdu.dk/files/161539768/Beck_ResourceCenter_IsraeliGulfAlliance.pdf">perceiving a natural partner</a> in containing <a href="https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0102-85292018000200295&script=sci_arttext">Iran</a>, a rival to both states. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358270/original/file-20200916-14-iroead.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bin Salman has pursued warmer relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel since 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amr Nabil/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This led to an <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0043820016673779?casa_token=k7jbUc83zGAAAAAA:p1UvPJUpA1qsq_4cdIKG6o5bF-TAfK7gyNpys1I8inmrC7MivuxIJDbpJLyPXG2_OYydqyI9siq4">informal arrangement</a> between the Saudis and Israelis, along with the United States and a number of smaller Gulf states, aimed at confronting the Iranian challenge together.</p>
<p>An outright solidification of an alliance between the Saudis and Israelis would allow for greater cooperation and coordination in regional security, diplomacy and trade — and build a more unified and effective front against the threat posed by Iran’s growing influence in the region.</p>
<h2>Jumping the gun on diplomacy</h2>
<p>But previous attempts by Israel and Saudi Arabia to warm relations have proved challenging, to say the least.</p>
<p>In 2018, bin Salman made the unprecedented move of <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-crown-prince-recognizes-israels-right-to-exist-talks-up-future-ties/">declaring Israel’s right to exist</a>, extending a clear olive branch meant to open the door to further opportunities to strengthen ties between the two countries. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabias-liberal-crown-prince-is-a-year-into-his-tenure-how-is-he-doing-99743">Saudi Arabia's 'liberal' Crown Prince is a year into his tenure – how is he doing?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>However, the prince may have jumped the gun with the statement, which was met with ambivalence by the Saudi public and other Arab states. </p>
<p>Many felt the move too sudden and incongruous with the kindgom’s longstanding position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The Saudis have long demanded the creation of a state for the Palestinians before any sort of formal sovereign recognition could be offered to Israel.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this led to an <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-paelestinians-usa-saudi/as-us-pushes-for-mideast-peace-saudi-king-reassures-allies-idUSKBN1KJ0F9">embarrassing intervention</a> by the prince’s father, King Salman, who publicly walked back his son’s statements, in part due to fears of eroding the monarchy’s domestic legitimacy. </p>
<p>Following his chastisement, the prince went silent on the issue for over a year. He also took a less prominent position in the public eye, a significant departure from his normal flamboyant style.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/358272/original/file-20200916-24-tc6cnp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King Salman reiterated Saudi Arabia’s support for the Palestinians after his son’s surprising statement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BANDAR ALGALOUD HANDOUT/EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New year, new opportunities</h2>
<p>This year, things have changed. With <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2020/07/610669/ailing-saudi-king-chairs-cabinet-hospital-office">King Salman ailing</a>, the prince <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/saudi-purges-why-mohammed-bin-salman-can-never-rest">consolidating his position</a> within the country further and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-refineries-drone-attack.html">ever-present threat</a> of Iran across the gulf, there are new opportunities for Saudi Arabia to potentially re-engage with Israel. </p>
<p>New challenges have also presented themselves. The ravages of COVID-19 and a vulnerable oil market have left the kingdom in a far more precarious position than just two years ago. In such an environment, the risk of losing legitimacy from such a deal could prove far more catastrophic to the authoritarian regime.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/saudi-and-iran-how-our-two-countries-could-make-peace-and-bring-stability-to-the-middle-east-118696">Saudi and Iran: how our two countries could make peace and bring stability to the Middle East</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Bin Salman may be up to the task, though. The prince has demonstrated a growing aptitude to navigate complex political situations. </p>
<p>Over the past year, for instance, he has curtailed his characteristic brashness, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/saudi-arabia-forcibly-detained-lebanons-prime-minister-sources-say/2017/11/10/b93a1fb4-c647-11e7-84bc-5e285c7f4512_story.html">avoiding</a> the <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4378208/canada-saudi-arabia-spat/">blunders</a> seen early on in his reign that <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-49826905">damaged</a> Saudi prestige on the international stage and drew ire from his father. </p>
<p>Since his 2018 Israeli misfire, the prince has displayed a more reserved and circumspect demeanour in his public activities and foreign engagements — sending a message he intends to serve out a long and productive term.</p>
<h2>Canaries in the diplomatic coal mine</h2>
<p>Having learned from past mistakes, a more prudent bin Salman is likely to approach a rapprochement with Israel with greater caution than before. </p>
<p>If people in the UAE and Bahrain prove amenable or indifferent to the warming relations between their countries and Israel — and all signs thus far suggest they do — it may encourage the prince to try his plan again. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1305979426950217728"}"></div></p>
<p>While many on the Saudi street still oppose Israel in theory, the issue lacks the salience it once did. There is an exhausting array of crises in the region — from Yemen to Syria, Libya to COVID-19 — that have become far more immediate priorities.</p>
<p>Thanks in part to to a concerted propaganda effort by bin Salman, the Saudi public is also increasingly in tune with the ruling elite when it comes to the desire to counter Iran as a national security concern. </p>
<p>As a small country on the Mediterranean sharing no borders with the Saudis, Israel simply doesn’t pose the same kind of threat in the popular imagination as the looming expansionist giant just across the gulf.</p>
<p>With these political dominoes in line, the coming months may prove a far more fortuitous time for bin Salman to pursue a Saudi detente with Israel. </p>
<p>Such a development would not only be historically significant, but would pave the way for an Arab-Israeli alliance — the likes of which has never been seen before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Rich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Beta testing’ of bold ideas is rare in foreign affairs, but the UAE and Bahrain have provided just such a test case for the Saudis in their own push to normalise relations with Israel.Ben Rich, Senior lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1444112020-09-01T16:51:45Z2020-09-01T16:51:45ZWhy the Gulf monarchies have survived<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355671/original/file-20200901-24-tot2o8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2046%2C1196&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi King Salman accompanies Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, left, during the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in December 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Amr Nabil)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the <a href="https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/arab-spring-egypt">Arab Spring</a> protests erupted in 2010, many <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/11/13/yes-the-gulf-monarchs-are-in-trouble/">political pundits predicted</a> the uprisings would ripple through the entire region and ultimately reach the oil-rich Gulf states, sweeping away monarchies.</p>
<p>But ultimately, the Gulf monarchies of Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates — and to a lesser extent, Bahrain — were the least affected by the Arab Spring. These six Gulf monarchies <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2012/04/understanding-the-resilience-of-monarchy-during-the-arab-spring/">were more successful in weathering the political storm</a> than their republican neighbours, which in some cases <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/01/arab-spring-five-years-on/">were plunged into civil wars</a> with a heavy humanitarian and economic toll.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a head scarf and sunglasses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355425/original/file-20200830-20-1c0tyje.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Haitham bin Tariq Al Said is seen in this November 2016 photo. He was named Oman’s new sultan earlier this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I spent a good deal of my life in the region and during the uncertain times of the Arab Spring, so curious colleagues ask me how the Gulf monarchies continue to hold on. In response, I draw not on my memories but on my political training. And I believe there are lessons to learn from the durability of these regimes that could enhance global efforts to understand the region and build sustainable peace in the Middle East.</p>
<h2>Most Middle East countries are oil-rich</h2>
<p>I generally scoff at the argument that Gulf monarchies have only managed to navigate the tricky waters of the region’s geopolitics and avoided a mass exodus of their citizens because of their oil wealth. <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/06/21/how-oil-transformed-the-gulf">This popular wisdom holds</a> that <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/petrodollars.asp">petrodollars</a> allow the Gulf monarchies to coax people into submission, and that’s why they endure.</p>
<p>Missing from this assessment is acknowledgement that the Gulf monarchies <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/mena/04econ.htm">aren’t the only countries in the broader region with ample hydrocarbon riches</a>. Yet petrodollars in the broader region that often benefited citizens of those countries didn’t prevent public anger or major challenges to authority.</p>
<p>Brief comparisons between the Gulf monarchies and other oil-producing countries in the region reveal other common ground besides oil, such as culture and religion. Yet their respective trajectories since the 1950s — Gulf monarchies modernized quickly, while other oil-exporting countries (for example <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14546763">Iraq</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13755445">Libya</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14118856">Algeria</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14542438">Iran</a>) have undergone political crises, coups and even regime change. That’s only added to the sense that Gulf monarchies and other oil-producing countries in the region are heading in different directions. </p>
<p>So oil alone doesn’t explain the longevity of the Gulf monarchies. Other factors help explain their success.</p>
<h2>Monarchies accepted in Gulf region</h2>
<p>First and foremost is whether people in the Gulf region see monarchy as a legitimate form of government. In Western political thought, elections represent one of the key benchmarks for judging the legitimacy of government. This is the foundation of participatory democracy. </p>
<p>By this token, only leaders from presidential republics pass muster in terms of Western legitimacy. After all, these countries hold regular presidential elections. </p>
<p>But are those elections themselves legitimate?</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man gestures in a dark suit and red tie gestures while speaking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355428/original/file-20200830-24-yu02ml.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elliott Abrams, now the State Department Special Representative for Venezuela, speaks recently on Capitol Hill in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring, Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/rid-ding-syria-of-a-despot/2011/03/25/AFSRRVYB_story.html">wrote that</a> “Arab monarchies … are more legitimate than the false republics.” This assessment raises two critical issues.</p>
<p>The first is the reliability of elections in the Gulf. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/syria-election-vote-for-assad-or-else">Presidential elections in Middle Eastern republics</a> have often <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/20/why-irans-rigged-elections-matter/">been fraudulent</a>. It would make a mockery of democracy to consider these elections proof of legitimacy.</p>
<p>The second concerns the compatibility between society and its political institutions. This is one of the pillars of stability in any society. Hereditary monarchies like the ones in the Gulf aren’t a novelty for the native cultures of the region. These monarchies therefore derive legitimacy from the fit between their royal institutions and the cultural norms of their people. This is a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/#:%7E:text=According%20to%20Weber%2C%20that%20a,virtue%20of%20which%20persons%20exercising">traditional form of political legitimacy</a>.</p>
<p>With their emphasis on tradition, hierarchy, loyalties and social alliances, monarchies are accepted by many of the cultures of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21534764.2014.971647">the Arabian Peninsula</a>. The Gulf monarchies were borne out of their own socio-cultural heritages, and this gives them more legitimacy.</p>
<h2>Ruling at a distance</h2>
<p>This legitimacy however sets certain limits on executive authority and places demands on the monarchs, who are expected to be arbiters between competing interests — benevolent stabilizers, so to speak. In fact, problems have arisen when monarchs fail to project this image or perform this role. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in mid-sentence." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355673/original/file-20200901-16-6iznls.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is seen in this May 2017 photo in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An example is <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/25/nine-years-after-bahrains-uprising-its-human-rights-crisis-has-only-worsened">Bahrain’s mass protests in 2011</a>, when many citizens felt their king showed little commitment to the principles of compromise and moderation that had largely characterized his predecessors’ reign.</p>
<p>The arbiter status gives the monarchs respect and authority, which enables them to rule at distance.</p>
<p>This has helped them maintain power with less reliance on force than their non-monarchy neighbours, which base their claims for legitimacy on political ideology like nationalism and independence. More often than not, these ideologies don’t resonate with people. This poses a major challenge to their ability to maintain power, so the republics rely more on force and security to maintain power. </p>
<p>This best expresses itself in Syria, where <a href="http://www.understandingwar.org/report/assad-regime">the Al-Assad regime</a> has ruled for decades through a network of overlapping security agencies to enforce questionable legitimacy.</p>
<p>That’s why the regional republics <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/kings-for-all-seasons-how-the-middle-easts-monarchies-survived-the-arab-spring/">were hit harder by the Arab Spring</a>. Popular uprisings there were fuelled by greater discontent.</p>
<h2>Creating stability</h2>
<p>This has spared the Gulf monarchies from frequent legitimacy crises and allowed them to divert resources to other aspects of governance, like building <a href="https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5g50071k&chunk.id=d0e3492&toc.depth=100&toc.id=0&brand=ucpress&query=qatar">state capacity</a>. This refers to the ability of governments to employ administrative and technical processes, rather than force, to address societal challenges and create stability.</p>
<p>State capacity is bound with a country’s investment in education and human capital, which in turn create a capacity for informed decision-making. This is evident in the volume of publications by Gulf universities. Despite the relative youth of universities in Gulf monarchy states — most of them were founded in the mid-1970s — they outperform their counterparts in Arab republics in terms of quantity of publications.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A table shows the number of published documents among Gulf State universities." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355550/original/file-20200831-18-1op0bgv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Number of published documents from Clarivate Analytics Web of ScienceTM: InCites Dataset (Retrieved August 2020)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The future success of the Gulf monarchies probably hinges on further investment in education. </p>
<p>Doing so will enhance the quantity and quality of intellectual activity and produce citizens who can share power, steer economies in response to societal and technological challenges and guarantee long-term stability.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edmund Adam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gulf monarchies emerged from the Arab Spring relatively unscathed, while some Middle East republics were devastated by civil war. Here’s how they managed — and how education may have played a part.Edmund Adam, PhD candidate of Higher Education (Comparative, International and Development Education) at OISE, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1421872020-07-07T15:41:33Z2020-07-07T15:41:33ZAusterity in the Gulf states: why it’s alarming for women’s progress<p>Citizens of Saudi Arabia are having to get used to something that has long been an unpleasant fact of life in most parts of the world. On July 1, the kingdom <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/vat-and-customs-duty-increases-saudi-arabia-implications-investment-kingdom">tripled the VAT</a> levied on consumer goods and services from 5% to 15%. There were <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/saudi-spending-soared-ahead-of-vat-but-triple-whammy-awaits-economy.html">reports of frantic stockpiling</a> ahead of the change as consumers put coronavirus fears to one side to buy while prices were low. </p>
<p>Besides VAT, the Saudis are implementing <a href="https://www.okaz.com.sa/english/na/1599241">an austerity package</a> that includes cuts to people’s living allowances and to national spending plans to develop the country. The kingdom is partly <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52612785">attributing these measures</a> to the <a href="https://www.arabianbusiness.com/video/447007-business-impact-saudi-arabias-new-15-vat-explained">COVID-19 effect</a> on oil prices, <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-american-shale-oil-go-bust-136988">which crashed</a> below zero in April. The oil price has since recovered somewhat, though <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cmjpj223708t/oil">at circa US$40</a> (£32) per barrel, is still well below what the kingdom is used to.</p>
<p>Together with the economic effects of coronavirus restrictions, this has been putting severe pressure on the Saudis and their petroleum-rich neighbours in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. The IMF <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-economy-imf/gulf-economies-to-shrink-by-7-6-this-year-imf-says-idUSKBN2411RS">recently predicted</a> that the GCC economies would contract nearly 8% in 2020 – a steep downgrade from the 3% decline it forecast in April. </p>
<p>All the same, there is more to the Saudi belt-tightening than the pandemic. On VAT, for instance, the whole GCC bloc <a href="https://blog.taxamo.com/insights/gcc-vat-update2">reached an agreement</a> in 2016 to <a href="https://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/tax/me-tax-legal-news/2017/unified-agreement-vat-across-gcc-region-published-official-ksa-gazette.html">introduce VAT</a> for the first time at 5% across the board. The Saudis and UAE <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b1742920-efd0-11e7-b220-857e26d1aca4">duly did so</a> in 2018, followed <a href="https://www.unitedcashback.com/blog/bahrain-introduces-vat/">by Bahrain</a> a year later. Oman, Kuwait and Qatar have yet to impose this tax on their populations, but <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/1673046/business-economy">the question is “when”</a> rather than “whether” they will follow suit. </p>
<h2>Visions from the desert</h2>
<p>It has long been obvious to the GCC nations that their existence as <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/df77a3f0/krane-subsidies-pomeps.pdf">“rentier” states</a> that rely on massive natural resources to subsidise goods and services for their populations cannot continue. Petroleum prices are low and unstable, and renewable technologies are reducing global demand for fossil-fuel products. </p>
<p>For years, these countries have been trying to increase their tax revenue and cut public expenditure while <a href="https://www.bakerinstitute.org/media/files/files/a4c7078d/CES-pub-QLC_GCC-061317.pdf">diversifying away</a> <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55252/?from_serp=1">from petroleum</a> into everything from alternative energy to petrochemicals to construction. They do this through national “vision” plans such as <a href="https://vision2030.gov.sa/en">Saudi Vision 2030</a>, which <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thebakersinstitute/2020/05/13/the-new-saudi-arabia-where-taxes-triple-and-benefits-get-cut/">put the emphasis</a> on private-sector growth and developing the country’s people. </p>
<p>Diversification is supposed to help improve the public finances, yet it has been a victim of the Saudi cutbacks. The kingdom has made a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/saudi-arabia-vision-2030-plan-cut-by-8-billion-okaz-reports?sref=Q77DYrNe">US$8 billion budget cut</a> to Vision 2030, which will involve scaling back plans such as a futuristic city <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neom-what-we-know-saudi-arabia-500bn-mega-city-2019-9?r=US&IR=T#:%7E:text=It's%20called%20Neom%2C%20a%20planned,phase%20one%20is%20nearing%20completion.">known as Neom</a> and a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2018/12/26/saudi-arabia-unveils-plans-to-create-massive-red-sea-wellness-destinations/#1d5d46d35dfb">massive tourism development</a> on the Red Sea. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N53DzL3_BHA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>This will jeopardise the success of the whole Saudi policy of economic diversification, and risks being repeated with cuts to “vision” plans across the region. Economic stimulus packages <a href="https://www.fitchratings.com/research/sovereigns/oil-production-cut-deepens-gcc-fiscal-deficit-hinders-growth-12-05-2020">were announced</a> in every GCC country in light of the fall in oil prices, but cuts in public spending will probably outweigh them. Compared to a projected Saudi budget cut of 12%, Oman is for instance cutting 10%, while Bahrain is seeking 30% in cuts. </p>
<h2>Gulf countries and women</h2>
<p>Not only is this bad news for long-term economic prospects, it raises serious development concerns with respect to women. I <a href="https://www.academia.edu/38556059/EMPOWERING_WOMEN_HOW_SHOULD_THE_OMANI_STATE_CONTINUE_SUPPORTING_WOMEN_WORKING_IN_ITS_HANDICRAFTS_INDUSTRIES">did a study</a> of Omani women in the context of Oman’s <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/xe/Documents/About-Deloitte/mepovdocuments/mepov12/dtme_mepov12_Oman2020vision.pdf">Vision 2020</a> (since superseded by <a href="https://www.2040.om/en/">Vision 2040</a>). It was clear that these visions are part of a social contract, in which the sultanate retains power in exchange for providing the population of nearly 5 million with various kinds of support. </p>
<p>Particularly for women of low-income and minimal-education backgrounds, the state has been a major catalyst for their personal and professional development. It has provided them with education, training and employment programmes aimed at helping them to participate in the economy. </p>
<p>Likewise, there have been numerous initiatives to help women across the region in recent years. In UAE and Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/uae/government/private-sector-must-do-more-to-increase-gender-equality-in-the-uae-says-sheikha-manal-bint-mohammed-1.979872#3">legislation was introduced</a> in 2018 and 2019 aiming to remove gender-based discrimination in the workplace. The Saudis’ decision to lift the ban on women driving in 2018 was not only a win for women’s rights but also improved women’s access to workplaces among other gains. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346089/original/file-20200707-30-12teov3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The paradox continues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/arabic-woman-typing-on-computer-searching-695113861">Kdonmuang</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, the Gulf continues to suffer from an “education and employment paradox”, where women are very well educated but <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/530451467995640868/main-report">play a very limited role</a> in the workforce. The daily reality for women is that they still have to navigate entrenched structures of patriarchy and discrimination that devalue their work. More progressive laws do not guarantee better outcomes for women on their own. The Gulf economies are in fact <a href="https://agsiw.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Young_Womens-Labor_ONLINE-2.pdf">more undermined</a> by low female participation in the workplace than any other region in the world. </p>
<p>The World Bank has pressed these nations to keep improving in this regard, for instance <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/09/29/why-supporting-womens-economic-inclusion-is-vital-for-the-gcc">calling on them</a> to make it easier for women to launch businesses. As shown in my <a href="https://www.academia.edu/38556059/EMPOWERING_WOMEN_HOW_SHOULD_THE_OMANI_STATE_CONTINUE_SUPPORTING_WOMEN_WORKING_IN_ITS_HANDICRAFTS_INDUSTRIES">Oman study</a>, barriers can be financial, such as not having enough money to get a business off the ground; and social, such as not having adequate social networks to spread the word and build professional contacts. </p>
<p>In sum, opportunities for women <a href="https://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/women-gulf-countries-perceptions-and-reality">have been rapidly expanding</a> in the Gulf countries in recent years as their rights increase and these economies diversify beyond petroleum to create a wider range of jobs for both men and women. This has been an exciting shift and raises much hope for the future, but it is under threat as the region’s petroleum wealth declines and governments reduce spending. </p>
<p>We can’t assume that women will continue to enjoy greater economic inclusion in the years to come. They will continue to rely on support from the state to drive this agenda forward, at least for a while. This must be protected from austerity programmes, and instead needs more investment both in the private and public sector to enable women – in expanding their capabilities and building their experience, knowledge and skills – to participate effectively alongside men in the economy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Humaira Hansrod has received funding from a United States Fulbright Research fellowship grant to conduct research in Oman.</span></em></p>Gulf states have given women great education, but they are still very limited participants in the workplace.Humaira Hansrod, Researcher in International Development, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1366312020-04-21T13:11:44Z2020-04-21T13:11:44ZGulf states use coronavirus threat to tighten authoritarian controls and surveillance<p>Governments across the Middle East have moved to upgrade their surveillance capabilities under the banner of combatting COVID-19, the disease linked to the new coronavirus.</p>
<p>Overtly <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Political_Military_Relations_and_the_Sta.html?id=Ac3cAAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y">repressive policies</a> have been commonplace across the Middle East for years, notably in Egypt, Iraq and Syria, where violent measures have been taken to control populations. </p>
<p>As a result of technological advances, an increase in political engagement and changes of leadership, the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – have also <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/10arabworld.pdf">upgraded their form of authoritarianism</a> in recent years. This has seen policies of partial economic liberalisation and market-based reforms used to obscure an increase in repression and surveillance, for example by containing the work of civil society groups. </p>
<p>Following the pattern in which authoritarian states tend to exploit common threats, some of the GCC states are now manipulating the current pandemic to enhance their social power and control – as I’ve explored in a recent <a href="https://pomeps.org/authoritarian-exploitation-of-covid-19-in-the-gcc">article</a> as part of a contribution for the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University. </p>
<h2>New controls</h2>
<p>In Dubai, nationwide curfews have been put in place and enforced by the <a href="http://www.dxbpermit.gov.ae/">security services</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/16/countries-in-the-middle-east-are-using-ai-to-fight-coronavirus.html">surveillance</a>. Authorities in the UAE have also introduced criminal <a href="https://gulfnews.com/uae/crime/covid-19-temporary-imprisonment-for-spreading-rumours-in-uae-1.1585722668466">penalties</a> for the dissemination of information about the virus deemed to be false. Meanwhile, Bahrain introduced <a href="https://www.thenational.ae/world/gcc/coronavirus-bahrain-to-use-electronic-tags-for-people-in-quarantine-1.1001903">electronic tags</a> for patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. In Saudi Arabia, people have been arrested for <a href="https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/covid-19-34-curfew-violators-nabbed-in-saudi-arabia-1.1587299810053">violating strict curfew laws</a>. </p>
<p>Beijing’s recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-52321529">admission</a> that more people had died than originally reported in Wuhan, the original epicentre of the pandemic, shows the fragile nature of information and truth within authoritarian states. Likewise, it’s difficult to assess the scale of who has been affected so far across the GCC. According to official government statistics as <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">of April 21</a>, there were 10,484 reported cases in Saudi Arabia and 103 deaths from COVID-19. The UAE had reported 7,265 cases and 43 deaths, Qatar 6,105 ases and nine deaths and Kuwait 2,080 cases and 11 deaths.</p>
<p>China’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-coronavirus-cover-up-how-censorship-and-propaganda-obstructed-the-truth-133095">handling of its own early COVID-19 whistleblowers</a> showed how authoritarian states often react promptly to the dissemination of news which could undermine their authority. Of course, the curtailing of “fake news” during this time is important to prevent hysteria and panic. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/01/matthew-hedges-uae-held-me-spy-west-complicit/581200/">from my own experience</a> of being forcibly detained for six months and falsely accused of spying charges in the UAE, I know full well how these laws can be abused and twisted for ulterior purposes. The real test will be to see if all of these preventative laws are relaxed once the pandemic is under control.</p>
<p>The inherent weaknesses of GCC states are also being further exposed through this pandemic. GCC citizens only inadvertently hold the power of accountability over their monarchies, due to the lack of formal political mechanisms that generate and provide legitimacy in democracies. In essence, the monarchs hold power until they don’t.</p>
<p>In response, Middle Eastern states have introduced programmes in recent years that emphasise cultural traditions in an attempt to further centralise power using key figures within their regime. A recent anti-corruption drive in Saudi Arabia, which climaxed with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/06/how-saudi-elite-became-five-star-prisoners-at-the-riyadh-ritz-carlton">Ritz-Carlton incident</a> in which more than 30 elite figures were detained in a luxury hotel, highlighted the ascendancy of Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince. </p>
<p>In the UAE, the security state has been intensified through the creation of <a href="https://u.ae/en/information-and-services/social-affairs/preserving-the-emirati-national-identity/initiatives-to-preserve-the-national-identity-of-the-uae/the-uae-national-service-law">conscription</a> programmes which emphasise national identity under the patronage of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. </p>
<h2>Biopolitics</h2>
<p>Central to the current messaging around COVID-19 is the heightened value of “purity” within the nation. This notion has been promoted through the prism of the family, with the region’s rulers extending the meaning to include the nation in an attempt to retain cohesiveness. In the current context, for example, only one member of a family is allowed to pick up food during the lockdown in some Gulf states, and there have been greater protections imposed for nationals than non-nationals, many of whom <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b4f3c258-7ec9-477c-92f7-5607203f77fc">have been deported</a>.</p>
<p>But this comes at a moment when the so-called purity of the family unit is under threat as dowry costs, marriages to foreigners and divorce rates are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/331436638_Tribe_and_Tribalism_The_Trojan_Horse_of_GCC_States_The_Anatomy_of_a_Crisis">all increasing across the GCC</a>. This has helped maintain a heightened significance of the family within GCC politics. As a result, issues such as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-women/saudi-promo-video-labels-feminism-atheism-homosexuality-as-extremist-ideas-idUSKBN1XL29Z">homosexuality</a>, marriage to foreigners and now even COVID-19 are seen as a threat which has the potential to dilute the national gene pool. </p>
<p>The GCC states are also capitalising on a new vein of conservative nationalism across the region that is highly personalised and driven by security concerns. An era of assertive foreign policy from Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha is now playing out as a matter of principle and survival. As a result, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have fortified their political and military engagements. Their closer ties with regional players such as Libya’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/suspected-military-supplies-libya-un-cargo">General Khalifa Haftar</a> and pro-government Yemeni <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/25/yemen-saudi-forces-torture-disappear-yemenis">forces</a> have helped keep these conflicts alive within a reduced footprint. </p>
<p>Back home, the GCC states have exploited the underlying threats of the virus to bolster their own survival strategies. In the past, authoritarian states such as the former Soviet Union often relied on crude illustrations of force alongside state propaganda. But the modern authoritarians in the GCC take a more co-optive route to manage their populations. They have been able to enact policies which undermine civil liberties, perpetuating their current political designs and generating no protest from their populations. So it’s crucial to understand how these practices are maintained, why they have the population’s consent, and upon what basis they will continue to be applied.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Hedges does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council have exploited the underlying threats of the virus to bolster their own survival strategies.Matthew Hedges, Doctoral Research Candidate in the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1308202020-01-30T17:23:08Z2020-01-30T17:23:08ZThe impact of Brexit on relations between the UK and Gulf countries<p>On January 31, the United Kingdom will cease to be a member of the European Union and regain its status as an “independent” trading partner. Over the course of 2019, the country ramped up its efforts to sign up trading partners and was able to establish 20 bilateral “continuity” agreements covering <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47213842">50 countries or territories</a>. While many regions in the world are covered, a notable exception are nations belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which regroups Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.</p>
<p>The UK has historically been a major partner and ally to the GCC countries in the economic, diplomatic and defence spheres. What will be the impact of the Brexit on the UK-GCC relations? Will Britain’s new status affect its foreign policy and its defence and security cooperation with GCC countries? Will trade and mutual investments suffer from Brexit?</p>
<h2>A long history of treaties</h2>
<p>British military and diplomatic cooperation with the region stretches back 200 years. A series of treaties were signed between Great Britain and the sheikhs and leaders ruling current-day GCC countries resulting in mutual benefits for all signatory parties. The most famous are the <a href="https://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/research/online-exhibitions/an-enduring-relationship-a-history-of-frienship-between-the-royal-air-force-and-the-royal-air-force-of-oman/a-history-of-oman.aspx">1798 treaty</a> with Oman, the <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/110431/CIRSOccasionalPaper4JamesOnley2009.pdf">1820 maritime treaty</a> with the UAE and later Bahrain, the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639145">1915 Darin British-Saudi treaty</a> and the <a href="https://www.qdl.qa/en/archive/81055/vdc_100000000648.0x000180">1916 Anglo-Qatari treaty</a>.</p>
<p>Due to the frequent conflicts between Gulf countries, their rulers mainly sought diplomatic, naval and military <a href="https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/110431/CIRSOccasionalPaper4JamesOnley2009.pdf">interventions by the British crown</a>. At the time the relations could best be described as a tandem of protector (ruler) and protégé (protectorate). However, Britain’s role was far more important, as it helped carve out the current geographical borders and granted independence to those nations.</p>
<h2>Boosting Britain’s presence</h2>
<p>In a post-Brexit world, Britain will seek to increase its regional influence based on three interrelated drivers: the protection of its national interests, providing security guarantees to its GCC partners and a greater diplomatic involvement to solve regional conflicts.</p>
<p>The UK’s influence has always been strong within the GCC ruling elite, in particular because many are graduates of Britain’s military academies. King Hamad of Bahrain, Mohamed Bin Zayed of the UAE, Sheikh Tamim of Qatar and Sultan Qaboos of Oman are all graduates of <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/lord-of-the-gulf-why-britain-aims-to-restore-its-dominance-in-the-gulf-22002">Sandhurst’s Officer Program</a>. With Britain providing them with security guarantees, they in turn make sure to look after British business and commercial interests in the Gulf region. Given the importance for the UK of protecting its own energy security – the country imports <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/08/qatar-crisis-highlights-rising-uk-energy-reliance-on-imports">one-third of its gas from Qatar</a> alone – British firms are deeply involved in the region’s energy business. </p>
<p>London’s diplomacy is also needed in a broad range of issues in the permanently turbulent region, including Iran’s nuclear deal, Arab-Iranian tensions, the Yemeni conflict and Qatar’s conflict with its neighbours. To strengthen its military presence, the UK has been establishing regional military bases – <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-bahrain-military-base-juffair-royal-navy-mina-salman-middle-east-hms-queen-elizabeth-a8291486.html">Bahrein in 2018</a> and <a href="https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/uk-secures-naval-base-in-oman">Oman in 2019</a>.</p>
<p>By committing its military resources to help assure the security of GCC countries, the UK has managed to keep its position as a leading arms provider. In 2018, British defence exports rose to a record <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/uk-reclaims-place-as-worlds-second-largest-arms-exporter">14 billion pounds</a>, with sales to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Middle Eastern nations accounting for nearly 80%.</p>
<h2>Trade and mutual investment</h2>
<p>The potential cost to the UK’s economic performance and influence from leaving the European Union has made Britain’s relations with Gulf countries more important. The UK’s trade volume with the GCC in 2016 was <a href="https://www.omfif.org/2018/04/lowering-barriers-to-uk-gcc-trade/">US$44.5 billion, a jump from the $19.1 billion in 2010</a>. Britain has been conducting a diplomatic campaign stressing the importance of the GCC to the UK external trade. London already approached GCC nations for a free trade deal, but an agreement has yet to be reached. According to the UAE economy minister, such an agreement could take <a href="https://middle-east-online.com/en/britain-seeks-post-brexit-trade-pact-gcc">years to be concluded</a>.</p>
<p>However, there are no signs that commercial relations should suffer, and investment plans such as Saudi Arabia’s <a href="https://vision2030.gov.sa/en">Vision 2030</a>, Qatar’s <a href="https://www.gco.gov.qa/fr/propos-du-qatar/plan-qatar-national-vision-2030/">National Vision 2030</a> and Kuwait’s <a href="https://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/kuwait-vision-2035-is-a-promising-future-strategy/">Vision 2035</a> could provide an excellent platform for British know-how. In 2018 the UK and Saudi Arabia reached a <a href="https://www.arabnews.com/node/1261706/business-economy">deal valued at 65 billion pounds </a> of trade and investment. Other recent signs are similarly positive:</p>
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<li><p><strong>The UAE</strong>: The largest trade partner of the UK within the GCC, <a href="https://middle-east-online.com/en/britain-seeks-post-brexit-trade-pact-gcc">trade between the two totalled 17.5 billion British pounds in 2017</a>. By 2020, the UK government wants it to reach 25 billion pounds.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Qatar</strong>: A <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/liam-fox-qatar-is-natural-trade-partner-for-the-uk">bilateral trade came to 5.3 billion pounds in 2018</a>, and around 4,500 UK businesses exported goods to Qatar, with around 500 importing. Qatar provides a third of Britain’s gas needs. Doha has already <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/997419/brexit-news-qatar-doha-investment">invested around 3 billion pounds in infrastructure projects and real estate between 2017 and 2018</a> as part of a larger pledge (5 billion pounds over 36 months)</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Kuwait</strong>: The <a href="https://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/trade-exchange-with-kuwait-hit-4-billion-in-2018-british-envoy/">trade exchange reached US$4 billion</a> in 2018 increasing by up to 20% in two years. The Kuwait investment authority office in London announced that they will continue their works after Brexit, as <a href="https://www.arabisklondon.com/Brexit-Will-not-Affect-the-Kuwaiti-Investments-at-UK/">the direct impact on their investments is not notable</a>. After the 2016 referendum, the authority diversified its investments (to other economies) while its investments in Britain amount to only 30%, equivalent to US$180 billion.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Oman</strong>: Trade between the UK and Oman rose 90% to around 2.8 billion pounds in 2018, compared to 2016.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Bahrein</strong>: Bilateral trade reached about <a href="https://bahrainedb.com/latest-news/bahrains-trade-with-britain-reaches-1-33bln-2/">1.1 billion pounds</a> (2018-March 2019 (up 9% from the previous year).</p></li>
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<h2>Reciprocal dependence</h2>
<p>Both the UK and GCC need each other. The UK seeks to replace the trade losses it is expecting after Brexit by expanding in other markets, and the GCC countries want to be assured of the UK’s continued military and diplomatic support. Their security and diplomatic cooperation are also essential in preserving both sides’ interests in the whole of the Middle East.</p>
<p>Despite the lack of bilateral agreements between the UK and Gulf nations, Brexit’s impact on their relations should be minimal. Indeed, in some spheres it could provide an opportunity for strengthening already-close cooperation. London realises that competition for GCC influence and markets with the United States, China, Russia and its former partners in the EU will be tough. However, its long history and expertise in the Middle East will no doubt help it to play an essential role in the region.</p>
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<p><em>This article was written with Ahmad Ismail, a Paris-based research consultant specialising in political-economic analysis and geopolitics.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hassan Obeid travaille à EBS Paris /INSEEC U </span></em></p>To ensure its energy security and influence in the Gulf region, the United Kingdom will likely deepen its relations with GCC nations in a post-Brexit world.Hassan Obeid, Professor of Finance, European Business School, EBS Paris Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1105802019-01-30T19:12:09Z2019-01-30T19:12:09ZHakeem Al-Araibi’s case is a test of world soccer’s human rights credentials. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256259/original/file-20190130-108355-orrsfk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hakeem Al-Araibi's case has become a crucial test of world football's commitment to human rights.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA Diego Azubel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hakeem Al-Araibi is a refugee from Bahrain who plays semi-professional soccer in Melbourne for Pascoe Vale. He is a former member of the Bahraini national football team. He is <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-an-interpol-red-notice-and-how-does-it-work-110688">currently detained in Thailand</a>, the subject of an extradition request by Bahrain. His extradition to that country would breach his human rights against refoulement (the forcible return of refugees) and torture.</p>
<p>Al-Araibi’s case has become a crucial test of world football’s commitment to human rights. Is this commitment real, or is it a public relations statement tossed aside when the going gets tough?</p>
<p>In 2012, Al-Araibi was allegedly one of several athletes who were <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-12/bahraini-refugee-soccer-player-hakeem-al-araibis-detention/10709410">detained and tortured</a> after pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. Al-Araibi fled Bahrain in 2014, and was accepted as a refugee by Australia in 2017.</p>
<p>In 2014, he was convicted in absentia of vandalising a police station in 2012, for which he was given a sentence of ten years. This was despite an excellent alibi; he was playing in a televised football match at the time of the alleged crime. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-an-interpol-red-notice-and-how-does-it-work-110688">Explainer: what is an Interpol red notice and how does it work?</a>
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<p>In 2016, <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2016/2/25/bahraini-footballer-accuses-sheikh-salman-of-knowing-about-torture">Al-Araibi spoke out against Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa</a>, who was then running for president of FIFA. Al-Araibi claimed Salman should be investigated for possible involvement in the mass torture of athletes four years earlier. Salman, a member of Bahrain’s ruling royal family, lost his bid for the FIFA presidency. He is and has been the president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) since 2013, and a FIFA vice-president.</p>
<p>In late November 2018, Al-Araibi travelled from Australia with his wife for a holiday in Thailand. There he was detained under an <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-an-interpol-red-notice-and-how-does-it-work-110688">Interpol red notice</a> issued pursuant to a request from Bahrain. This notice breached <a href="https://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/INTERPOL-TEXT-ON-REFUGEE-POLICY.pdf">Interpol’s own rules</a> as it was issued against a refugee at the request of the country he had fled.</p>
<p>Al-Araibi has since languished in detention in Thailand for over 60 days. If he is sent back to Bahrain, Thailand will <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/refoulement/"><em>refouler</em> a refugee</a> – that is, return him to the state from which he fled persecution, a grave breach of human rights. There are legitimate fears that he <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/detained-melbourne-soccer-player-faces-torture-in-bahrain/10576056">faces torture</a> upon return to Bahrain. His situation has become more dangerous as Bahrain has now <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-29/bahrain-files-extradition-request-for-hakeem-alaraibi/10760436">formally requested his extradition</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-intervenes-in-hakeem-al-araibi-case-20190129-p50ubd.html">Australian government</a> is seeking his safe return from Thailand. Former Socceroos captain Craig Foster has been tireless in leading the calls for Al-Araibi’s release and is supported by the <a href="https://www.uniglobalunion.org/news/world-players-and-fifa-call-urgent-solution-al-araibis-unjust-detention">World Players Association</a> and the <a href="https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11996/11619661/ioc-echoes-fifas-call-for-hakeem-al-araibi-to-be-released">International Olympic Committee</a>. FIFPro is also an organisation that has done a lot. But what of world soccer?</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256261/original/file-20190130-108338-1wbghty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Former Socceroos captain Craig Foster arrives at FIFA headquarters in Switzerland to seek the release of refugee football player Hakeem Al-Araibi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Ennio Leanza</span></span>
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<p>FIFA, which runs world soccer, has recently <a href="https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11996/11619661/ioc-echoes-fifas-call-for-hakeem-al-araibi-to-be-released">strengthened its human rights policy</a>. This is part of its efforts to rehabilitate itself after the disgraceful reputation it garnered under the (former) presidency of <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2526578">Sepp Blatter</a>. Its human rights policy filters down to office-holders in its regional confederations, including the AFC. Under its own policy and statutes (see <a href="https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/the-fifa-statutes-2018.pdf?cloudid=whhncbdzio03cuhmwfxa">Articles 3 and 4</a>), it has a duty to step in and help Al-Araibi.</p>
<p>Hakeem’s predicament arises from football. His high profile from football is likely why he was tortured in the first place. His outspokenness against Sheikh Salman may be why Bahrain is relentlessly pursuing what looks like a bogus charge and conviction. </p>
<p>This matter is most certainly FIFA’s business. And even more clearly it is the business of the AFC.</p>
<p>FIFA took <a href="https://footballtoday.news/features/fifa-calls-on-thai-government-to-let-hakeem-al-araibi-go">45 days</a> to call for Al-Araibi’s safe return to Australia. The AFC took 63 days, finally calling for Al-Araibi’s release on <a href="http://www.the-afc.com/media/afc-appeals-for-hakeem-al-araibi-s-urgent-release">January 29</a>. </p>
<p>Within the AFC, the matter is being managed by its senior vice-president, Praful Patel, with Sheikh Salman being deemed to have a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/hakeem-al-araibis-detention-not-sheikh-salmans-responsibility-afc-says">conflict of interest</a> in matters concerning AFC’s Western Zone, which includes Bahrain.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/qatar-saga-shows-why-fifa-should-return-football-to-the-fans-27549">Qatar saga shows why FIFA should return football to the fans</a>
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<p>The admission of such a large conflict of interest must raise questions over the <a href="https://www.scmp.com/sport/football/article/2183793/asia-football-chief-sheikh-salman-should-resign-say-activists-afc">viability of Salman’s position</a>, aside from the implication of his involvement in Al-Araibi’s plight. How can the AFC continue with a president who must eschew involvement in one of only five zones?</p>
<p>The slowness of the FIFA-AFC reaction raises doubts over the robustness with which world soccer is prepared to address human rights issues. Forty-five days is a long time for a person to sit in detention contemplating torture. But … better late than never, perhaps. </p>
<p>Is there more that world soccer can do? In the bad old days of Blatter, FIFA claimed it was <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/sport/football/2014/03/fifa-powerless-over-qatar-labour-rights-2014321171311619626.html">powerless</a> to address soccer-related abuses, such as those related to labour rights in erecting stadiums in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup.</p>
<p>Yet that dainty approach to state sovereignty didn’t apply to its intervention in Brazil <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-16624823">to ensure the sale of beer in its stadiums</a>, which necessitated a change in Brazilian law for the 2014 World Cup, in aid of the interest of its sponsor Budweiser. In 2011, FIFA threatened to <a href="http://www.espn.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/7362136/fifa-threatens-ban-switzerland-fc-sion-case">suspend Switzerland</a> from world football after one of its local teams sought to challenge FIFA decisions in Swiss courts. FIFA <a href="https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/bitstream/2134/18622/5/Protecting%20Private%20Transnational%20Authority_final_LUPIN_Version.pdf">has not flinched</a> in suspending national football associations that have been deemed to breach FIFA codes, and forcing concessions from national governments. </p>
<p>FIFA has considerable power at its disposal and is capable of flexing its muscle much further in the Al-Araibi case. </p>
<p>Al-Araibi is in arbitrary detention in Thailand, pursuant to an Interpol red notice improperly issued and since cancelled. He is facing some of the most serious human rights breaches, refoulement and torture. The situation calls for urgent measures, including the threat of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/jan/27/hakeem-al-araibi-bahrain-detention-thailand-extradition-order-fifa-ioc">sporting sanctions</a> against Thailand and Bahrain if Al-Araibi is not released immediately. </p>
<p>If strong measures are not taken in such a clear-cut situation of human rights abuse, FIFA and the AFC will be exposed as lacking the courage of their much-trumpeted human rights convictions. The new human rights policy will be revealed as words devoid of any intended practical effect. </p>
<p>FIFA has shown it can act quickly and decisively for the commercial interests of Budweiser. Now it must show it can act for the human rights of one of its own. </p>
<p><strong>Addendum</strong>: It seems FIFA called for Hakeem’s return to Australia “as early as possible” in early December 2018 in communications with Football Federation Australia (FFA). The FFA called for Al-Araibi’s return to Australia on 10 December. FIFA did not issue its own media statement until early January.</p>
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<p><em>I would like to thank Francis Awaritefe for his assistance in providing materials for this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110580/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Joseph does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>FIFA can act quickly and decisively for its sponsors. Now it must act for the human rights of one of its footballers.Sarah Joseph, Professor, Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1106882019-01-30T01:18:17Z2019-01-30T01:18:17ZExplainer: what is an Interpol red notice and how does it work?<p>The arrest and detention of former Bahraini national, footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, has gained <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47035886">international attention</a>. Al-Araibi fled Bahrain in 2014 and was subsequently granted refugee status in Australia. He was arrested after travelling to Thailand on his honeymoon late last year, and has now spent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/24/please-help-me-refugee-footballer-hakeem-al-araibi-tells-of-his-thai-jail-ordeal">over 60 days inside Bangkok’s Remand Prison</a>. </p>
<p>Thai authorities arrested Al-Araibi on the basis of an <a href="https://www.interpol.int/">Interpol</a> red notice that Bahrain had requested. Despite the red notice now being withdrawn, Al-Araibi remains in jail and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/hakeem-al-araibi-bahrain-condemns-external-interference-as-it-files-extradition-papers">Bahrain has formally filed extradition documents</a>. <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/world/asia/i-pay-taxes-i-play-football-i-love-australia-hakeem-al-araibi-speaks-20190128-p50u6l.html">There are fears Al-Araibi may be jailed and tortured if extradited to Bahrain</a>. This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-intervenes-in-hakeem-al-araibi-case-20190129-p50ubd.html">has written to his Thai counterpart</a>, urging him to prevent Al-Araibi’s extradition and release him. </p>
<p>The footballer’s case raises important questions about how this arrest was able to take place. The case has also highlighted concerns about some states’ misuse of Interpol red notices to pursue refugees.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-australia-decides-who-is-a-genuine-refugee-72574">Explainer: how Australia decides who is a genuine refugee</a>
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<h2>What an Interpol red notice is (and is not)</h2>
<p>The most common misconception about Interpol red notices is that they are international arrest warrants. They are not. Interpol is <a href="https://www.interpol.int/About-INTERPOL/Overview">an international organisation of 194 member states</a> (including Australia) created to enhance worldwide police cooperation. It does not have the power itself to arrest or detain anybody. </p>
<p>Interpol does, however, coordinate an international notice system that allows police in member states to share critical information. Interpol issues (or publishes) red notices as part of this system. </p>
<p>A red notice is effectively a request by a member state for other states to help locate and arrest a person wanted in a criminal matter, so that person can be extradited. Red notices are an increasingly significant law enforcement tool, <a href="https://www.interpol.int/News-and-media/Publications2/Annual-reports2">with 13,048 issued in 2017</a>. </p>
<p>While Interpol publishes and disseminates red notices, it is the requesting country that’s actually seeking help to find a wanted person. It is also important to note that this is a voluntary system. No state is legally obliged to arrest somebody based on a red notice. Interpol recognises that “<a href="https://www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Notices/Red-Notices">each member country decides for itself what legal value to give a red notice within their borders</a>”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-are-interpol-red-notices-often-wrong-15377">FactCheck: are Interpol red notices often wrong?</a>
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<p>Certain criteria govern whether a red notice is published. Importantly, Interpol is strictly forbidden under its constitution from undertaking “<a href="https://www.interpol.int/About-INTERPOL/Legal-materials">any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character</a>”, and is meant to act in “<a href="https://www.interpol.int/About-INTERPOL/Legal-materials">the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>”. </p>
<p>In terms of the red notice system, this means Interpol should not publish notices that are politically motivated or violate obligations imposed under international human rights law. </p>
<h2>How about refugees?</h2>
<p>There has been growing concern about the potential misuse of red notices to target refugees. The case of Hakeem Al-Araibi is unfortunately not an isolated incident.</p>
<p>Recent high profile examples include the arrest and detention of <a href="https://www.fairtrials.org/case-study/petr-silaev">Russian activist Petr Silaev in Spain</a>, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/damanvir-kaur/paramjeet-singh-saini-fac_b_9144486.html">Indian refugee Paramjeet Singh Saini in Portugal</a> and <a href="https://www.alkarama.org/en/articles/interpol-withdraws-international-arrest-warrant-algeria-against-lawyer-rachid-mesli">Algerian human rights lawyer Rachid Mesli in Italy</a>. </p>
<p>Reforms have been introduced to address these concerns, <a href="https://www.fairtrials.org/wp-content/uploads/INTERPOL-TEXT-ON-REFUGEE-POLICY.pdf">including a new Interpol refugee policy in 2015</a>. In essence, this says that a red notice should not be issued against a refugee when it has been requested by the country from which the refugee initially fled.</p>
<p>Given this, Al-Araibi’s confirmed refugee status meant Interpol should have rejected Bahrain’s request for a red notice.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-triple-execution-in-bahrain-has-provoked-national-outrage-and-international-silence-71367">A triple execution in Bahrain has provoked national outrage – and international silence</a>
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<p>Clearly, the red notice against Al-Araibi did not comply with Interpol rules. This is reinforced by the fact that it was so quickly withdrawn. Of course, by then the damage had already been done, as Al-Araibi had already been arrested and detained. </p>
<p>The difficulty lies in how this refugee policy is applied. Interpol examines red notice requests for compliance before publication. But it does not automatically have access to refugee status decisions by member states, nor should it, given the sensitivity of that information. </p>
<p>There is also too often a disconnect at the national level between law enforcement and immigration agencies. What this means is that information about refugee status may not automatically or necessarily be shared with the national law enforcement officers dealing with red notices. </p>
<h2>What does this mean for Hakeem Al-Araibi and other refugees?</h2>
<p>Hakeem Al-Araibi’s case highlights significant flaws in this system. A red notice should never have been issued. But it is easy to see how this could occur. </p>
<p>Interpol would not necessarily have been aware of Al-Araibi’s refugee status. <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/actu-calls-for-an-inquiry-into-arrest-of-australian-footballer-hakeem-al-araibi">However, questions have been raised about the involvement of Australian authorities</a>, with confirmation that the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/outrageous-australia-notified-thailand-about-refugee-footballer-s-travel-plans-20181212-p50lry.html">Australian Federal Police advised Thai authorities of Al-Araibi’s scheduled arrival in Thailand</a>. This type of information is routinely shared under red notices and it is entirely possible that the relevant Australian officers did so without being alerted to Al-Araibi’s refugee status.</p>
<p>While it is easy to see how this could occur, it is critical to ensure it never happens again. At the very least, Australia should make sure someone’s refugee status is routinely checked before it shares any information related to a red notice. We should also be conducting proactive screening to make sure no-one who is granted refugee status in Australia is subject to a red notice. </p>
<h2>An important tool</h2>
<p>The red notice system is an important tool for facilitating international police cooperation. Similarly, Australia has a strong national interest in maintaining cooperative relationships with neighbouring law enforcement agencies.</p>
<p>However, Al-Araibi’s case highlights the life-threatening consequences that can result from the misuse of cooperative mechanisms like red notices. </p>
<p>Australia needs to do everything it can to bring Hakeem Al-Araibi home. And we must also immediately put in place safeguards to ensure it never happens again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lorraine Finlay is affiliated with the Liberal Party of Australia, being a former President of the Liberal Women's Council (WA).</span></em></p>Interpol red notices play an important part in international policing. Here’s how they work and how the system could be improved to safeguard human rights.Lorraine Finlay, Lecturer in Law, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/857842017-10-20T01:13:44Z2017-10-20T01:13:44ZWhy is Saudi Arabia suddenly so paranoid?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190836/original/file-20171018-32348-utma03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Oct. 5, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the past, Saudi Arabia depended upon its enormous oil wealth and the United States for its security. It used the former to buy friends and pay off enemies and potential enemies. It used the latter to guarantee its survival. With a few exceptions, Saudi Arabia did not involve itself directly in the affairs of its neighbors.</p>
<p>Over the course of the past decade, however, that has changed. Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html">Bahrain</a> and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/">Yemen</a>. It helped finance the 2013 coup d’état launched by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/20/saudi-arabia-coup-egypt">Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt</a>. It has supported insurgents in <a href="https://www.libyaobserver.ly/opinions/uae-saudi-arabia-aiding-libya-eastern-forces-blacklisting-qatar-alleged-support-other">Libya</a> and <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-wagner/saudi-arabias-dark-role-i_b_3402447.html">Syria</a> and put together <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/14/middleeast/islamic-coalition-isis-saudi-arabia/index.html">an international coalition purportedly to fight terrorism</a>. And it led the Gulf Cooperation Council’s campaign against its tiny neighbor, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/06/06/the-persian-gulf-crisis-over-qatar-explained/?utm_term=.a7b15b994b14">Qatar</a>. </p>
<p>Why the sudden change?</p>
<p>Based on recent developments, it is evident that Saudi Arabian officials assume that they can no longer depend on their traditional security safeguards of oil and U.S. might. They seem to imagine that the only guarantee for their security is their own muscular response.</p>
<p>As a historian of the modern Middle East who has researched and taught about <a href="http://www.history.ucla.edu/faculty/james-gelvin">the region for over 30 years</a>, I believe there are three causes for the shift in Saudi Arabia’s security stance: the Arab uprisings of 2010 and 2011, the policies of the Obama administration and the collapse of oil prices.</p>
<h2>A perceived threat</h2>
<p>Saudi Arabia looked at the Arab uprisings as <a href="http://www.pomeps.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/POMEPS_BriefBooklet5_SaudiArabia_web.pdf">a potential calamity</a>. The Saudis support the status quo in the region and Saudi-Western leadership there. The uprisings endangered not only Saudi Arabia’s authoritarian allies such as Egypt and Bahrain, but the regional order and the foundations of Saudi Arabia’s legitimacy as well. The uprisings also threatened to expand the realm of democratic and human rights in the region – something which the Saudi regime fears.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the Saudis feared the uprisings would open the way for the expansion of Iranian influence throughout the region. That led to the Saudi intervention into Yemen, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gulf-summit-iran/saudi-arabia-accuses-iran-of-meddling-ahead-of-summit-idUSBRE8BN07P20121224">where they believe the Iranians have meddled</a>. In reality, local grievances, not Iranian meddling, precipitated <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/yemen-6632">Yemen’s current civil war</a>. Saudi Arabia made the same accusation with regard to Bahrain, although a royal commission appointed by the king of Bahrain <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/23/no-iranian-role-found-in-bahrain-unrest/">failed to find any evidence of Iranian subversion there</a>.</p>
<p>Just as serious for the Saudis, the uprisings threatened to empower Muslim brotherhoods and Muslim-Brotherhood-style movements throughout the region. The Saudi royal family believes this movement provides a model for <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/114468/why-saudi-arabia-helping-crush-muslim-brotherhood">reconciling religion and politics</a> that competes with its own vision of the proper relationship between the two. While the brotherhoods have linked religion and politics, the Saudi royal family has sought to distance one from the other to prevent the emergence of potentially destabilizing Islamist movement. This has been the royal family’s survival strategy since 1932.</p>
<p>At the behest of Abdulaziz ibn Al Saud, the founder of the current Saudi state, Saudi religious scholars have emphasized the doctrine that <a href="https://www.al-islam.org/new-analysis-wahhabi-doctrines-muhammad-husayn-ibrahimi/absolute-obedience-ruler">Muslims should passively obey their leaders</a> so long as those leaders are also Muslim. That is still their position.</p>
<p>The Saudis were outraged by what they claimed was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/amid-the-arab-spring-a-us-saudi-split/2011/05/13/AFMy8Q4G_story.html?utm_term=.be211a547542">American support for the Arab uprisings</a>. While the American government was, in fact, ambivalent about the uprisings because friendly autocrats have furthered American interests in the region since World War II, the Saudis were outraged that the United States did not give its unconditional support to the authoritarian governments it had long supported.</p>
<h2>Saudi Arabia versus Obama</h2>
<p>This brings us to the second reason for Saudi paranoia and assertion in the region: the Middle East policy of the Obama administration.</p>
<p>Obama sought to reverse <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/">the fixation of his predecessor, George W. Bush, on the Middle East</a>. He believed that the United States should focus its attention on East Asia, where the global future will be determined, not on a region as conflict-prone and economically stagnant as the Middle East.</p>
<p>And so Obama was looking to reduce America’s commitments in the region and resolve or at least smooth over conflicts so that the United States could turn its attention elsewhere. This is one of the reasons why he signed the Iran nuclear deal and tried to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Most of all, he sought to have American allies take more responsibility for their own defense.</p>
<p>Obama’s grand strategy, however, made America’s traditional allies in the region fear abandonment. The Saudis found his comment that they would have to learn to “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/#5">share the neighborhood</a>” with Iran particularly horrifying.</p>
<h2>Saudi Arabia’s oil dependency</h2>
<p>The final reason for Saudi paranoia has to do with the collapse of oil prices. From June 2014 to April 2016, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/why-are-oil-prices-so-low/">oil prices dropped 70 percent</a> for a variety of reasons, including a glut in the market, alternative sources for fuel and conservation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/oil-prices-break-out-second-half.html">Most economists think the price of oil will rebound</a>, although not to peak levels. But this hasn’t prevented oil-producing states from following the advice of the International Monetary Fund to take steps to diversify their economies.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has been particularly receptive to IMF entreaties. In spring 2016, then-Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman unveiled a plan titled “<a href="http://vision2030.gov.sa/en">Vision 2030</a>.” “Vision 2030” is hardly innovative. It includes a list of the same tired free-market recommendations that have been applied internationally since the 1970s.</p>
<p>The plan calls for privatizing government assets, including education and 5 percent of the national oil company, Saudi Aramco; reducing and targeting subsidies on oil, electricity and water; introducing an income tax; and creating 450,000 new private sector jobs, among other proposals.</p>
<p>The odds that Saudi Arabia is capable of transforming its economy to become globally <a href="https://chronicle.fanack.com/saudi-arabia/economy/saudi-arabia-vision-2030/">competitive in 13 years are not high</a>. This would mean, among other things, discarding the most effective tool the Saudi government has to gain that population’s consent – buying it. When the Arab uprisings threatened to spread to Saudi Arabia, for example, the Saudi government distributed <a href="http://persiangulffund.com/saudi-arabia-distributes-130-billion/">US$130 billion worth of grants to its population to maintain their loyalty</a>. It would also mean ensuring a free flow of information in a country in which transparency on all levels of governance and commerce is rare. In 2017, Saudi Arabia <a href="https://rsf.org/en/ranking">ranked 168th out of 180 countries surveyed in terms of press freedom</a>. Finally, it would mean changing attitudes toward work in a country in which women make up only 22 percent of the workforce – compared to close to 40 percent globally – and foreigners literally do all the heavy lifting.</p>
<p>Muhammad bin Salman has already had to back away from some of the proposals outlined in “Vision 2030.” It is unlikely this vision will be <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/khairuldeen-al-makhzoomi/the-failure-of-saudi-intervention-in-yemen_b_8469744.html">any more successful than Saudi Arabia’s failed Yemen war</a>, for which the crown prince is also responsible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85784/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L. Gelvin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to foreign policy, Saudi Arabia has recently become far more aggressive. A historian of the modern Middle East sees three possible causes for the shift.James L. Gelvin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/796442017-06-19T20:13:04Z2017-06-19T20:13:04ZQatar’s conflict with its neighbours can easily set the Horn of Africa alight<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174315/original/file-20170618-28759-pezb6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Djibouti soldier along the border with Eritrea after conflict flared in 2008. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Omar Hassan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It began as a squabble between Arab allies, but the standoff between Qatar and its neighbours is threatening to engulf the Horn of Africa. When Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and the Maldives declared at the beginning of June that they were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/05/saudi-arabia-and-bahrain-break-diplomatic-ties-with-qatar-over-terrorism">severing diplomatic relations</a> with Qatar it appeared to be of interest mainly to the Arabian Peninsula – and the Gulf in particular. </p>
<p>The Saudis and their allies accused Qatar of backing international terrorism. The US, which has the Al Udeid air base in Qatar, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/05/world/middleeast/qatar-saudi-arabia-egypt-bahrain-united-arab-emirates.html?_r=0">looked askance</a>, but did little more than use its good offices to try to ensure that the war of words did not flare into an open conflict.</p>
<p>But the countries just across the Red Sea have found themselves dragged into the dispute. After prevaricating for some time, Eritrea, which had hitherto good relations with Qatar, fell into line with the Saudis and broke ties with Qatar. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article62713">statement</a> attributed to the Eritrean government declared limited support for the rupture with Qatar. Eritrea explained that the initiative taken by the Gulf nations </p>
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<p>is among many in the right direction that envisages full realisation of regional peace and stability. </p>
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<p>Matters might have ended there, but such are the ties between nations on both sides of the Red Sea that this was unlikely. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been <a href="http://untribune.com/un-report-uae-saudi-leasing-eritean-port-using-eritrean-land-sea-airspace-and-possibly-troops-in-yemen-battle/">using the Eritrean port</a> of Assab in their war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Egypt – which is part of the Saudi alliance – is also reported to have <a href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/News/2017/4/29/Egypt-to-build-naval-base-in-Eritreas-Nora-island">plans</a> to build a major base on an Eritrean island in the Red Sea. The Eritreans are alleged to have some 400 troops fighting against the Iranian backed Houthis. </p>
<p>In the circumstances, a rupture between the Saudi alliance and Qatar was highly likely to spread to the Horn. And this was exactly what took place. Qatar had been a <a href="http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Full_Report_1869.pdf">generous donor</a> to Eritrea. It had also played a key mediating role in Eritrea’s border <a href="http://dspace.africaportal.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/31056/1/SITREP150908.pdf?1">conflict</a> with Djibouti, which flared in April 2008. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/world/africa/25iht-eritrea.4.13193224.html?pagewanted=all">origins</a> of the disputed border lie buried in the sands of colonial history and would never be easily resolved.</p>
<h2>Qatar pull-out stokes tensions</h2>
<p>The fighting left a number of Djibouti troops as prisoners of war in Eritrea and Qatar did their best to resolve this issue by mediation. Indeed, so close were the ties that when UN monitors met the political advisor to the President of Eritrea, Yemane Gebreab, in January 2013 and enquired about the Djiboutian prisoners of war, he <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N13/361/92/PDF/N1336192.pdf?OpenElement">responded</a> that </p>
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<p>all matters concerning the resolution of the conflict with Djibouti could only be addressed through the mediation of Qatar, and that no other intermediary was necessary.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Qatar went further, deploying some 200 of its own troops along the Eritrea-Djibouti border in an attempt to reduce the tension. The Qatari peacekeeping force only supervised a small sector of the border near Ras Dumeira. It was therefore not in a position to observe or interdict cross-border movements further to the south, but its presence was symbolically important. </p>
<p>So when Qataris pulled their troops out on June 12th and 13th, there was something of a vacuum, which Eritrea is reported to have promptly filled. Djibouti <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-djibouti-eritrea-border-idUSKBN1971JR">accused</a> the Eritreans of moving their troops into the disputed territory. Djibouti’s Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf declared that his country’s military had gone into “alert”. </p>
<p>A senior Eritrean diplomat at the African Union <a href="https://apnews.com/243ba2f8ef5841a5a2eeeb3c9e6edccf?utm_content=bufferaf0de&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">said</a> the move came after Eritrea cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and his country sought no confrontation with Djibouti. </p>
<p>But a <a href="http://www.shabait.com/news/local-news/24188-press-statement">terse statement</a> from the Eritrean Ministry of Information issued days later described Qatar’s withdrawal as “hasty”. It said Eritrea had refrained from commenting because it was not privy to the action but would do so once it had all the information about the event.</p>
<p>The African Union, seldom swift to comment or intervene in any disputes effecting its members, finally made a move. Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairperson of the African Union Commission, tweeted that the AUC would send a delegation to Djibouti border to <a href="http://www.africanews.com/2017/06/17/au-deploys-fact-finding-mission-to-eritrea-djibouti-border-calls-for-calm/">monitor</a> developments and work with all parties.</p>
<h2>More uncertainty for The Horn</h2>
<p>These events appear to have fallen well for Ethiopia, which has been at loggerheads with Eritrea since their own border war of 1998-2000. While Eritrea and Djibouti are daggers drawn following the Qatari withdrawal, Ethiopia has refrained from taking sides between the Saudis and Qatar. Both parties have sent delegations to Addis Ababa, no doubt asking for <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/qatar-crisis-eritrea-saudi-arabia-625356">Ethiopian support</a>, but so far Ethiopia has sat on the fence.</p>
<p>Ethiopia recently announced that it would reveal a <a href="https://www.ezega.com/News/NewsDetails/4157/Ethiopia-to-Have-New-Policy-Direction-on-Eritrea-">new policy</a> towards Eritrea, but none has appeared to date. With its troublesome northern neighbour locked in a fresh controversy with Djibouti, Ethiopia may find it’s more likely to receive a sympathetic hearing for any initiative from the international community. </p>
<p>It will not be difficult, for instance, for Addis Ababa to portray Eritrea as a regional troublemaker, always willing to exploit a neighbour’s weakness. It should not be forgotten that since independence in 1993 Eritrea has been involved in conflicts with Yemen, Djibouti and Ethiopia - hardly a proud record.</p>
<p>The UN and the African Union are now engaged in trying to mediate between Eritrea and Djibouti. Meanwhile, the ongoing conflict in Yemen continues to have implications for the Horn, as the Saudis and UAE continue to use Eritrea as a rear base. The UAE is in fact seeking a further base in nearby <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-39051551/why-is-uae-building-a-military-base-in-somaliland">Somaliland</a>. </p>
<p>As ever, it’s difficult to predict how events will unfold, but sparks from Arabia can easily set the Horn alight.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Plaut is affiliated with the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London, the Royal African Society and Chatham House</span></em></p>Qatar withdrawing its troops has reignited tensions between Eritrea and Djibouti which the UN and African Union are trying to mediate. This comes as Eritrea is also embroiled in the Yemen civil war.Martin Plaut, Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/794802017-06-16T00:42:10Z2017-06-16T00:42:10ZCan tiny Qatar keep defying its powerful neighbors? It may be up to Washington<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174096/original/file-20170615-24943-1sjg23z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly all of Qatar's residents live in its capital, Doha.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Doha skyline via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent decision by half the nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and a few other countries to isolate fellow member Qatar came <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-05/saudi-led-alliance-cuts-qatar-ties-as-gulf-crisis-escalates">as a surprise to many</a> – though perhaps it shouldn’t have.</p>
<p>Essentially, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-have-other-gulf-states-cut-ties-with-qatar-78906">severed all ties</a> over <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/giorgio-cafiero/the-uae-and-qatar-wage-a-_b_8801602.html">Qatar’s positive opinion</a> about Iran and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/ap-explains-qatars-ties-with-iran-and-islamist-groups/2017/06/11/d8294df0-4ec9-11e7-b74e-0d2785d3083d_story.html?utm_term=.3678e572241f">support</a> for Islamist groups like Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Besides cutting those ties, <a href="http://www.gulf-insider.com/saudi-issues-qatar-list-10-demands-must-meet/">one of their demands</a> also included putting curbs on the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/aboutus/">Al-Jazeera</a> media network, which is based in Qatar’s capital of Doha and is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/al-jazeera-block-article-slamming-saudi-arabian-human-rights-record-a6779596.html">partially funded</a> by its ruling family.</p>
<p>The diplomatic and security ramifications have so far taken center stage, with most Western nations, including the U.S., and countries in the region calling for a negotiated resolution to avoid further escalation. Yet the dispute that led to the recent outburst has been lingering for years – and erupted in a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/03/will-gcc-survive-qatar-saudi-rivalry-201431864034267256.html">similar if smaller kerfuffle in 2014</a> – which begs the following questions: </p>
<p>What exactly has allowed Qatar to defy its more powerful GCC neighbors for so long? And what (or who) could possibly change that? </p>
<h2>Flouting its neighbors’ demands</h2>
<p>Qatar is the second-smallest country in the GCC with a national population of just 243,000. That swells to almost 2.4 million when you include expatriates, yet it’s still <a href="http://gulfmigration.eu/gcc-total-population-percentage-nationals-foreign-nationals-gcc-countries-national-statistics-2010-2016-numbers/">just a fraction</a> of Saudi Arabia’s 31 million total population or the UAE’s 8 million. </p>
<p>It also has the smallest military, at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_Armed_Forces">just 12,000 soldiers</a>, <a href="http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/mideast-africa/2015/03/26/saudi-arabia-gulfs-best-equipped-military/70494532/">compared with</a> Saudi Arabia’s 227,000. </p>
<p>Despite this large gap in population and military power, Qatar <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/timeline-qatar-gcc-disputes-170605110356982.html">has long ignored</a> the complaints of its stronger neighbors over its foreign policy positions that on some issues are diametrically opposed to theirs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174066/original/file-20170615-24951-13ionr8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Al-Jazeera, which is based in Doha and partially supported by the government, is one of the sticking points between Qatar and its neighbors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/ Hamid Jalaudin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There’s essentially one reason Qatar can afford to do this: the American security umbrella, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/05/middleeast/qatar-us-largest-base-in-mideast/index.html">which includes basing</a> some 11,000 U.S. military personnel in Doha – the largest deployment in the region – as well as hosting the U.S. Combined Air Operations Center, which oversees air power in 20 countries. </p>
<p>Like the other GCC countries, Qatar has a <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/gulf/qatar-forrel-us.htm">bilateral security arrangement</a> with the U.S., and it hosts the United States’ largest military base in the region. The U.S. military protection not only shields Qatar against military threats from outside the region but empowers it to stand up to its larger GCC allies when it chooses to do so. </p>
<p>Qatar is not the only GCC member that takes advantage of U.S. military protection in this manner. Bahrain has also defied other GCC members on occasions. In 2005, this tiny island of one million and home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet upset Saudi Arabia when it signed a <a href="https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/archives/2004/may/us-and-bahrain-conclude-free-trade-agreement">bilateral free trade agreement</a> with the U.S., which violated the GCC common tariff <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200841012520998396.html">regulations</a>. In a sign of America’s pull in such disputes, it was Saudi Arabia that <a href="http://www.mei.edu/content/article/economic-integration-can-ease-regional-tensions">ultimately backed down</a>. </p>
<p>Consequently, as long as Qatar remains under U.S. military protection, Saudi Arabia and the UAE can not resort to military options and have to limit their campaign to diplomatic and economic pressure. In other words, bilateral security relations with the U.S. serves as an equalizer in interactions among GCC countries regardless of their size. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174063/original/file-20170615-24971-1y1zger.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Defense Secretary James Mattis, second from right, greets an airman during a recent visit to the U.S. military base in Qatar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pool Photo via AP/Jonathan Ernst</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How long can Qatar hold out?</h2>
<p>A secure and protected Qatar can afford to remain defiant in the face of economic isolation from its neighbors as long as it can tolerate the economic and financial costs. While these costs are hardly trivial, Qatar, as the <a href="https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/richest-countries-in-the-world?page=12">richest country in the world</a> on a per capita basis, can probably afford to ride them out for some time. </p>
<p>In terms of imports, Qatar’s reliance on other GCC countries and Egypt is relatively modest and easily substitutable. The main immediate impact of the severing of ties was a disruption of food imports <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/qatar-residents-rush-to-stock-up-food-supplies-as-border-closes">from Saudi Arabia</a>, but Qatar managed to quickly switch to air shipments from Iran and Turkey – notably more expensive than ground shipments via Saudi border. </p>
<p>Qatar’s dependence on these neighbors for exports is even less. In 2015, only 4.6 percent of Qatar’s US$80 billion worth of exports <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/qat/are/show/2015/">went to the UAE</a>, while just 1 percent <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/qat/sau/show/2015/">flowed to Saudi Arabia</a>. </p>
<p>A key reason for so little <a href="http://stat.wto.org/CountryProfile/WSDBCountryPFView.aspx?Language=F&Country=QA">trade</a> between countries in the GCC is that their primary exports (oil and gas products) and imports (food and industrial products) are very similar. </p>
<p>So all in all, economic disengagement from the UAE and Saudi Arabia will disrupt about 13 percent of Qatar’s commodity imports and 5.6 percent of its exports (trade with Bahrain and Egypt is insigificant). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174067/original/file-20170615-24933-xkplvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, left, meets with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Doha in hopes of helping mediate an end to the crisis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">KUNA via AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Qatar also has financial and commercial investment links with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain. By one account, 300 Saudi businesses are active in Qatar with <a href="https://english.mubasher.info/news/3120439/Qatar-could-lose-SAR50bn-of-Saudi-investments">investments worth $13.3 billion</a>, as well as <a href="http://qatarchamber.com/6030">1,075 UAE companies</a>. The same report estimated 4,200 Qatari businesses were engaged in the UAE in 2016. </p>
<p>While disruption of these business activities will also be costly for Qatar, the value of these investments is only a small share of its financial and commercial capital. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-11/qatar-sovereign-wealth-fund-s-335-global-empire">Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund</a>, for example, is estimated at $335 billion. </p>
<p>Beyond U.S. protection, the relatively small size of trade and investment links with Saudi Arabia and the UAE is what gives Qatar little immediate incentive to concede to <a href="http://www.gulf-insider.com/saudi-issues-qatar-list-10-demands-must-meet/">their demands</a>, even as it hopes <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/06/12/qatar-says-gulf-citizens-can-stay-despite-crisis">to avoid escalation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174065/original/file-20170615-24991-sq0wee.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Qatar recently agreed to buy up to 36 F-15 fighters from the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Amir Cohen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>US still holds the key</h2>
<p>So while Qatar’s economy is under some stress, its substantial financial resources as well as diplomatic and economic <a href="https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-domestic-economy/66128/irans-4th-food-shipment-sent-to-qatar">support from</a> several countries including Turkey, Iran, Kuwait and Oman give it quite a bit of breathing room.</p>
<p>But in the end, it all comes down to its security patron, the U.S., and President Donald Trump, who <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/872062159789985792">in a tweet praised and even seemed to claim credit for</a> the move by Saudi Arabia and the other countries. </p>
<p></p><blockquote><p>During my recent trip to the Middle East, I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar - look!</p>— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/872062159789985792">June 6, 2017</a></blockquote> <p></p>
<p>Afterwards, officials at the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/06/09/532294710/in-an-afternoon-trump-and-tillerson-appear-to-contradict-each-other-on-qatar">State</a> and Defense departments <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/06/donald-trump-qatar-tweets-us-diplomatic-damage">expressed a more neutral position toward this dispute</a> and called for a negotiated resolution, as some diplomats acknowledged Qatar’s efforts to prevent financial support for terror groups. </p>
<p>So if Qatar ends up making any major concessions, it will most likely be a response to demands from the United States, on whom Qatar depends for its security. A few years ago, Qatar’s former ruler Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/qatar-crisis-economy-diplomatic-links-torn-middle-east-russia-hacking-real-story-robert-fisk-a7778616.html">put that dependence this way</a>: Without the Americans, “my Arab brothers would invade me.”</p>
<p>And in a sign that the U.S. commitment to Qatar remains solid, the Pentagon <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-06-14/qatar-said-to-sign-deal-for-u-s-f-15s-as-gulf-crisis-continues">just announced a $12 billion deal</a> to sell as many as 36 F-15 jets to its ally. </p>
<p>In other words, apart from President Trump’s tweet burst, the U.S. government has given diplomatic breathing room to Qatar. But if the United States calls for significant concessions, it is unlikely that Qatar will risk its military protection by saying no.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79480/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nader Habibi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Saudi Arabia and the UAE led a group of countries that have severed all ties to fellow American ally Qatar over its foreign policy. The US will play a key role in whether it accedes to their demands.Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of Practice in Economics of the Middle East, Brandeis UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/736442017-03-23T14:57:07Z2017-03-23T14:57:07ZHow a spate of killings in Bahrain has raised suspicions of state brutality<p>In modern Bahrain, the truth behind violent deaths is hard to establish. And the fact that they are largely ignored by the international media means you may well be reading about the following events for the first time.</p>
<p>On December 23 2016, a female journalist, Eman Salehi, was shot in front of her son. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/29/journalist-bahrain-murdered-member-royal-family/">Activists have claimed</a> the killing was carried out by an army officer they accuse of being a member of the ruling Al Khalifa family. This has not been confirmed. And in January 2017, three young Bahrainis were executed after what was <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-triple-execution-in-bahrain-has-provoked-national-outrage-and-international-silence-71367">widely considered</a> to be an unsafe trial for allegedly killing three policeman. </p>
<p>Shortly afterwards, scarcely anything was made of the <a href="http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/3-killed-as-bahrain-arrests-fugitives-suspects-in-twin-operations-1.1976089">killing of three Bahrainis</a> under unusual circumstances at sea. Redha Ghasra, 29, Mahmud Yusif 22, and Mustafa Yusif 35, were shot by security forces on a boat on February 9. The Ministry of the Interior <a href="http://www.policemc.gov.bh/en/news/ministry/60161">stated</a> that the prisoners opened fire on the police coast guard, who responded by killing three of the fugitives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159611/original/image-20170306-20733-19ubv75.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map released by MOI showing alleged route of the fugitives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from public MOI video</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The MOI also released an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y1mZeqXbk">edited</a> video of that particular police operation. Filmed from at least three different cameras, the footage led to interested observers of Bahrain like myself asking questions. </p>
<p>Why was the full, unedited video not released? Why was there no blood in the boat? Why was the audio muted? Why did the MOI apparently <a href="https://twitter.com/BahrainmirrorEN/status/830717041342550016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">limit access</a> to the subsequent burials, and ban people from taking photographs? Why did the few accounts of those who saw the bodies seemingly not tally with the wounds <a href="https://marcowenjones.wordpress.com/2017/02/13/burial-of-those-allegedly-killed-at-sea-adds-to-suspicions-of-mois-version-of-events/">mentioned on the death certificates</a>? Fundamentally, how did the operation result in three deaths? </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D5Y1mZeqXbk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>A few weeks after this triple shooting, during another police pursuit of alleged fugitives, Abdullah Al Ajooz, 22, <a href="http://report.newzulu.com/en/videos/news/2017-02-21/29886/bahrain-protesters-demonstrate-against-death-of.html">reportedly died</a> after he fell off a roof while trying to escape. Again, activists such as the former political leader Ibrahim Sharif, <a href="http://english.voiceofbahrain.org/?p=7683">raised doubts</a> about how he died. Did he fall, or was he pushed? Sharif’s <a href="https://twitter.com/ebrahimsharif/status/834008062193258496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">tweets on the matter</a> have resulted in him being <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/03/bahrain-prominent-opposition-figure-charged-for-tweets-inciting-hatred-against-government/">charged</a> with “inciting hatred”.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/anti-government-protests-in-bahrain-on-uprising-s-sixth-anniversary-witnesses/story-QW6fx5SYyKcVHkWSYMm3cL.html">Protests against the government in Bahrain</a> reflect a deepening lack of trust in Bahrain’s security services. This is unsurprising. In 2011, the independent <a href="http://www.bici.org.bh">BICI report</a> found that the security forces had practised systematic torture. Bahrain’s security forces have also been cited by <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/bahrain-tipping-point-crackdown-continues">Amnesty International</a> since the 1970s as having been suspected of torture. </p>
<p>Despite the report’s recommendations to hold abusers accountable, as of 2016, even the US State Department cannot verify <a href="https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/265704.pdf">how many</a>, if any, police officers have been held accountable for abuses since 2011. What they do note, however, is that impunity remains a problem. No wonder there is little faith in the security forces.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/161988/original/image-20170322-31190-y1afuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poster king.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/manama-bahrain-22-dec-2016-poster-555418063?src=G8mJ0yaSbiNoOZxKACbYHA-1-2">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some <a href="http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/05/31/march-of-bahrain-s-hardliners-pub-48299">commentators</a> on Bahrain tend to ascribe its increasingly brutal repression on internal ruling family power struggles between hardliners and moderates. </p>
<p>But international relations play a big part in the dynamics of repression. Saudi Arabia, Britain, and the US have all influenced the nature of repression in Bahrain. This has ranged from <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-commandos-training-bahraini-armed-forces-to-use-sniper-rifles-a6952836.html">British officers reportedly training</a> the Bahraini security forces, to Saudi pressure on the Bahrain government to <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S0163-786X20160000039011">impose death penalties</a> on political prisoners.</p>
<p>In contrast, close ties with the US and Britain have previously encouraged the Bahrain government to initiate reforms, at least superficially. However, even now these are being undone. Perhaps most alarmingly, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/02/23/bahrain-proposed-military-trials-civilians">a new law</a>, sharply criticised in the BICI report, allows civilians to be tried in military courts in cases involving the security services. </p>
<p>This renewed brutal turn has coincided with the arrival of Donald Trump at the White House. And while President Obama attempted to thaw relations with Iran, and was mildly critical of Bahrain, Trump’s deputy assistant Seb Gorka summarises the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/sebastian-gorka/">new administration’s view of Iran</a> as a religious dictatorship, and stresses that the US will support its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSkBh0Tmmzs">Sunni allies</a>. This could well embolden Gulf rulers to clamp down on dissent they deem to be “Iran-backed”.</p>
<p>With little to temper the authorities in their treatment of dissent, President Trump’s anti-Iran stance is potentially an enabling factor for a hardline approach. The prospects for political reform in Bahrain now look increasingly bleak.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73644/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have previously undertaken a PhD funded by the North East Doctoral Training centre.
I am also member of the NGO Bahrain Watch, who undertake investigative work related to Bahrain. </span></em></p>More bloodshed lies ahead – but few are taking any notice.Marc Jones, Research Fellow, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/713672017-01-19T15:01:03Z2017-01-19T15:01:03ZA triple execution in Bahrain has provoked national outrage – and international silence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/153466/original/image-20170119-26577-1e2fjqf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Executed in Bahrain.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reprieve</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of the night, on January 15 2017, three citizens of Bahrain were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/15/bahrain-three-men-death-sentence-shia-muslims-gulf">executed by firing squad</a>. Abbas al-Samea, 27, Ali al-Singace, 21, and Sami Mushaima 42, had all been found guilty of planting a bomb which killed three policemen – but their convictions were <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/01/bahrain-first-executions-in-more-than-six-years-a-shocking-blow-to-human-rights/">widely seen as unsafe</a>. </p>
<p>Rumours of their 3am deaths had been circulating on the social media of those with links to the government. Once the state news agency confirmed the news, many Bahrainis took to the streets in protest, confronting riot police, who used tear gas and birdshot in response. Human rights organisations condemned the killings, not simply because they oppose the death penalty, but because these executions were viewed as being political and extrajudicial. </p>
<p>The UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions tweeted: </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"820532830744772608"}"></div></p>
<p>Nicholas McGeehan of Human Rights Watch added on <a href="https://twitter.com/NcGeehan">social media</a>: “These men’s convictions were based on retracted confessions and mired in allegations of serious torture.” It was a sentiment reflected poignantly by many Bahrainis, who formed huge queues to pay their respects to the executed men’s families. </p>
<p>The national controversy surrounding the executions is the latest demonstration of the political turmoil in Bahrain, and popular opposition to what is a democracy in name only. Since 2011, when widespread pro-democracy protests broke out, over a hundred civilians have been killed – many by teargas and torture. An independent <a href="http://www.bici.org.bh/">report</a> (the BICI report) documenting the events of that year revealed systematic torture, arbitrary detentions, and extra judicial killing in the streets. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/152910/original/image-20170116-9062-12rkgaz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image from social media showing the bullet hole patterns in the bodies of the shot men, with their initials in Arabic letters.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since the report, which the King accepted to much international acclaim, the Bahrain government has emphasised its commitment to reforms. Yet implementation of the recommendations has been frequently documented as inadequate. Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) <a href="https://www.adhrb.org/2015/11/shattering-the-facade-a-report-on-bahrains-implementation-of-the-bahrain-independent-commission-of-inquiry-bici-four-years-on/">found</a> that only two of the report’s 26 recommendations had been fully implemented, and eight had not even begun. Many of these reforms centred around creating mechanisms to ensure an end to torture and an increase of state accountability. Even Professor Cherif Bassiouni, the head of the BICI team, <a href="http://mcherifbassiouni.com/bahrain-right-thing/">wrote</a> in June last year that most of the reforms had not been fully implemented. </p>
<p>But things are actually getting worse. Amid the token reforms, the January executions show that Bahrain is regressing with regards to political development and human rights. The country’s only remotely critical newspaper, Al Wasat, which was shut down in 2011, has now been <a href="http://www.bna.bh/portal/en/news/766028">ordered by the government</a> to close its online paper, too. The official reason given was that it was “jeapordising national unity and disrupting public peace”. In fact, it had been slighty critical of the executions. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, the government of Bahrain announced that it was reversing one of the BICI reforms which stipulated that Bahrain’s National Security Agency (NSA) have its powers of arrest removed. The power separation was considered important in controlling torture. Other laws enacted which have clamped down on freedom of expression, alongside the arrest of activists, have prompted accusations not of reform, but of <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S0163-786X20160000039011">de-democratisation</a>. The fact that these are the first official executions to have occurred since 2010 suggest Bahrain is becoming more, not less authoritarian. </p>
<h2>International influence</h2>
<p>Bahrain’s small size and its reliance on foreign countries has also resulted in anger at the perceived complicity of numerous governments. Saudi troops, along with officers from states including the UAE, assisted in dealing with the unrest in 2011. Many of Bahrain’s military officers are from other Arab or Muslim countries, and many have <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/british-commandos-training-bahraini-armed-forces-to-use-sniper-rifles-a6952836.html">received training by the British</a> (including from John Yates, ex-assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard). </p>
<p>As a result, many Bahrainis feel increasingly isolated from the global community, who they believe are the only ones able to put pressure on the Bahrain government to reform, democratise, and implement human rights reform. Activist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/maryam-alkhawaja-arrest-bahrain-us-uk">Maryam Al Khawaja</a> accused the UK, Bahrain’s former protector, of abetting this authoritarian excess and allowing the executions to go ahead. She wrote on Twitter: </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"820553226399387652"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZjvLgjBpH4">Protests</a> in London outside the embassy also reflected this anger. And it is an anger founded not simply on the fact that the British response to the executions was considered <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/britain-condemned-inadequate-response-execution-bahrain-shia-torture-victims/">“woefully inadequate”</a>, but because the UK has been training the Bahrain police since 2011. The charity <a href="http://www.reprieve.org.uk/">Reprieve</a> noted that the UK also taught the Bahrainis how to <a href="http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/uk-taught-bahrain-police-whitewash-custody-deaths/">“whitewash custody deaths”</a> and provided training to the police <a href="http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/police-scotland-trained-saudi-bahraini-officers-without-human-rights-checks/">without</a> conducting proper human rights assessments. </p>
<p>As a result of the executions, frustration in Bahrain will inevitably increase. Scenes of people chanting “Down with [King] Hamad” at the police are becoming more common again. The regression back to more authoritarian ways is enabled by a lack of pressure from traditional international allies. </p>
<p>For the UK, this apparent “complicity” is unlikely to change. Jane Kinninmont of <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/">Chatham House</a>, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, notes that Brexit will likely <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/post-brexit-britain-would-double-down-middle-east-alliances">diminish attempts to support human rights</a>. With traditional allies like the UK less choosy about trade, less choosy about allies, and less choosy about human rights, Bahrain is set to see more instability and unrest.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Jones received funding from the ESRC for his PhD. He is affiliated with Bahrain Watch, an NGO that documents issues of governance, arms sales, and PR in Bahrain and the wider Gulf. </span></em></p>State killings are the latest demonstration of the country’s regression.Marc Jones, Research Fellow, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/358672015-01-05T19:40:57Z2015-01-05T19:40:57ZOil prices: eventually the Gulf states will run out of power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68211/original/image-20150105-13833-149h9qx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The sands of time will turn against the desert oil states.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&searchterm=hourglass&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=149688629">iceink</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Oil prices have now almost halved in six months to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/commodities/143908/twelve_month.stm">below $60/barrel</a> thanks to OPEC’s refusal to cut production. This means all the member countries are revising their government spending policies. While countries such as <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-30/oil-at-40-possible-as-market-transforms-caracas-to-iran.html">Iran</a> and <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/01/venezuelas_president_off_to_china_seeking_help_with_financial_crisis.html">Venezuela</a> face an imminent fiscal crisis, the short-term ramifications for the Arabian peninsula’s oil monarchies are less dramatic. </p>
<p>In the long run, however, their very high dependence on oil poses a more fundamental challenge than for almost any of their rivals. </p>
<h2>The current cash situation</h2>
<p>The large Gulf hydrocarbons producers – Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – have recorded substantial fiscal surpluses for 2014, benefiting from high oil prices earlier in the year. Among these countries of the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/249154/Gulf-Cooperation-Council-GCC">Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)</a>, Bahrain alone has incurred a substantial deficit. </p>
<p>Yet there is trouble building up for the future: the oil prices at which government budgets break even have on average increased by more than three times since the early 2000s as spending commitments have risen. </p>
<p>According to IMF estimates, break-even now lies above current oil prices for Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with even Kuwait and Qatar now touching it at the current price.</p>
<p><strong>Gulf state breakeven oil prices (US$/barrel)</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68198/original/image-20150105-13855-123orkb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=457&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Source: IMF October 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steffen Hertog</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar have substantial overseas reserves that are equivalent to several annual budgets, giving them considerable leeway to incur deficits without debt. Bahrain and Oman, both of whom have only small overseas reserves, have less room for fiscal manoeuvre. Bahrain in particular <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/20/fitch-affirms-bahrain-at-bbb-outlook-sta-idUSFit70510920140620">already has</a> government debt of more than 40% of GDP. It has already taken some austerity measures, being the only country among the group in which estimated 2013 spending lay below that for 2012.</p>
<p>Yet governments across the region are well aware that the rapid spending growth of the last decade cannot continue. This approach could see financial reserves exhausted within as little as a decade in the case of Saudi Arabia and between one and two decades for the others. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68239/original/image-20150105-13827-vjqe42.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Gulf states.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_states_of_the_Persian_Gulf#mediaviewer/File:Persian_Gulf_Arab_States_english.PNG">GCC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The 90s precedent</h2>
<p>The last period of low oil prices and fiscal austerity lasted from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. Gulf governments generally cut project and infrastructure spending first, protecting government salaries and public services such as education and health as long as possible. State employment was not only protected but continued to grow. Saudi Arabia almost completely abandoned capital expenditure in the 1990s, leading to a decay in public infrastructure that was only addressed during the oil boom in the 2000s. </p>
<p>Subsidies followed the same pattern. Budgets for industrial loans were squeezed and utility tariffs for industrial users increased, while subsidies for households remained protected – or tariff increases only targeted larger (and richer) households. To take another Saudi example, the national airline increased ticket prices for business and first class in the early 1990s but protected subsidised prices for economy travellers. </p>
<p>This climate was hard on manufacturers but contractors were the worst affected, rendering tens of thousands bankrupt. The lesson? Mass entitlements to employment, services and subsidies are more politically sensitive than other forms of spending. </p>
<p>The basic parameters of Gulf policies have not shifted since. If anything, popular entitlements have become stronger and citizens have become better organised in claiming them – unlike political dissent, public and private protests in favour of salary increases and state employment or against subsidy reforms are generally tolerated and often effective. Private business by contrast has come under increasing public pressure for failing to provide sufficient jobs for nationals, hence once again making it likely to be the first target of fiscal trimming.</p>
<h2>New fiscal patterns</h2>
<p>Even if oil prices recover, the situation looks like this: current spending will have to keep rising to accommodate the growing number of working-age citizens, many of whom will continue to be employed in government. Expenditure might also have to rise to keep the lid on Arab Spring-style political crises. All this means capital expenditure will have to fall. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68240/original/image-20150105-13855-924rxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oil drilling in the Bahrain desert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/philippeleroyer/3107382334/in/photolist-w6Lrc-duZzwh-nRyvG-4fo4Cf-wpzzM-5JA9vu-bincbc-fH3fj9-7JYA5M-7JYB2i-qwm3e-qwm82-qwmwB-qwmyh-8YKFu7-8YKF6u-8YGDcc-8YKEYo-craMcQ-8HwWtq-gR2Pr2-h6mzPZ-gR2JTo-qwmaf-qwmbH-7PjE3h-fDhAKr-4amV4n-cSVHEf-48sDvp-qwm4L-qwms9-qwm1P-qwmAx-qwmtK-qwm6z-dZEVBU-qwmdo-qwmgK-qwmos-qwmnk-qwmk8-qwmia-qwmeA-qwmqq-8HtN8H-5DgLcQ-5DgFfA-5Dct8t-5Dcp36">Philippe Leroyer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This might force governments to downsize or even stop some large-scale projects, including some of the infrastructure planned for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. In the long-run, there is a danger of even essential infrastructure spending being squeezed, as was the case in the less wealthy Gulf countries in the 1990s. This in turn could compromise the region’s strategy of <a href="http://www.bqdoha.com/2014/04/gcc-countries-and-their-diversification-efforts">diversification</a> to reduce dependency on oil, which has targeted everything from petrochemicals and mining to aviation and tourism.</p>
<p>Because the Gulf economies depend particularly heavily on state spending, these reductions will affect economic growth. In the short run, this will mostly impact economic sectors depending on state project spending. In the mid to long-term high break-even prices, locked in through creeping increases in current spending, could make for endemic deficits. In this situation, even current spending would need to plateau and potentially decline to balance the books, meaning stagnation also in the consumer economy.</p>
<h2>Fiscal constraints as policy opportunity</h2>
<p>Like in the 1990s, the falling oil price has prompted signs of a renewed reform debate. Even in Kuwait, generally the region’s reform laggard, the government is now <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/10/kuwait-economy-subsidies-idUSL5N0LA1FE20140210">openly debating</a> the need for fiscal reforms. </p>
<p>One necessary reform is to reduce the subsidies to domestic energy. Energy prices are uniquely low by global comparison, which leads to large-scale over-consumption. Abu Dhabi <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/uae/environment/electricity-and-water-price-increase-in-abu-dhabi-should-increase-efficiency-experts-say">increased</a> electricity and water tariffs last November, albeit foreign residents bore the brunt.</p>
<p><strong>Estimated Gulf energy subsidies as a % of GDP</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68202/original/image-20150105-13820-121s9ox.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMF, 2011 figures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another option will be to privatise non-essential public assets, which is <a href="https://www.venturesonsite.com/news/oman-announces-2015-budget-with-8-deficit-slant-on-infrastructure-privatization/">already being planned</a> in Oman. The drawback is that stock-market valuations are likely to be depressed exactly when the proceeds would be needed the most. Public companies in aviation, heavy industry, telecoms and banking have also been core tools in the GCC’s diversification strategy, so the rulers will be reluctant to sell them. </p>
<p>The Gulf countries are also likely to increase the pressure on the private sector to employ more citizens. This will be difficult to implement, however, while local labour markets remain open for low-cost immigrant labour – a core plank of the Gulf economic model. </p>
<h2>Other painful reforms?</h2>
<p>Though the IMF <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2014/car060314a.htm">has been saying</a> that Gulf countries need to become less dependent on petroleum for public spending for the past 30 years, taxation remains a political anathema. No government managed to introduce any substantial tax reforms during the 1990s austerity era. A plan for a GCC-wide value-added tax <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/business/industry-insights/retail/value-added-tax-plan-for-gcc-on-backburner">remains on ice</a> despite years of debate.</p>
<p>A modern tax system takes a long time to build. And since these economies are so dependent on state spending, it is not clear to what extent the private sector has the capacity to generate revenue on its own anyway. As important, introducing broad-based taxes is likely to give rise to political claims on the part of business and general population that the Gulf rulers would try to avoid until it was too late.</p>
<p>In sum, the current oil price drop does not pose an immediate threat to the stability of the Gulf. Even in the case of Bahrain and Oman, their richer neighbours could prevent a politically undesirable economic collapse through grants and loans. And when their overseas reserves are exhausted, they will still be able to delay the inevitable by issuing debt that they can strong-arm local banks to accept.</p>
<p>Yet eventually state spending and economic growth will slow and even reverse. The focus of policy will gradually shift towards more painful but necessary reforms, which could nevertheless be too little too late to stave off a fiscal crisis. And as reality finally begins to catch up with this part of the world, its regional and global power looks likely to decline.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steffen Hertog does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Oil prices have now almost halved in six months to below $60/barrel thanks to OPEC’s refusal to cut production. This means all the member countries are revising their government spending policies. While…Steffen Hertog, Associate Professor, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/320612014-09-24T12:11:16Z2014-09-24T12:11:16ZWhat Arab partners will get in return for strikes on Syria<p>The decision by President Obama to launch <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-starts-air-strikes-on-syria-as-shadowy-new-threat-emerges-32047">missile and air strikes</a> against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/khorasan-muhsin-alfadhli--the-man-leading-a-terror-group-more-feared-by-us-officials-than-isis-9748404.html">Khorasan</a>” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged military confrontation in the region.</p>
<p>But there’s a difference this time: the participation of a coalition of Arab states, variously offering diplomatic, intelligence and military support. So far, the partner states have been named as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Jordan.</p>
<p>From Washington’s perspective, the importance of Arab participation is obvious: a synchronised display of high-level multinational cooperation is clearly meant to head off the usual criticism of the often unilateral nature of US foreign policies. </p>
<p>This is of particular importance for President Obama, who has invested considerable capital over the years in distancing himself from the Bush administration’s war in Iraq. </p>
<p>As he put it in his <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/statement-president-airstrikes-syria">brief statement</a> announcing the strikes: “The strength of this coalition makes it clear to the world that this is not America’s fight alone.”</p>
<p>The White House clearly hopes that the participation of Arab partners will undermine that radical Islamist narrative of “the West versus Islam”, and instead reframe the conflict as another chapter in the decades-old struggle between the vast moderate Muslim majority and a tiny minority of radicals.</p>
<p>But aside from these explicit American goals, Obama’s new Arab partners have interests of their own.</p>
<h2>Regional rivals: Saudi and Qatar</h2>
<p>Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia can hope to shift attention away from the criticism for their attitude to Islamist extremism. Over the years, they have been charged not only with <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/qatar/11110931/How-Qatar-is-funding-the-rise-of-Islamist-extremists.html">supporting radical Islamists in Syria</a>, but also with allowing their religious elites to propagate a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/opinion/isis-atrocities-started-with-saudi-support-for-salafi-hate.html">version of Islam</a> that is open to easy manipulation at the hands of radical jihadist recruiters. </p>
<p>Both countries will also hope that weakening the radical Islamists of IS will help moderate elements of the Syrian opposition regain the initiative against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Some among the elites of Riyadh and Doha might even be hoping Washington will realise the threat of IS will never be extinguished while Bashar al-Assad’s regime remains in place – and that Obama will see the job is finished.</p>
<p>Finally, Saudi Arabia in particular clearly has to be concerned with preventing the success of an organisation which aims to establish the perfect “Islamic state”. </p>
<p>IS’s claim to ultimate leadership of the world’s Muslim community <a href="https://news.siteintelgroup.com/Jihadist-News/isis-spokesman-declares-caliphate-rebrands-group-as-islamic-state.html">as put forward by its leader</a>, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, is a direct challenge to the Saudi claim for global religious leadership based on King Abdullah’s role as “custodian of the two holy places” in Mecca and Medina. </p>
<p>Saudi authorities are fully aware that al-Baghdadi’s radical Islamist fringe project has attracted followers from Saudi Arabia, with <a href="http://icsr.archivestud.io/2013/12/icsr-insight-11000-foreign-fighters-syria-steep-rise-among-western-europeans/">recent estimates</a> putting the number at up to one thousand.</p>
<p>As Nawaf Obaid and Saud al-Sarhan have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/opinion/the-saudis-can-crush-isis.html?_r=0">pointed out</a>, Saudi Arabia is the ultimate target for any “serious” radical Islamist organisation, whether IS now or al-Qaeda in years past. </p>
<p>Al-Qaeda on the Arab Peninsula (which consists not just of Yemeni Islamists, but also Saudi Islamists), driven out by Saudi counterterrorism measures over the last decade, is now beginning to mutter words of <a href="http://www.yementimes.com/en/1808/news/4216/AQAP-announces-support-for-ISIL.htm">approval and support toward IS</a>, and Riyadh will be deeply concerned about the spectre of being engulfed in an arc of Islamist instability to its south and north.</p>
<h2>Trouble at home: Bahrain and the UAE</h2>
<p>Like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain can also use their involvement in the campaign against IS to demonstrate their value as strategic assets to the United States. </p>
<p>Often belittled as “security importers” for relying on American protection to counter the threat posed by Iran, governments in these countries can now prove that they can make their own contributions to regional security. </p>
<p>But their involvement in the anti-IS coalition feeds into a broader narrative of tackling a general Islamist threat – one that has long threatened to destabilise them at home. </p>
<p>For their part, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been very outspoken critics of what they saw as a lack of US stamina in supporting authoritarian allies such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt during the early days Arab Spring. They have also both raised the alarm over the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they see a direct threat to their own domestic integrity.</p>
<p>Irrespective of the exact nature of the ideological linkages between moderate and radical Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood’s politicised version of Islam sees the Gulf monarchies as antithetical to the notion of a just Islamic society. </p>
<p>By joining forces against IS, then, the ruling families in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are clearly hoping to drive home their vision of a monolithic Islamist threat to both protective Western governments and their own restive populations.</p>
<h2>Don’t forget us: Jordan</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, often-overlooked Jordan can use its participation in the anti-IS alliance to once again prove its relevance as a strategic regional partner for the US. </p>
<p>Jordanians are not just dealing with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/jordan-has-become-the-wests-warehouse-for-iraqi-refugees-31491">refugee crisis</a> created by the meltdown in Syria and Iraq; they also have first-hand experience of the disastrous human costs of the radical ideology which drives IS: in late 2005, supporters of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/07/the-short-violent-life-of-abu-musab-al-zarqawi/304983/">Abu Musab az-Zarqawi</a>, leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (a splinter from which later formed the backbone of IS), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Amman_bombings">attacked a number of hotels</a> in Jordan’s capital Amman, killing 60. </p>
<p>Just recently, <a href="http://jordantimes.com/several-suspects-detained-for-planning-is-operations-in-jordan">Jordanian authorities arrested</a> a number of individuals suspected of involvement with IS. The Jordanian security services also enjoy one of the best track records of any regional intelligence agency in <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/09/12/the_mouse_that_roars_jordan_spies_islamic_state_isis">infiltrating radical Islamist groups</a>, such as al-Qaeda in Iraq. </p>
<p>This expertise, plus the training facilities where Western special forces can train members of the moderate Syrian opposition, might well prove crucial for international efforts to deal with both IS and the Assad regime.</p>
<h2>Trade-offs</h2>
<p>In the end, the Arab partners in general will still expect concrete returns for offering their Western allies not just diplomatic cover, but also serious military and intelligence support. </p>
<p>Most pressingly, it’s very likely that these governments will expect Washington to take their views on board when it negotiates a more permanent deal with Tehran over <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-deal-on-irans-nuclear-plans-could-kill-crucial-new-alliances-27539">Iran’s nuclear programme</a>. Ever since the announcement of a preliminary deal between the two sides, the Gulf monarchies have <a href="http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/14/why_saudi_arabia_hates_the_iran_deal_0">made clear their displeasure</a> at the US’s apparent eagerness to bring Iran back in from the cold without sufficient heed to Arab concerns. </p>
<p>Washington’s Arab allies will hope that the Arab states’ participation in strikes against IS will make Western audiences more willing to tolerate or even support “wars on terror” at home in the Middle East – in which, all too often, moderate Islamists and secular liberals <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/saudi-human-rights-blogger-sentence-badawi-abulkhair.html">get caught up</a>. </p>
<p>But the endurance of authoritarian rule is a major root cause of the Middle East’s chronic instability. It it would be all too easy for the West to let it continue unmolested in return for help with the crisis at hand – however badly that help is needed. Washington must not fall into that trap.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lars Berger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The decision by President Obama to launch missile and air strikes against Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaeda affiliate “Khorasan” in Syria draws the United States ever closer to yet another prolonged…Lars Berger, Associate Professor in International Security, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.