Tag: Gulf states
Unhappy allies need to carry more burdens
Everyone’s favorite subject this weekend is America’s allies, who are unhappy for many reasons:
- France and Germany don’t like their phones bugged, and Brazil is also in a lather;
- Saudi Arabia wants the Americans to push harder against Syria’s Bashar al Asad and Iran’s nuclear program;
- Israel concurs on Iran and would rather President Obama didn’t insist it talk to the Palestinians;
- the Egyptian military didn’t like the cutoff of some major military equipment;
- President Karzai has not yet agreed to U.S. jurisdiction for troops who commit criminal acts in Afghanistan post-2014.
Everyone found the US government shutdown disconcerting. No one is looking forward to the January budgetary showdown, except maybe Russian President Putin. He likes anything that brings America down a peg.
There are solutions for each of these issues. We’ll no doubt reach some sort of modus vivendi with the Europeans, who won’t want to shut down either their own eavesdropping or America’s. More likely they’ll want us to share, while swearing off Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande’s cell phones. The Brazilians will be harder to satisfy, but they aren’t exactly what I would call an ally either. The Saudis may go off on their own to arm whomever they like in Syria, thus deepening the sectarian conflict there. That could, ironically, increase the prospects for some sort of political settlement at the much discussed but never convened Geneva 2 conference. It is hard to find anyone at this point who seriously opposes the effort to negotiate a settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue. The alternatives (war or containment) are worse. Even Netanyahu has toned down his objections, while unleashing Sheldon Adelson to advocate nuclear war. The Egyptian military doesn’t actually need more Abrams tanks; it has lots in storage. Karzai has convened a loya jirga to approve the continuing American presence in Afghanistan and to share the rap for agreeing to American jurisdiction. Read more
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Breaking up is hard to do
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace yesterday afternoon focused on the changing regional and international atmosphere for the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states.* Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment and moderator of the event, opened the discussion asking what the current disagreements with the GCC, particularly Saudi Arabia, mean for the future of US-Gulf relationships?
Abdullah al-Shayji, Professor at Kuwait University, sees the widening trust deficit between the US and the GCC as alarming. This is not the first time that the GCC and US have had disagreements, but Shayji sees something amiss in the relationship. The US hesitation about involvement in Syria, and its overture with Iran, make the GCC question whether it can rely on the US.
The GCC also sees Washington as dysfunctional and fatigued based on sequestration and the government shutdown. The relationship is at a tipping point but not at a critical state yet. The GCC sees itself as shut out from US foreign policy regarding the region and wants a more nuanced and holistic approach. Diverging trust can ultimately be detrimental to the US-GCC relationship. The US should be more receptive and open-minded toward its junior GCC partner.
Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar Mehran Kamrava focused his comments on Qatar and its changing foreign policy. Before 2010, Qatar wanted to come out of the Saudi shadow. This was mainly a policy of survival, but Doha also made attempts to project power and influence in the region. Qatar had four “ingredients” for its pre-2010 foreign policy: Read more
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The gulf with the Gulf
Yesterday was Gulf day. I spent part of the morning reading Christopher Davidson, who thinks the Gulf monarchies are headed for collapse due to internal challenges, their need for Western support, Iran’s growing power and their own disunity. Then I turned to Greg Gause, who attributes their resilience to the oil-greased coalitions and external networks they have created to support their rule. He predicts their survival.
At lunch I ambled across the way to CSIS’s new mansion to hear Abdullah al Shayji, chair of political science at Kuwait University and unofficial Gulf spokeperson, who was much exorcised over America’s response to Iran’s “charm offensive,” which he said could not have come at a worse time. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was already at odds with the US. The Gulf was not warned or consulted about the phone call between Iranian President Rouhani and President Obama. Saudi Arabia’s refusal to occupy the UN Security Council seat it fought hard to get was a signal of displeasure. The divergences between the GCC and the US range across the Middle East: Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Iraq and Palestine, in addition to Iran.
On top of this, US oil and gas production is increasing. China is now a bigger oil importer than the US and gets a lot more of its supplies from the Gulf. Washington is increasingly seen as dysfunctional because of its partisan bickering. Its budget problems seem insoluble. American credibility is declining. The Gulf views the US as unreliable. Read more
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Peace picks, October 21-25
With a sense of normalcy returned to the city after the reopening of the government, some timely events coming up this week:
1. Will India’s Economics be a Victim of its Politics?
Monday, October 21 | 2:00pm – 3:30pm
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW
The Indian economy has entered a difficult period over the past eighteen months with the rate of GDP growth having halved, inflation still stubbornly high, and deficits remaining substantial. Economists are asking whether India’s rapid growth of the last decade was more a credit-fueled aberration than a result of structural reforms. To complicate matters, economic concerns are increasingly secondary to political debate as India prepares for critical state elections this winter and parliamentary elections in spring 2014.
Jahangir Aziz and Ila Patnaik will assess the state of India’s economy in the context of India’s growing election fervor. Edward Luce will moderate.
JAHANGIR AZIZ
Jahangir Aziz is senior Asia economist and India chief economist at JP Morgan. He was previously principal economic adviser to the Indian Ministry of Finance and head of the China Division at the International Monetary Fund.
ILA PATNAIK
Ila Patnaik is a nonresident senior associate in Carnegie’s South Asia Program and a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi. She writes regular columns in the Indian Express and the Financial Express and recently co-led the research team for India’s Ministry of Finance Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission.
EDWARD LUCE
Edward Luce is the Washington columnist and former Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times. Earlier he was their South Asia bureau chief based in New Delhi. He is the author of In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (2006) and Time to Start Thinking: America and the Spectre of Decline (2012).
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Yemenis in DC
I spent a couple of hours with visiting Yemenis earlier this week, focused on the current national dialogue. This was not a cross-section of Yemeni society. These were well-educated, mostly mid- to upper-level bureaucrats who certainly know what people in Washington want to hear.
The vision they projected is not reconstruction but rather building a New Yemen: a single (but not overly centralized) civil state, stronger provincial and local self-governance, stronger protection of individual rights. Three hurdles seemed foremost on the Yemenis’ minds:
- fuller integration of the south;
- security for the population;
- international community engagement. Read more
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The fracturing Levant
As events in Syria continue to unfold, it is essential to understand the nature of the conflict. On Tuesday, Emile Hokayem, a Senior Fellow for Regional Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, delivered a presentation based on his recent book, Syria’s Uprising and the Fracturing of the Levant. Based on repeated visits to Syria after the uprising, the book relies on a range of primary sources such as fieldwork and interviews with all sides of the conflict. Steven Simon, the executive director of IISS-US, moderated the event.
Before the uprising, analysts had often exaggerated the power of the Syrian state, Hokayem proclaimed. While the Syrian state was not particularly weak, its resources, industrial base, alliances, and human capital pale in comparison to regional countries that had similar ambitions, namely Iraq and Egypt. However, Hafez al-Assad’s genius lay in his statecraft. While this made Syria a stronger state, the uprising has brought Syria down. It is now a weak state marked by divisions and internal rivalries. Read more
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