Tracing the Saudi Arabia — Qatar power struggle
Cinzia Bianco
The crisis which erupted within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in 2017 has already made history as the gravest spat since the Council’s establishment more than three decades ago. When last June Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt — severed all ties with Qatar and cut off the land, air and sea routes to the country over Doha’s alleged support for destabilising actors in the region, it was a shock to many observers. The decision had numerous repercussions in economic, political and military terms for the wider region. These repercussions are addressed in depth in the International Affairs article I authored with Gareth Stansfield. One of the many questions that arise from analysis of such a watershed moment is how the power dynamics within the GCC are changing, particularly in relation to the dominant state Saudi Arabia, and the small but increasingly powerful Qatar. In the wake of US President Trump’s May decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, these are only likely to become more complex. But what is driving this split between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and what are the implications for the region as a whole?
At the time of the birth of the modern GCC states, the founder of Saudi Arabia Abd al-ʿAzīz Āl Saʿūd (also known as Ibn Saud) had territorial claims over the British protectorates in the Arabian Peninsula, including Qatar. Historians have in fact convincingly argued that only the objections of the British Empire prevented the annexation of the smaller coastal entities to the nascent Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When these entities acquired independence in 1971, and became the smaller GCC countries as we know them today, border disputes were common. Disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Qatar were resolved only in 2001, in the aftermath of small but violent confrontations in 1992.
Since 1995 and particularly in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings, Qatar has consistently been seen by Saudi Arabia to be defying the traditional balance of power within the GCC, particularly by empowering actors which, from the Saudi point of view, threaten regional stability. The main example is of course the Muslim Brotherhood, supported by Doha and listed as a terrorist organization by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2014. This confrontation led to the first modern intra-GCC crisis, in 2013/2014, when Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew their Ambassadors from Doha for eight months. This happened amid the abdication of Emir Hamad in favour of his young son, Sheikh Tamim, in July 2013. Four years on, amid the biggest crisis ever shuttering the GCC, it is clear that regional leaders failed to turn a new page since. In Riyadh and Abu Dhabi many in policy-making circles believe that Qatar is still effectively run behind the scenes by Sheikh Hamad, the former Emir, and with the same ambitious strategic intentions.
One of the main points of contention was, and still is, the unwillingness of Qatar to firmly align with Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Iran, which is seen as a hostile force by them. In fact, Iran stepped up during the 2017 crisis in support of Qatar by opening its air space and territorial waters to Doha, an essential move which allowed Qatar to continue exporting its natural gas, and by providing the country with food imports to make up for their past dependence on Saudi Arabia. Politically Iranian officials began to use this crisis to drive wedges in the GCC more comprehensively. For instance, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, telephoned Sheikh Tamim as early as June 2017 to express Iran’s support and their desire to strengthen bilateral relations. The Rouhani administration then publicly condemned the ‘siege against Qatar.’
However, the recent actions of President Trump against Iran put Qatar in a very sensitive position. The move indirectly pressures Qatar to distance itself from Teheran. Doha cannot afford to antagonize the United States, especially when President Trump recently appeared to be shifting his position in favour of a resolution of the GCC crisis, after initially backing the Saudi and Emirati position. While for Doha getting closer to Iran might have seemed an effective provocation against its opponents at the early stages of the crisis, this has become a dangerous game. In turn, if Qatar is forced to cool its relations from Iran, then the power imbalance would turn, once more, strongly against Doha. Saudi Arabia has long been alarmed by Iran’s perceived predatory intentions in the Gulf, and Qatar’s vicinity to the “enemy” could be the casus belli which ignites a more serious confrontation.
This power politics dimension is certainly part of the rationale driving GCC relations, with the quartet of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE and Egypt focusing their demands on curbing the tools at Qatar’s disposal for projecting its influence beyond its borders. Namely, the quartet has also targeted Qatar’s strategic relations with Turkey and the entire, region-wide, constellation belonging to political Islam and the Al Jazeera media network, the megaphone of the country’s perspective. To a great extent, from the perspective of Saudi Arabia, this crisis is also about bringing back Qatar’s geopolitical reach to fit its geopolitical size. For this reason, when the time comes to determine the winners and losers from this crisis, it will be paramount to measure if and how Qatar’s regional profile has changed vis-à-vis those of its neighbours.
Cinzia Bianco is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, where she is working on security in the Arab Gulf monarchies. Previously she was the GCC-based research fellow for the European Commission’s project “Sharaka” on EU-GCC relations.
Her recent article with Gareth Stansfield, titled ‘The intra-GCC crises: mapping GCC fragmentation after 2011’, was published in the May 2018 issue of International Affairs.
Read the article here.
