The US � GCC Relationship
Dr. John Duke Anthony

The recently concluded GCC annual heads of state Summit in Riyadh marks the 25th anniversary of the GCC since its establishment in 1981. On this occasion SUSRIS is pleased to present the following essay by SUSRIS publisher of record and National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations founding president and chief executive officer Dr. John Duke Anthony. 

As the heads of state and foreign ministers of six countries that collectively possess half the world�s oil reserves and produce the lion�s share of hydrocarbon fuels traded in the international market place, Dr. Anthony�s analysis of what the GCC is, what it is not, and its role in regional and global affairs could hardly be more timely or relevant. Dr. Anthony acknowledges that most international observers remain unimpressed with what the organization has accomplished since its founding, but proceeds to point out few people are specialists in such matters, the length of memories is often exceptionally limited, information about the GCC�s achievements, as well as its failures, tends not to be readily accessible to generalists, and that, in any case, the organization�s member-countries have tended to let their successes speak for themselves rather than boast of their accomplishments. 

Among the several facts and uncommon perspectives Dr. Anthony provides are the facts that: (1) despite the GCC�s recognizable limitations and self-imposed constraints, it nonetheless represents the world�s most successful sub-regional organization in modern Arab history; (2) the linkages presently being denied by portions of the American media and think tank communities that there has been and is no linkage between the Arab-Israeli conflict and the morass in which the United States presently finds itself in Iraq and in its relations with Iran are, to the contrary, real, multifaceted, and longstanding; (3) of relevance to the current uncertain and untenable regional security situation in the Gulf as a whole, the GCC has provided powerful precedents of finding ways in which sovereign and independent Arab countries have endorsed foreign military protection and mutually beneficial defense cooperation; (4) the GCC, like few other experiments in regional cooperation in the developing world, has consistently demonstrated the efficacy of diplomacy, dialogue, and working patiently and persistently with and through other international organizations and the norms of interstate legitimacy in pursuit of its own and its allies� common or similar geopolitical objectives; and (5) the organization�s member-countries constitute living evidence that, despite the plummeting of America�s moral and political standing in the hearts and minds of the GCC people and their counterparts throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, American defense systems, science, technology, equipment, pre-positioned equipment, training, maintenance, and strategic as well as tactical doctrine have given the members little in the way of alternatives as to a fundamentally different direction in the immediately foreseeable future.

[This SUSRIS Item of Interest presents the introduction and links to the complete essay which is a 28 page PDF document posted on-line.]

The US � GCC Relationship
Dr. John Duke Anthony

Looking at the development of US-GCC relations over the past 25 years, it is worth considering just how long ties have been established. 

Context

Although some would go back as far as the granting of Saudi Arabian oil concessions to the Americans in 1933 as the start of what would become the US relationship with the six countries that joined to forge the GCC, the foundations for the (�official�) relationship in the modern era were laid over sixty years ago when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz, met aboard the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, on the 14th February, 1945. That was the date when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and King Abdalaziz met for the first and only time. 

The meeting took place aboard the USS Quincy in the Bitter Lakes of the Suez Canal. Roosevelt was returning from a war conference in Tehran attended by Churchill and Stalin, America�s two most important World War II Allies. At that meeting the American and Saudi Arabian heads of state launched a multifaceted strategic relationship that, despite its ups and downs, remains in tact to this day. Since then, the US has sought to build on this initial meeting of minds, pursuing strong strategic relationships with countries throughout the Gulf, as it has helped to develop and increasingly defend the region�s energy resources.

In the ensuing years, one particular development catapulted the United States into an unprecedented position and role with regard to the GCC region. Presaging the establishment of the GCC in ways that eclipsed all other events was Great Britain�s December 1967 decision to abrogate no later than December 1971 its nearly century and a half old treaty relationships with nine Gulf principalities by which it administered their foreign relations and defence. This set in motion the steps that led to Bahrain and Qatar joining Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which were already independent states, and the formation of the United Arab Emirates � in some ways a microcosm of what the GCC could and may yet one day become. 

Like no other single factor, Great Britain�s decision drove the transition from these polities� protected-state status to national sovereignty and political independence. The process itself marked the ending of two eras and the beginning of two others. In the first, the termination of British hegemony in these entities� external and domestic affairs enabled them to meet, intermingle, and explore the possibilities of a common future together to a greater extent than at any other time in modern history. In the second, Britain�s abrogation of its special treaty relationships and obligations cleared the way for the United States to become the pre-eminent military and geo-political power in the Gulf as a whole, a role it has been keen to strengthen and expand ever since. 

Additional key historical turning points occurring shortly before the GCC�s establishment were three events that occurred in 1979 � the attack on the Grand Mosque in Makkah, the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (that led to the rise of Al-Qaeda), and the onset of the Iranian Revolution. Of more recent vintage, the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Iraq�s 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait, the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and 2004 forecasts by some geologists and financial advisers that world oil reserves had either already peaked or would soon do so, contributing, along with the chaos and uncertainties associated with the U.S. invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, to $60 a barrel. 

But the one catalyst that most shaped the founding of the GCC and the need for the United States and other Great Power allies to reformulate their policies towards the GCC region was the overthrow of the government headed by the Shah of Iran in late December 1978. The Shah�s replacement by a radical extremist regime marked a major turning point not only in the strategic calculus of Gulf defence but also with regard to the foundation upon which six of the Gulf�s member-countries would place their international relations and further economic development. The entire Gulf region thereby entered an era that was at once more uncertain, yet laced with unprecedented possibilities, than any in recent memory. 

In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian government�s demise, the implications for regional defence and security were uppermost on everyone�s minds. Of particular concern was that whereas Iran, along with Saudi Arabia, had served as the larger and more militarily powerful partner in a �twin pillar� strategy to enhance Gulf peace and stability, the situation soon became one in which the Iranian revolution threatened to spread to Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. 

The outbreak of armed hostilities between Iran-and Iraq 19 months later marked the beginning of one of the 20th century's longest wars, 1980-88, and further underscored the potential for greater regional turmoil [[[OR: for greater levels of two kinds of oil, as it were: turmoil and the other kind.]]]. The onset of major armed conflict between these two countries, whose populations and armed forces were both larger than those of all six of the east Arabian countries combined and whose leaders vied with one another to have their country become the paramount power in the Gulf, represented an immediate challenge to regional order and prosperity. 

The six Gulf countries that would eventually combine to form the GCC, together with representatives of fellow Arab countries Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and others, met in Jordan in November, 1980, to ponder how best to respond to the most serious challenge to Gulf defence in modern times. The countries that would establish the GCC resisted the temptation to endorse a particular idea advanced by representatives of other Arab governments. They refused to enter then and there into any formally organised effort to deal with matters of regional defence cooperation as a means of preventing the conflict from spreading to the Arab side of the Gulf. Instead, the Sultan of Oman, backed by the other five Arabian Peninsula monarchies, persuaded his colleagues to postpone any further deliberations about what their collective response might be until they met in Taif, Saudi Arabia, at an OIC summit scheduled for January 1981. 

Upon the conclusion of the Taif Summit, the leaders of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to remain behind and meet among themselves. The purpose was to conduct their own deliberations on how best to proceed cooperatively with a view to preventing the spread of any aspect of the Iran-Iraq war or the Iranian revolution to their countries. 

The fact that Iraq, Jordan, and Yemen were not invited to be part of these discussions was interpreted by Baghdad, Amman, and Sana'a as a major geopolitical setback. (Six years later, these three countries, plus Egypt, would form their own sub-regional organisation called the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC). The ACC disbanded shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, when Egypt, together with the six GCC member-states plus five other Arab countries, sided with Kuwait but Jordan, Yemen, and six other Arab other nations did not). 

Click here for the complete essay [PDF]

Arab-US Policymakers Conference Discussions on the GCC
The 25th Anniversary of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC): A Forum on the Future of the GCC
[audio files of speakers - courtesy of ArabiaLink.com ]

Oct 31 - The Gulf Cooperation Council: 25 Years of Accomplishments and Challenges
Rear Admiral Harold J. Bernsen, (USN, Ret.) 
H.E. Shaikh Terky bin Rashid Al-Khalifah 
Dr. Michael Collins Dunn 
Dr. Kenneth Katzman 
Dr. Joseph Moynihan 

Oct 31 - What Future for the GCC Region?
Ms. Anne Joyce 
HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal 
Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman 
The Hon. Gordon Gray 

Oct 31 - Luncheon Keynote Address: A Vision of the Future of the GCC
Dr. Hussein Al-Athel 
HE Nasser bin Hamad bin Mubarak Al Khalifa 
Lt. Gen. David Barno (USA, Ret.) 
The Hon. W. Chas Freeman, Jr.