The Gulf Crisis: The U.S. Factor.

AuthorKabalan, Marwan
PositionCOMMENTARY - Essay

Introduction

On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt announced that they had decided to sever their diplomatic ties with Qatar. The four countries also imposed a full blockade on Qatar, covering its (single) land border with Saudi Arabia as well as the country's air and seaports. This extended to transit travel across the region, with all planes travelling to and from Qatar prevented from landing in Saudi, Emirati, Bahraini or Egyptian airports. Qatari diplomats were given 48 hours to leave the blockading countries while other Qatari nationals were allowed two weeks.

Unlike his senior advisers, who favored a more balanced approach to prevent any negative fallout of the U.S. interests, President Trump lent support to the blockading countries particularly in the early stages of the crisis. He has since changed his position gradually to become more in harmony with the position of the foreign policy establishment. This paper examines the U.S. position on the Gulf crisis and the evolution of President Trump's policy on the blockade of Qatar. It argues that the inconsistency in U.S. policy towards the Gulf crisis has contributed to complicating the issue and made it even more difficult to find a quick solution to the problem.

Roots of the Crisis

Since the ascendance of Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, former Emir and father of the current ruler, to power in 1995, Qatar's regional role has fundamentally changed. Its dynamic and flexible foreign policy approach allowed Doha to balance relations with major powers in the region and across the globe. Qatar established a robust relationship with the United States--hosting the largest U.S. military bases outside U.S. territories at al-Udiad, in the south of the country--while simultaneously nurturing strong ties with some of the U.S.'s traditional foes; including Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The Al Jazeera broadcasting network was also established, addressing some of the most pressing, often ignored, topics in the Arab Middle East. It screened Arab intellectuals and political activists from a wide array of political trends. These changes, brought about by Qatar, became a source of irritation for its neighbors--Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular--providing for periodic crises between the two Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

When the Arab revolutions broke out in early 2011, conservative Arab governments blamed Al Jazeera coverage for fanning the revolutions, which engulfed the region from Tunisia to Yemen. Peaceful protests by young Arabs won admiration worldwide, leading western governments, especially the U.S., to consider abandoning its traditional allies, such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. While most Arab governments were on the back foot, waiting to react to events on the ground, Doha and the Al Jazeera network were in their prime, playing a vibrant role across the region. A reversal of fortunes was quick in the making, however. (1)

A watershed moment for both the Arab Spring and for Qatar's foreign policy came in the summer of 2013. At that point, revolutionary momentum began to fade. Islamists in power could not manage the transition to democracy in Egypt, while the army could not resist the temptation to seize power. Qatar's position became untenable when the junta, supported by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, took over in Cairo, reversing the gains of the January 25, 2011 revolution and reinstating autocratic rule. The June 30, 2013 coup, which removed Egypt's first democratically elected president, exposed the rift between these two Gulf countries and Bahrain, with Qatar. The governments of these three countries withdrew their ambassadors from Doha by the beginning of 2014, marking the crescendo of a crisis, which lasted for nine months. They demanded Qatar expel figures from the Muslim Brotherhood, shut down Al Jazeera Live Egypt and change its position on the military regime in Cairo.

The lack of sympathy from the Obama Administration prevented Saudi Arabia and the UAE from taking further action against Qatar during the 2014 crisis. Qatar also opted for reconciliation at that time, seeking to facilitate a smooth transfer of power from Sheikh Hamad to his son Sheikh Tamim. Hence it accepted some of its neighbors' demands, and signed the Riyadh Agreement in November 2014. The three GCC countries returned their ambassadors to Doha thereafter and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain attended the annual GCC summit in Doha in December 2014.

The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 encouraged Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to resume the conflict and bring it to a decisive conclusion. The Trump Administration seems to have created the right environment for an alliance between the crown prince of Abu Dhabi and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia to complete some unfinished business with Qatar. This came into focus with the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh, which brought the U.S. President together with more than 50 leaders from around the Arab and the Islamic world to discuss issues of interest, particularly the combat of terrorism.

In fact, Donald Trump's ascension to the White House, and his subsequent visit to Riyadh provided the catalyst that sparked the 2017 Gulf crisis. President Trump himself acknowledged the connection between his visit to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf crisis. To quote from the President's Twitter feed: "So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding... [continued] extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" (2)

Clearly, the blockading quartet relied on President Trump's support to pressure Qatar into backing down and accept their conditions to resolve the crisis. On June 23, 2017, they issued a list of 13 demands, calling upon Doha to comply with them in exchange for lifting the blockade. The ultimatum included the closure of Al Jazeera and a number of other media outlets sponsored by Qatar, such as Al Araby television network and The New Arab newspaper. The blockading countries also demanded that Qatar reduce the level of its diplomatic relations with Iran and shut down a Turkish military base. The ultimatum demanded Qatar to hand over dissidents from each of the countries concerned and share information about the opposition figures. Qatar was also asked to pay out an unspecified amount in "damages" to the countries concerned "in compensation for the harm which Qatar's foreign policy had caused them over the years." (3) The reference here was mainly to the events of the Arab Spring, wherein Saudi Arabia and UAE paid billions of dollars to bail out the military regime in Egypt and prevent the collapse of the state institutions following the military coup.

U.S. Reaction: Divided They Stand

From day one, the position of the Trump Administration on the Gulf crisis was inconsistent and contradictory. President Trump championed the demands of the anti-Qatar alliance. (4) He even appeared to take credit for the move to isolate Qatar, suggesting that it was inspired by his insistence to Gulf rulers during the Riyadh summit that more needs to be done to combat and restrict financing "terrorism." In this regard, Trump considered the Palestinian resistance movement (Hamas) a terrorist organization just like ISIS and al-Qaeda and hence he considered Qatar's support for the besieged Palestinians in Gaza as an act of financing terrorism (5).

Trump's remarks and his position on the Gulf crisis contradicted those of his then Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis. Merely hours following the imposition of the blockade on Qatar, Tillerson and Mattis urged the various parties of the conflict to remain calm and find a peaceful solution to the crisis. (6) Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a U.S. Air Force spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command--headquarter in Qatar--went a step further by praising Qatar's contribution to the U.S. war efforts against ISIS. "The United States and the [anti-ISIS U.S.-led] coalition are grateful to the Qataris for their long-standing support of our presence and their enduring commitment to regional security," Pickart said. (7) Trump's accusations that Qatar was funding extremism were also contradicted by the U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, who stated that Qatar had made "real progress" in curbing financial support for terrorism. (8) Former White House spokesman Sean Spicer also tried to limit the diplomatic damage caused by Trump's tirades. "The United States wants to defuse and resolve this crisis immediately within the principles put forward by the president with regard to the elimination of the financing of terrorism," Spicer said on the day Trump pointed a finger at Qatar over Twitter. Furthermore, Spicer asserted that Trump had enjoyed "very productive" talks with the Emir of Qatar during his visit to Riyadh in May. (9)

The clearest example of the inconsistency in the U.S. position on the Gulf crisis emerged on June 9, 2017 when then Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, in a brief speech at the State Department, stressed...

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