Fatin Shabbar
Recommendations for GCC Policymakers:
• Denouncing sectarian discourse and accepting and cooperating with the changing political demographic and the power balance in the region is critical in developing any meaningful relationship with Iraq.
• Adopting a zero-sum vision towards Iraq’s relationship with Iran does not provide an accurate assessment and a clear vision of the current political scene operating within the region.
• Acknowledging the heterogeneity of the Shia community can contribute to promoting unity in the Arab world and enhance the project of political and social coexistence among its diverse communities.
• Responding to Iraq’s call for economic and political cooperation can minimize the role played by foreign powers in shaping the political landscape of the region.
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Recommendations for Iraqi Policymakers:
• The lack of a common political narrative between Iraq and the GCC is, to a large extent, responsible for reinforcing the strained relations between the two parties.
• Avoiding engagement in sectarian dialogue not only on a local level but also an international level can help provide a clearer view of Iraq’s interests.
• Maintaining neutral international relations is fundamental to Iraq’s reconstruction period and it can help Iraq develop into a powerful regional mediator for peace.
Introduction
The political scene in the Middle East is anything but stable. The withdrawal of US forces from Iraq, the sudden emergence of the Arab Spring, and the growing conflict between Iran and the international community are all complex issues that are significantly changing the political landscape in the Middle East. These issues are also linked to a rapidly increasing sectarian division in the Arab world that has, to a large extent, dismantled the long-held concept of Arab unity and replaced it with aggressive sectarian identities. Sectarianism is now employed by many Arab governments and oppositions to rule their countries and to undertake political lobbying and activism, a reality that has been politically harmful for the region.1 This growing political instability has introduced some significant security challenges to the entire Middle East, but more specifically to the Gulf region due to its geostrategic position. Therefore, troubled by some serious internal and external security issues, the GCC is also faced with a new challenge of reassessing its foreign relations with regional powers such as Iraq, Iran and Turkey. This chapter focuses on GCC-Iraq relations especially since there is great potential for the new Iraq to grow into a regional mediator that can promote peaceful relations among Middle Eastern states.
Iraq has gone through major political reorientations after the fall of the Baath regime, reclaiming its role as a key player in determining the political destiny of the region. Iraq’s close relationship with Iran, particularly under the leadership of Nouri Al-Maliki, has been an issue of concern for many of its Arab neighbors –
1. F. Gregory Gause, “Saudi Arabia: Iraq, Iran, the Regional Power Balance, and the Sectarian Question,” Strategic Insights 6, no. 2 (2007), available at: http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?id=30995 (accessed April 24, 2013).
particularly the GCC states – who have long considered Iran as a security threat.2 The GCC does not consider Iran’s relationship with Iraq as a voluntary one between two peers; rather it perceives the relationship as a manipulative and imperialistic one. For example, in a speech given in 2005 to the Council of Foreign Relations, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal expressed his views on Iran-Iraq relations as follows: “[w]e fought a war together to keep Iran from occupying Iraq after Iraq was driven out of Kuwait. Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason.”3 As a result of this view, and despite a long period of political reforms after the fall of the Baath regime, Iraq and GCC states have not yet formed a solid relationship that could help determine the potential level of cooperation between them particularly on the political and economic fronts. Some scholars even argue that the GCC has not yet adjusted to the shift in power balance in the region and so it has been noticeably unwelcoming of the pro-Iranian, Shia-based Iraqi government,4 and it has been following a political approach that aims to “subdue Iraq, rather than … work with it.”5
The relationship between Iraq and GCC lacks a common political narrative and therefore is extremely vulnerable to the aggressive political realities of the region. There are two aspects that stand in the way of a meaningful relationship between Iraq and the GCC states: sectarian tensions and issues of sovereignty and heterogeneity in political discourse concerning the “enemy.” The political narrative analysis in this chapter is selective in the sense that it excludes socio-economic narratives that could play an important role in shaping the relationship between
2. Elena McGovern, “Iraq’s New Reality: Finding its Role in the Middle East” (report based in part on the fourth workshop of “Iraq’s New Reality: Finding its Role in the Middle East,” Stimson Center, Washington, D.C., December 2, 2009; 2010), 7. Also see Thomas R.
Mattair, “Mutual Threat Perceptions in the Arab/Persian Gulf: GCC Perceptions,” Middle East Policy 14, no. 2 (2007): 133, available at: doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4967.2007.00304.x (accessed April 12, 2013).
3. Ray Takeyh, “Iran’s New Iraq,” Middle East Journal 62, no. 1 (2008): 23, available at: doi:
dx.doi.org/10.3751/62.1.11 (accessed April 12, 2013).
4. Saud M. Al Tamamy, “Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges of Security,” Journal of Arabian Studies: Arabia, the Gulf, and the Red Sea 2, no. 2 (2012):150, available at: doi: 10.1080/21534764.2012.734117 (accessed March 2, 2013).
5. Hassan Hassan, “Time Is Right for Gulf States to Rethink Approach to Iraq,” The National, March 18, 2013, available at: http://www.thenational.ae/thenationalconversation/comment/
time-is-right-for-gulf-states-to-rethink-approach-to-iraq (accessed March 28, 2013). The GCC policies referred to in this argument include weak diplomatic relations, low-level delegations to the Arab League Summit, providing refuge to Tareq Al-Hashimi and some other Baathist leaders.
Iraq and GCC. However, it is important to clarify that the exclusive focus on sectarianism and the narrative of enemy is not meant to undermine the complexity of the political narrative operating within the region, but instead aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of one aspect of this narrative that has been particularly influential in the formulation of regional foreign policy in recent years particularly on a state level.
This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part of the chapter aims to draw a theoretical understanding of political alliance as a concept constituted by a shared political narrative between different states and governments. In this first part, the GCC is used as a case study to exemplify the significance of a common narrative in forming political alliances. The second part of the chapter examines the potential for forming similar alliances between Iraq and the GCC using the concept of “common political narrative.” This part draws particular attention to Iran as a key player in determining the type and extent of relationship that can develop between Iraq and the GCC. The question of Iran is also examined through the general sectarian narrative that is currently operating within the region.