Divergences within the GCC over Post-Saddam Iraq
For Saudi Arabia and Iran, Iraq is part of the competition for greater regional influence, albeit indirectly. Saudi Arabia wants to prevent the new Iraqi state from coming fully under Iranian influence. It is also concerned about the implications of the security situation in Iraq for its own security, particularly as the two countries share a common border that is 812 kilometers long. The Saudi authorities have built a high-tech barrier to seal off its northern neighbor. The fence, thousands of kilometers of barbed wire across the vast and remote desert frontier between the countries, is equipped with ultraviolet night-vision surveillance cameras and underground movement sensors that set off silent alarms. In general, Saudi Arabia wants to ensure that Iraqi policies should not conflict with the priorities of Riyadh’s foreign policy, including the fact that it is the largest oil exporter in the world.
For Kuwait, its concerns are mainly about an ominous territorial disintegration of Iraq or a civil war that will constitute a threat to Kuwaiti national security.
Other Gulf Arab states are concerned about the consequences of the growing sectarianism in Iraq. This concern is felt most obviously in Bahrain. Qatar’s geographic isolation means that instability in Iraq will not affect its national security directly, while in the UAE, the concerns are chiefly of an economic nature.36
35. Sager, “Iraq’s Invasion Started with a Lie.”
36. Kishk, “Gulf Responsibility toward Post-Saddam Iraq.”
Referring to the discrepancies in the individual assessments of each of the Gulf countries, a Gulf academic said that the Gulf countries did not have a collective strategic approach towards regional issues in general, including Iraq. The situation in Iraq developed in a manner that did not converge with the perceptions of the Gulf and Western countries and that may explain the absence of a unified GCC position on Iraq. Today, the Gulf countries do not want a strong Iraq, like it used to be in the past, as it would be a threat to them. At the same time, they do not want a weak Iraq that could be used in the regional and international conflicts in the Gulf region. The GCC countries want a well-balanced Iraq.
The diplomatic representation of the GCC countries in Iraq reflects their attitudes and concerns. Although the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 has ended security concerns that have for a long time haunted the GCC countries in general and Kuwait in particular, the diplomatic exchange between Iraq and the GCC countries has not been fully restored yet. The UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait nominated ambassadors to Iraq in 2008, five years after the invasion. However, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia have hesitated to make the decision.
Riyadh, nevertheless, realized the importance of having a diplomatic representation and on February 21, 2012 nominated its ambassador in Jordan as a non-resident ambassador in Baghdad.37 The media advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister hailed the decision, saying that the Iraqi government welcomed this step and stressing that Iraq would respond quickly in accepting the request. The advisor said that Iraq had had an ambassador in Saudi Arabia for a long time and that Baghdad had been awaiting the Saudi decision.38
On the other hand, any observer of the final communiqués issued by the GCC at the end of their annual summits from 2003 to 2012 would note that they followed the same pattern and did not reflect the strategic view of the GCC countries towards Iraq as a component of the security situation in the region. An analysis of the final statements in 2011 and 2012 shows that they were a repetition of the earlier communiqués despite the fact that the two summits were held after the US withdrawal from Iraq. The two statements had been expected to reflect a common Gulf approach toward Iraq that included tactical and strategic policies.
However, the opposite happened and some Gulf official statements even said that the issue of US withdrawal from Iraq was an internal Iraqi matter.
37. Jassem Al Hariri, “The Gulf Cooperation Council and Iraq after the US Withdrawal,”
Middle East Magazine 143 (2012).
38. Official Iraqi statement. See Asharq Al Awsat on February 22, 2012, available at: http://
www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&issueno=12139&article=62.
Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a statement following the 32nd GCC summit session in Riyadh in December 2011, that the “withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Iraq was a matter that regarded the U.S. and Iraq. They have agreed on the withdrawal from Iraq. As regards the actions and reactions related to the withdrawal, we do not know how things will be,” he said.
The minister added that “Iraq needed to make its policies toward the region clear,”
hoping that it will be able to interact with the countries in the region. “We hope that the situation in Iraq will be stable and that Baghdad will treat its citizens equally, in both duties and benefits, and that there will be no differences between Iraqis. We hope that matters will progress in a way that makes Iraq a factor of stability and a pillar of security for the Arab countries after it was a means of destruction in the region, especially that they themselves went through this experiment. We will wait to see what the Iraqi government will do.”
Implications of the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait in 1990
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 continues to be an impediment for Iraq to resume normal relations with Kuwait in particular and the GCC in general. The debt issue is a major irritant and Kuwaiti official statements stress that Kuwait will not compromise on its dues from Iraq. In this context, Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Khaled Al-Jarallah said that “Kuwait did not waive the compensation from the Iraqi invasion.” He added that an agreement has been signed for the settlement of the $500 million debt owed to Kuwait Airways by its Iraqi counterpart, but it has not been waived. Under the agreement, Baghdad would pay $300 million in cash and $200 million as an investment in an airline company to be set up in Iraq.39 Some sources indicate that the total amount of the remaining debts and compensation was around $25 billion, while Iraqis are talking about six billion dollars only.
In addition, Kuwait and Iraq still have a problem with their frontiers despite Resolution 833 issued by the Security Council in 1993 on the demarcation of the border between the two countries. No agreement has been reached so far between the two countries on the demarcation of the maritime border. Some Iraqi officials said that endorsing the maritime boundary in accordance with this UN resolution would narrow the Iraqi navy shipping lanes used to export the country’s oil. Fadel Mahmoud Jawad, legal advisor to the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that there was no new agreement between the governments of Iraq and Kuwait on the demarcation
39. The statements published on November 14, 2012 on http://www.alarabiya.net/.
of the border between the two countries. He said that the current situation was just maintaining the border pillars in accordance with Resolution 833, the binding resolution for Iraq. He added that the decision was unfair and that it took away Iraqi lands, water, and wells and granted them to Kuwait. However, he said that the Iraqi government did not have any choice but to comply with the resolution.40 Iraq’s Position on Some Gulf Issues
The Iraqi stance on regional issues is a natural result of the growing Iranian influence in Iraq. They reflect the convergence of the positions of the two countries on the issues of the Gulf, including on troops from the Peninsula Shield, the military arm of the GCC, entering Bahrain. In this context, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki on March 26, 2011 said that the presence of the Shield Forces in Bahrain would worsen the situation in the region and fuel sectarian violence. After the troops entered Bahrain, he said that the intervention of any Sunni country in Manama could lead to a sectarian war. In an interview with the BBC on March 26, Al-Maliki said that the issue in Bahrain was between Sunnis and Shiites. He said that the presence of forces from Arab countries considered as Sunnis on the side of a Sunni government in Bahrain had created a situation that looked like a Sunni mobilization against Shiites. He added that the issue would be “like a snowball that would grow larger in size whenever it was neglected.”41
This was not the first time that Iraq took a position that was in opposition to that of the Gulf countries. During the thirteenth session of the Arab Parliamentary Union held in Erbil in northern Iraq in March 2008, Khalid Al-Attiyah, First Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi parliament and the head of the Iraqi delegation at the meetings, insisted that the claim by the UAE to its three islands occupied by Iran should not be mentioned as is customary in the final statement of the conference.
40. It is worth mentioning that Hizbollah threatened Iraqi Shiite companies operating in the Kuwaiti Mubarak port project against continuing to work there and demanded from the Iraqi government to take appropriate measures to prevent the construction work. It said in a statement posted on its website: “We warn the companies operating in the project to build the port of Kuwait not to continue to work. Just as the people of Kuwait did not forget how they suffered from the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people have not forgotten the positions of the government of Al Sabah that supported Saddam’s regime in the war for eight years against neighboring Iran and opened the Kuwaiti lands and airspace for U.S.
troops to occupy Iraq.”(Source: “The Problem of Iraq with Kuwait Did Not End with the Fall of Saddam,” Middle East Online, March 20, 2013).
41. Iman Rajab, “Iraq’s Foreign Policy towards Arab Revolutions,” Al Ahram Strategic Dossier, July 20, Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
The speaker is a leading senior Shiite figure of the Dawa party,42 and such stances only reinforce the Gulf ’s concerns about Iraq. The GCC countries do not have a problem with Iraq as a state, but rather with its ideologies, both Baathist and Shiite, that are expressed by the Iraqi elite holding various positions.
Conclusion
The Iraqi threat for the security situation in the Gulf region did not end with the toppling of the former Iraqi regime. In fact, the invasion created new threats, the least of which were sectarianism and the lack of security and stability in Iraq, which run in parallel with political divisions alongside sectarian faults. This situation makes religion a focus of the political conflict, which further complicates the standoff and reduces the chances of a national consensus, with repercussions that will not be confined to the internal situation in Iraq.
Iraq presents opportunities and challenges at the same time for regional security. However, in order to benefit from Iraq as the cornerstone of regional security, the fundamental problems between the GCC and Iraq should be settled so as to enhance confidence-building measures between the two sides, which would be an important foundation for regional security.
1. The GCC has a responsibility towards Iraq, not only because it is one of the factors in the Gulf regional security equation but also because the reduction of Iranian influence requires GCC policies that counterbalance Iranian policies in the region, particularly in Iraq.
Vision for the Future
The security situation in the Gulf region affects regional security as well as global security. Therefore, there are several regional and international variables that must be taken into account by the countries of the GCC:
• US efforts towards self-sufficiency in energy and the growing Iranian influence raise many questions about the regional balance of power in the Gulf. Iraq offers an alternative to the Western countries as an important regional ally, and there are indications that support this orientation. The US embassy in Iraq, for instance, will remain one of the largest diplomatic missions in the world. Besides, there is the strategic cooperation agreement signed between Iraq and the United States in 2008.
42. Ayesha Al Merri, “It Happened in Erbil,” Al Ettihad, March 7, 2008.
• The expanding international relations of Iraq, including ties with NATO, raise questions about their impact on regional security. In particular, the strategic location of Iraq for NATO and the United States is seen as an extension of the Western presence in Afghanistan, allowing Western countries to encircle Iran.
• In light of the continuing border disputes between Iraq and Kuwait, another international intervention in case the conflict escalates, will become the subject of controversy especially because the current Iraqi government has been elected regardless of the protests in some Iraqi cities against its policies and the calls by the people for its removal from power.
• If the requirements to achieve regional security include reforming its constituent elements, the stability of Iraq is crucial for the GCC. The probabilities that Iraq will undergo development shifts similar to the ones in other Arab countries are not remote. The danger lies in the fact that the GCC countries cannot afford to be within a troubled region that has
“Yemen to the south and Iraq to the north.”
• The establishment of a permanent mechanism for interaction between the GCC and Iraq will be a prelude to the establishment of a multilateral cooperative regional security arrangement that reflects the regional identity.
It will be a distinct departure from the strategic security calculations that have characterized the interactions of the region since the British withdrawal and turned it into an arena for regional and international conflicts.