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Page added on June 11, 2017
Gulf Crisis: Cold War in the GCC
The Gulf Cooperation Council was rocked by scandal this week as Saudi Arabia and its allies swiftly moved to cut all ties with fellow member Qatar over claims that it supports regional terrorism.
The allegations are purportedly due to Doha’s persistent backing of the Muslim Brotherhood despite agreeing in late-2014 to radically downscale its support for the organization as part of a détente with Saudi Arabia the last time the two sides butted heads over the issue. The straw that broke the camel’s back this time around, so to speak, reportedly came during the Riyadh Summit a few weeks ago when Qatari Emir al-Thani spoke pragmatically about Iran’s regional role and criticized the implied anti-Iranian nature of the Saudi-led military alliance.
None of this was made public at the time, but then recently some of the Qatari leader’s comments were reported on by one of his country’s national broadcasters, which sparked instantaneous criticism from the Saudis. Doha said that it was the victim of a hacking attack, though Riyadh and its allies didn’t believe it. After planning their response for nearly a week, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain launched what amounts to a de-facto embargo on their peninsular neighbor by shutting down all land, sea, and air connection with Qatar. They also took measures to close down the Al Jazeera offices in their countries. Moreover, GCC allies such as Egypt, the Hadi government in Yemen, General Haftar’s government in eastern Libya, and a handful of other governments united behind the Saudis in cutting all ties with Qatar too.
Qatar expressed dismay that its former coalition allies suddenly turned against it, though Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Thani said that his country “will not launch measures to escalate toward [its] brotherly nations.” He also said that Kuwait proposed mediating between both sides and is actively working to contain the crisis. In any case, the resumption of the Qatari-Saudi Cold War has already spread uncertainty all throughout the Mideast, with analysts scrambling to forecast how this could impact the wars in Syria and Libya where both sides have proxy fighters. In addition, the unexpected disunity in the so-called “Arab NATO” is thought to have generated strategic relief for Iran and given the Islamic Republic valuable breathing space from the American-backed regional pressure that was supposed to be put on it following Trump’s visit last month.
Dr Farooq Hasnat, Professor of Political Science and formerly the Chair of Political Science at Punjab University and Arif Kamal, former Pakistani diplomat who dedicated almost eleven years in his thirty four years of diplomatic profession to the Middle Eastern arena and was also Ambassador to Qatar in from 1999-2003, joined our discussion.
5 Comments on "Gulf Crisis: Cold War in the GCC"
Cloggie on Sun, 11th Jun 2017 3:46 pm
The KSA leadership fears that it could become a victim of a Muslim brotherhood uprising, just like happened to Mubarak in Egypt and sees, probably correctly, Qatar as the main backer of such an eventuality.
Cloggie on Mon, 12th Jun 2017 6:55 am
Iran Air opening food bridge to Qatar:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/11/middleeast/iran-qatar-planes-food/index.html
So much for the “Sunni-Shia-divide”.
The real issue here is the divide between Muslim masses (Sunni or Shia) as represented by the “grass roots” Muslim Brotherhood in the Sunni world and the KSA and Egyptian regimes, propped up by the “infidel” US.
Africa and Asia were largely decolonized between the fifties and seventies. KSA and Egypt are the last left-overs of western colonialism and that colonialism will likely soon be history as well.
The truth is that the “House of Saud” is in the defense and fighting for its own survival against enemies from within (Muslim Brotherhood), subsidized by competitors like Qatar and in the distance Turkey.
Turkey, Iran and Qatar want regime change in KSA (and Egypt) and the removal of western influence from the Gulf.
Erdogan and Muslim Brotherhood president Morsi were big buddies…
http://medafricatimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/turkkey.jpg
…until the US gave the nod to the Egyptian army, who removed Morsi.
Cloggie on Tue, 13th Jun 2017 4:13 am
Israel backs KSA, Egypts and UAE:
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/06/israel-backs-gcc-states-rift-qatar-170613070039740.html
Totally unsurprising. Why should they attack the proxies of their proxy USA.
Cloggie on Thu, 15th Jun 2017 12:28 pm
Hahaha, Qatar is taking revenge for the US-backed assault against its country by spilling the beans over the disaster in Syria:
https://charlierose.com/videos/30589
At 7:55 of this interview, ex-Qatari PM says it was a mistake for Gulf-US to fund jihadist groups in Syria.
Everybody who had been paying attention knew who the criminals where who on purpose had set a country on fire and killed 500k people in the process, just like that. And it failed majestically. Syria will likely be largely restored.
Meanwhile the Americans are so furious with Russia that they want to expand the sanctions with Russia, but Germany, Austria and other countries are not amused. “None of your business” is the message to the swamp.
The German foreign minister Gabriel correctly assumes that the US wants to force Europe to swap Russians gas for their gas:
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/russland-sanktionen-sigmar-gabriel-und-christian-kern-kritisieren-us-plaene-a-1152321.html
No less than 97/100 US senators pleaded for the new sanctions and frustrate Trump even more.
The “reason” is the completely bogus story about Russian “interference” in the US elections.
Perhaps the EU should apply for SCO membership, just like Russia, China and India?
Oh and for all those folks making jokes about “Paris-Berlin-Moscow”, even Fortune is waking up:
http://fortune.com/2016/06/28/russia-brexit-eu-membership/
Again my warning: Paris-Berlin-Moscow could become a death trap if done prematurely, because American diplomats would visit Beijing the next day to form an alliance with China.
Paris-Berlin-Moscow should only happen AFTER the Fourth Turning. Only when we have secured an alliance with the US Heartland is it safe to turn to Moscow.
Cloggie on Thu, 15th Jun 2017 12:35 pm
The death of Brexit:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/death-of-brexit-at-the-hands-of-theresa-may-a-1152330.html
Brexit is defunct. That, at least, is what a member of Theresa May’s cabinet intimated last weekend. “In practical terms, Brexit is dead,” an unnamed minister told the Financial Times… If she weren’t so incompetently cool and calculating, one could almost pity Theresa May… It won’t be a hard Brexit. The best case is a soft Brexit, which would mean that the UK could remain a part of the common market, but that the government would have to accept immigration from Europe and regulations from Brussels — without having a vote in the EU. To paraphrase May, this would indeed be a bad deal, but still better than no deal at all
Fool Britannia.
Fine with me, as long as they can’t block the founding of an EU army.