ORGANIZACIONES Y TEJIDOS SOCIALES

Having explored the lack of security in the Gulf and the historical reasons behind that, it is time to address and analyse the views of the creators of the GCC: what they were planning, what their goals were and how they wanted to achieve their goals. They were

171Bismarck (2009), p.1.

172 See the Arab League Official Website available on www.arableagueonline.org.

173Iraqi Fairs (2010).

174 This war is discussed in the following chapter.

175Alashal (1983), p18.

176Ibid, p.19.

177Ibid, p.18.

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mainly divided between two main views: to focus mainly on security, as proposed by Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia, while Kuwait proposed to create comprehensive cooperation focused mainly on economics.

The first attempt at cooperation between all the countries in the Gulf, which contained an implied proposal, was by the head of Oman, Sultan Qaboos, when he called for a meeting in Muscat in 1976. It seems that Sultan Qaboos had a wider idea for the membership of this cooperation in the Arabian Gulf which included Iraq and Iran along with the rest of the Gulf countries. His idea was to create a harmonised regional security and to define a strategy for the Gulf, but the countries at this meeting were not able to agree and the meeting ended without any result.¹⁷⁸ That same year, there was a better received proposal by Kuwaiti leader Sheikh Jaber Al Subaha, who proposed the creation of an institution for cooperation among Gulf countries excluding Iran and Iraq in politics, economics and security, in order to face the challenges in all these fields and to protect the region.¹⁷⁹ After that, more discussions took place between the six countries, pushing towards the creation of an institution for cooperation. From the beginning, they agreed to keep the membership closed to only those six countries, but they had different opinions on what to focus on, with some preferring to focus on economic cooperation and others on security cooperation.¹⁸⁰ Four proposals were put forward for consideration by the leaders of the Gulf countries before the GCC was established.

3.6.1The Bahraini Proposal

The Bahrain proposal was to create a rapid deployment force in the Gulf, which would be a mobile force that could effectively and quickly respond to any threat that might face the GCC countries. The leadership of this force would alternate and the force would be provided with the most modern weapons.¹⁸¹ In other words, the Bahraini proposal meant creating a military alliance, rather than an international organisation.

The reason behind this proposal is clear: that the member countries should rely on

178 Christie (1987), p. 9.

179 Ibid, p 4.

180 Ibid, p. 9.

181Bahrain Journal (18 Dec 1980).

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themselves in defending their countries and not on Western powers, mainly the UK and US. Some might suggest that at that time, Bahrain was not interested in other kinds of cooperation because they needed to protect themselves from the threat posed by Iran first and foremost, while economic cooperation was left as a long term goal since the member countries were already in a good degree of economic cooperation even before the establishment of the GCC.¹⁸²

3.6.2 The Omani Proposal

Oman proposed that the GCC countries should establish naval forces to defend the Strait of Hormuz, as an important route for importing and exporting.¹⁸³ The Omani proposal was similar to the Bahraini one: to create a military alliance, but the focus was on the Strait of Hormuz which is the only path for exporting Gulf oil beside the Saudi pipeline spanning from the Gulf to Jeddah on the Red Sea to use in case of war in the Gulf. The Omani worry about the Strait was reasonable considering Iran – which borders the Strait from the west side – had declared many times that it commands the Strait and that it may close it if it is faced with any threat.¹⁸⁴

The leaders of the member countries did not base the GCC on the Bahraini proposal or on the Omani one because these proposals were about creating a military alliance while the rest of the leaders wanted it to be an organisation for a more comprehensive cooperation. However, the Bahraini proposal was not completely ignored.

In 2006, 24 years after its creation, the GCC responded to the Bahraini proposal, in developing the Peninsula Shield Force and in 2009 this force became stronger by adding the Gulf Rapid Deployment Forces Brigade.¹⁸⁵ Creating this GCC military force should satisfy the Bahrainis as that was what their proposal was about.¹⁸⁶ The Omani proposal

182See Sandwick (1987), p. 8.

183Alashal (1983), p. 24.

184 See the Safawi‟s speech, available on www.sheemapress.com.

185Asharq Al-Awst Newspaper (7 Dec 2010) Al-Atiyah stresses the important of the security cooperation.

11697.

186 The last chapter of this thesis demonstrates that the reasons behind the Bahraini Proposal did not become clear until 2011, that it aimed to use this force to help the Bahraini government cope with the internal trouble caused by Bahraini Shi‟ah people.

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has still not been met to date, as there is no sign that the GCC is heading towards creating a joint naval force only to protect the Strait of Hormuz.

3.6.3 The Saudi Proposal

Saudi Arabia proposed unifying a weapons source by facilitating training on new weapons and establishing a wide cooperation between internal security forces instead of making a military alliance. They wanted to avoid any military alliance with any external country and encourage the national military force in each country to support sovereignty and internal affairs and systems, to ensure that their independence was on their own terms.¹⁸⁷

It is worth noting that the Saudi proposal did not divert much from other proposals: its focus was still on military cooperation but rather than making a direct alliance, the proposal tried to express it as a kind of international cooperation. Saudi Arabia knew that creating a military alliance at the time of the Iran-Iraq war would be seen as an alliance against Iran and while the Gulf countries were keen not to overtly support either country, they were asking both Iraq and Iran to stop the war immediately.¹⁸⁸

3.6.4 The Kuwaiti Proposal

Instead of focusing on military cooperation, the Kuwaiti proposal focused on economic and cultural cooperation (oil, factories, culture, etc…) to achieve greater and stronger unity. Kuwait was not interested in security cooperation,¹⁸⁹ even though its existence was facing a close and serious danger. As mentioned above, Iraq has never recognised Kuwait as an independent country but claimed Kuwait as a part of Iraq which needed to be re-conquered. It is not clear why Kuwait was not interested in military and security cooperation as the Kuwaiti Government gave no explanations; however, this thesis suggests that Kuwait was not interested in security cooperation because it was relying

187 Sandwick (1987), p. 11.

188 See the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh closing statements of the Supreme Council of the GCC.

189 The fact that Kuwait has not been interested in security cooperation is discussed in the GCC Political Achievements chapter.

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on the UN and international powers.¹⁹⁰ Kuwait certainly recognised the importance of security and the danger facing the Gulf countries though Kuwait might have believed that economic cooperation was more likely to succeed and that the security matter should be one focus of the GCC but not the main one.

Finally, at the Islamic Summit in Al-Ta'if, in Saudi Arabia in 1980, the leaders of the Gulf countries met on the sidelines of the Summit. The Kuwaiti proposal was ready to be announced to the rest of the Gulf countries and when the Prince of Kuwait announced the idea of establishing the GCC, all the Gulf countries were happy with this idea of institutionalised cooperation.¹⁹¹ This thesis argues that, perhaps Kuwait recognised the fact that the GCC states were weak in terms of their military forces and that a union between weak states does not make them strong militarily. Many politics scholars agree that an alliance between small states does not really help them define themselves as a strong military union.¹⁹² For a richer discussion about these different proposals, this chapter draws on the international relations concepts of 'small states'¹⁹³ and of 'the balance of power.'¹⁹⁴