On the fourth of December, the Kuwaiti foreign minister surprised the world, announcing that his country had succeeded in holding talks that resulted in a preliminary agreement to resolve the current crisis within the Gulf Cooperation Council for nearly four years, and specifically since June 2017, when the countries of Saudi Arabia, the Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed their relations. Diplomacy is fully with the State of Qatar, and it imposed a land, sea and air blockade on it.
In the days following the Kuwaiti announcement, Reuters quoted Gulf officials as confirming that the annual summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which was scheduled to be held on December 10, has been postponed to January 5 in order to give the opportunity for an official announcement. Reaching an agreement to end the crisis.
More specifically, the semi-official leaks indicated that the Gulf summit may witness the announcement of the lifting of restrictions imposed on Qatar's use of the airspace of the blockading countries, along with the launch of formal direct negotiations to resolve the points of disagreement between the two parties.
This breakthrough appeared to be the result of intense diplomatic efforts led by Kuwait over the past weeks under the auspices of the Trump administration, which wanted to record the solution to the Gulf crisis in its diplomatic record of achievements before leaving the White House early next year, which is the reason that the administration also sent Trump's son-in-law and close advisor Jared Kushner went to the Middle East early this month to hold two separate meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to reach a preliminary settlement of the dispute.
However, despite these positive indicators, there are many reasons for not being overly optimistic, and for looking at current developments with greater caution.
As is well known, this is not the first time that the mediation efforts have succeeded in making limited breakthroughs in the solid wall of the crisis.
The most prominent of these breaches occurred during the last half of last year, 2019, which witnessed unprecedented positive indications about the imminence of reaching a Gulf understanding, foremost of which was the presence of the former Qatari Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani, the emergency meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in Makkah, in May May of the aforementioned year, to discuss the collective security concerns of the Gulf states following the attacks on Saudi oil tankers and pipelines, in the first visit by a Qatari official to the Kingdom since the start of the blockade.
Former Qatari Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser Al Thani attends the emergency meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in Mecca, in May 2019
Later, Western newspapers reported about a secret visit by Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani to Saudi Arabia in November of the same year, and the same month also witnessed the announcement of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE to participate in the twenty-fourth annual Gulf Cup football tournament. In Doha, despite the travel ban imposed on Qatar by the three boycotting countries, and finally, the invitation extended by Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz to the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, to participate in the forty summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council in December of the year The same signs of rapprochement were crowned at the time, and although the Emir of Qatar chose not to attend the summit himself, he dispatched his prime minister to attend, as he received a remarkable reception in Riyadh.
However, these indicators of rapprochement quickly collapsed suddenly without any stated reasons, pushing the crisis back to the zero square, and it seems that obstacles such as fundamental differences over policies and the large gap in expectations, especially on the part of the blockading countries that wanted to obtain concessions, do not find Qatar itself obliged to Its introduction, as well as the differences within the siege camp itself, seem to have overcome all these obstacles and others that have overcome the weak motives for achieving reconciliation at that time.
Despite the precedents of recent history, there are still many political and economic reasons that provide a rationale for the possible thaw in Gulf relations, and justify the existence of hope that the next summit of the Cooperation Council will witness the beginning of its melting.
Despite the passage of four decades since its establishment, the Gulf Cooperation Council has not yet lost the main justification for its establishment, which is to provide collective security for its members in the face of external threats and to ensure the sustainability of the economic well-being of its countries, despite the unfair individual policies and personal ambitions of the rising leaders that have inflicted severe damage on the unity of the Council, which makes us expect today The path towards true Gulf reconciliation will not be completely paved or paved.
Often, two main arguments are highlighted to explain any possible thawing of the deadlock in Gulf relations.
The first argument takes a geopolitical character and centers on the fact that both sides of the crisis, and to be more precise the boycotting countries, have finally realized that preserving the manifestations of unity within the Gulf Cooperation Council is much better than division, and that the Gulf states need to work collectively in order to confront the challenges facing them.
Supporters of this argument say that what helped reach this conclusion is the apparent chaos in the Trump administration's policies towards the Gulf and the region in general, including its failure to confront Iran - despite tightening sanctions - and the sudden withdrawal from Syria, as well as Trump's rapid retreat from his initial support for the position Anti-Qatar blockade countries.
What made matters worse in terms of these concerns is that the pressures on Qatar, instead of pushing it to reduce or sever its relations with Iran, forced it to strengthen its relations with the "Islamic Republic", not only in terms of the inevitable cooperation in the energy field by virtue of the two countries' participation in The huge North Field of natural gas, but also because Qatar now needs to rely relatively on products coming from the Iranian market to meet the needs of the local market, and most importantly, it was forced to rely on Iranian airspace to operate flights away from the airspace of the blockading countries, something that not only caused In strengthening relations between Doha and Tehran, it enriched the Iranian treasury with more than 133 million dollars that Doha pays annually for its exploitation of the Persian state.
On the other hand, it seems that a mixture of divergent interests, and the hesitant US stances towards Iran in particular, has created a dormant gap, while at first glance it seemed to be solid convictions agreed upon within the blockade.
In contrast to the hard-line Saudi stance along the line towards Tehran, the UAE showed clear signals of its desire to improve its relations with the Iranians, and sent a delegation from the Coast Guard in the middle of last year to coordinate cooperation around the maritime borders, and it also suddenly announced in February 2020 the withdrawal of its forces from war. Yemen, preferring to take care of its interests through proxy militias in the south, in a move that was clearly not coordinated with Saudi Arabia, which was forced in return to reduce its intransigence and accept entering into indirect negotiations with the Houthis, despite their continued targeting of the kingdom's facilities and lands with missiles and drones.
Greetings of pride and pride..we send it to our soldiers and the people of our country as we celebrate tomorrow their participation in the national and humanitarian mission within the Arab alliance in Yemen..as we promised them, through their sacrifices and courage, planting goodness and spreading hope..a hand that protects and the other builds, and God willing, we will remain support and help to the brother in maintaining the security of our region And its stability.
- Mohammed bin Zayed (@MohamedBinZayed) February 8, 2020
However, the two issues of dealing with Iran and the Yemeni file were not the only reasons for the disagreement between the countries blockading Qatar.
In contrast to the hard line of the Emirates this time in dealing with political Islam, especially the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the region, Saudi Arabia and Egypt had a greater willingness to separate their policies towards Islamists inside and outside the borders, as Riyadh did not object, for example, in cooperating with the Yemeni Islah party. The local branch of the Brotherhood, which the UAE considers a bitter opponent, and likewise Cairo has continued to see that its security interests will be better served by keeping lines of communication open with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.
In a similar context, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have shown, on more than one occasion, their willingness to reduce tension with Turkey, in contradiction to the hardened Emirati position along the line.
It seems that this growing gap in policies within the blockade of blockading countries over many of the fundamental issues and concepts behind the crisis has made the Quartet bloc lose much of its ideological coherence.
The second argument about the motives for reconciliation is mostly economic, and is summarized in the fiscal austerity measures imposed by the Gulf states due to low oil prices for serious challenges to undemocratic regimes whose citizens are accustomed to receiving generous financial patronage in exchange for political loyalty.
Supporters of this argument argue that the countries that have come the longest way in imposing unpopular reform measures are the blockading countries, led by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
On the other hand, Qatar has taken advantage of the state of embargo imposed on it to postpone the implementation of any austerity agenda, and has deliberately isolated citizens from any unwanted economic changes.
This divergence in economic policies caused the emergence of the dichotomy of the good policeman and the bad cop within the Gulf Cooperation Council, while citizens in Riyadh and Manama were required to make great financial sacrifices, citizens of Doha continued to live under the previous, more abundant economic system.
The problem created by this disparity was not limited to showing some regimes less generous than others, but the real crisis is that many leaders of the Gulf states are now demanding their citizens for economic sacrifices while they engage in expensive and unsupervised spending plans, whether on military adventures. External, support and hiring agents, or even their own personal welfare.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
At the same time, the revenues coming from investment and privatization operations were not sufficient to offset the losses or instill confidence in the citizens in the presence of sound economic management.
Contrary to what the blockading countries had planned, the Gulf crisis not only deterred companies and investors from placing their money in the Qatari markets, but also caused their reluctance to invest in the entire region after it was clouded by political clouds, and the most prominent evidence of this was the poor initial public offering of Saudi Aramco. This has been significantly reduced in size and forcibly reduced to local investors in the Gulf region.
The Aramco IPO specifically shed light on the economic cost of the Gulf crisis, which was not confined to Qatar alone as the axis of the boycott had hoped, after it was proven experimentally that many of the blockading countries depend on foreign capital to fuel economic growth and diversification plans much more than Qatar itself, including the emirate. Dubai, which is the most prestigious economy in the UAE, which has been inserted by the reluctance of investors into the worst economic slowdown since the global financial crisis in 2009, a slowdown that led to clear tensions between the Emirati ruling elite, to the point that the ruler of Dubai directed a veiled criticism of his country's foreign policy in August 2019 He is exposed to external interference and resource-depleting policies led by Abu Dhabi.
These geopolitical and economic factors together provide the necessary fuel to push the attempts to solve the Gulf crisis forward, but the problem is that these factors do not affect equally on all the countries involved in the conflict, and therefore they create varying levels of urgency to address the issue.
At the same time, there are other factors that affect certain countries without others, in a way that makes them more eager to complete reconciliation on more lenient terms, compared to countries that feel less urgency, pushing them to adhere to their terms and push for deeper concessions at the negotiating table.
The blockading countries
Of the four siege countries, Saudi Arabia appears to be the most enthusiastic about restoring relations with Qatar to serve its interests, interests most of which are related to the identity of the next White House president.
It is expected that the Biden administration will not only end the long honeymoon that Riyadh experienced during the Trump era, but also intend to take a new approach in its relationship with Iran, the kingdom's arch-foe.
At a time when Tehran has a real opportunity to exit once again from its political and economic isolation and integrate with the world;
Riyadh finds itself forced to reassess its foreign policy, and this assessment is not limited to its relationship with Qatar, but also includes Turkey, as many gestures indicate the desire of Riyadh and Ankara to restore relations between them on the right track.
The Kingdom's mission in this regard is facilitated by the fact that, unlike the UAE, Qatar does not consider Qatar a direct competitor for leadership in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
Moreover, reconciliation with Doha (and Turkey as a result) appears to be an urgent requirement if the kingdom wishes to move forward with plans to normalize relations with Israel with as little media noise as possible from Doha, or counter-political clamor by officials in Ankara.
In contrast to the Saudi position, the UAE is the most intransigent and resistant party to efforts to end the blockade.
Despite everything, Abu Dhabi does not suffer from the repercussions of the bad reputation that haunts Riyadh in Washington, and it is unlikely that it will be subject to great pressure from the Democratic administration about its human rights record, other than its success in establishing its presence in American politics after it led the ride of Arab normalization with Israel, which is an issue. It enjoys broad support among both parties, as well as benefiting by extension from the services of the strong and influential Jewish lobby in the course of politics in Washington, which are advantages that Saudi Arabia does not seem able to obtain at the present time.
In other words, the UAE does not feel that there is an urgent pressure to push it to make concessions in the reconciliation file at the present time.
As indicated by the French Intelligence Online journal, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, traveled to Riyadh on December 7 to inform Mohammed bin Salman of his strong opposition to the resumption of dialogue with Qatar, and that this is Cairo's position as well, but the sources reported that both The two sides began to soften their position during the following days after American pressure, as the "Tactical Report" website reported that the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi later informed his Saudi counterpart that he had withdrawn his reservations on reconciliation efforts, and that the UAE would not seek to obstruct the negotiations process as long as the Saudi monarch, King Salman He wants to solve the crisis, and in parallel, Egypt also began to change the tone of its rhetoric after a call made by Trump with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on the tenth of December.
But the blessing of the UAE, which is relatively late for the negotiation efforts, which was quickly reflected in the tone of its official and media discourse, which began to adopt a relatively conciliatory tone with Doha, does not mean that Abu Dhabi has an intention to completely turn the page on the Gulf dispute, as the UAE still considers Qatar its main competitor in the region. The main objective of the blockade from the UAE’s point of view was to keep Doha from competing with it in various fields, including energy, regional influence, transportation, ports, airlines, finance, business and investment, but at the same time the UAE was keen not to appear as a spoiler for reconciliation efforts, especially since the file is now ranked high. In the priorities of the current and upcoming US administrations.
On the Qatari side, things look somewhat different, and it is certain that Doha will be happy to lift the restrictions of the blockade, even if relations have not fully returned to normal, but the fundamental question for Doha relates to the price it will pay in return.
As Doha has indicated repeatedly, it will not accept any concessions related to its sovereignty, which means that demands such as closing the Turkish military base and Al-Jazeera channel or making fundamental changes in the country's policy will remain elusive, especially in light of the lack of confidence and the absence of any real guarantees that the crisis will not recur in The future, as well as Doha's unwillingness to back down on the gains it has made regarding the independence of its decision since the beginning of the crisis.
Accordingly, it is likely that Qatar will only provide what the blockading countries themselves pledge to provide in terms of stopping the attacks and the media bickering, and perhaps reduce their relations with Iran to the extent that does not harm their interests, while actively engaging in the system of economic measures of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Given that combination of motivating motives towards reconciliation, mutual suspicions that will not be easy to overcome, and fundamental differences within the siege camp itself, we can expect three possible paths of anticipated reconciliation: The first is the repetition of the same scenario that occurred last year, i.e. the overcoming of differences and the causes of discord. On the motives for consensus, which means that the crisis will return to the starting point again, which cannot be ruled out in any case, although it is not likely given the increasing pressure that all parties are exposed to in order to achieve a real breakthrough.
As for the second scenario, it is the expansion of differences within the blockade of blockading countries, which prevents them from agreeing on a unified position, and in this case Saudi Arabia will have to enter into unilateral negotiations with Qatar, ignoring the objections of its former partners, and this scenario is the most remote given the close interests that connect between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the personal relations between the leaders of the two countries, the unwillingness of Saudi Arabia to undermine the confidence of its allies, as well as the political need for the blockade of the blockade to maintain some form of unity in the situations, albeit on the surface.
In light of this, the third scenario that we prefer remains, which is that the next Gulf summit will most likely witness a declaration of limited reconciliation that avoids resolving thorny issues, with the launch of long marathon negotiations to resolve the dispute.
Although this solution will not provide any party with the hoped-for gains that real reconciliation can bring, it will ease a fair amount of restrictions imposed on Qatar, and at the same time it will allow the blockading countries to follow the pace of their special relations with Doha in a manner that suits them without spilling their face, and without The need to adhere to the policies of the rest of the countries within the quadripartite bloc.
For its part, Saudi Arabia will be able to present an early gesture of goodwill to the new democratic administration in the White House, hoping to alleviate the expected pressure on the kingdom and specifically on bin Salman in Washington, along with easing tensions in the region to allow the restoration of confidence to investors who Riyadh desperately needs to attract them, and most importantly, the Kingdom will be able to reset its relations with Qatar and, more importantly, with Turkey, in a manner that serves its changing interests and without being bound by the hardening political ceiling imposed by Abu Dhabi over the past years.
On the Emirati side, although Abu Dhabi is the one with the least motives to resolve the crisis, its acceptance of a formal agreement will prevent it from appearing as a spoiler for reconciliation in the eyes of the new US administration, and at the same time it will continue to be able to implement its own political agenda without making fundamental political concessions except for the opening of airspace. And guarantee freedom of movement, and reduce the media attack on Doha, and in return, it will reciprocally benefit from the calm that will be imposed on the Qatari media under the conditions expected for reconciliation.
With regard to Egypt and Bahrain, it is clear that the initial rejection of reconciliation by the two countries, and Manama's efforts to specifically disturb the atmosphere by escalating the attack against Qatar against the background of the maritime dispute over fishing, stems mainly from the influence that Abu Dhabi exercises over the policies of both countries.
For his part, Sisi clearly sees the diminishing influence of the Qatari media on the Egyptian scene compared to the first years of his military coup, especially in light of the strict siege and the extensive policies of blocking and closure that reduced the influence of traditional media on the Egyptian arena, and also the Egyptian regime has an interest in ensuring the stability of the situation of more than 300 One thousand Egyptians work in Doha. As for Bahrain, despite its apparent vulnerability to any negative media coverage due to its unique sectarian composition (a Sunni political system governing a country with a Shiite majority), Manama has never had an independent position in Gulf politics, and it relies on walking in passengers Its powerful neighbors are in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in order to secure its interests.
These complex dynamics provide a real opportunity to reach a consensus between the parties to the crisis on some form of cold and temporary peace, but this expected initial agreement will be just a step on a long, thorny road full of mines of conflicting interests.
More importantly, this fragile consensus is unlikely to become a step on the road to the Gulf Cooperation Council’s return to its traditional effectiveness.
Despite the need of the member states in the Council to restore the appearance of unity, this apparent unity will not succeed for long in concealing their divergent interests, and it will not take more than some time - long or short - before the disagreement erupts in the ties of the organization whose leadership today is contesting three different power centers In Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Doha, after it was led for most of the past four decades - unilaterally - by the one who occupies the throne of the Two Holy Mosques in Saudi Arabia, undisputedly.