The Last of the Gulf Crises? The Sustainability of the Al-Ula Declaration

On the fifth day of the new decade, a new chapter in Gulf International Relations was written. At the 41st Gulf Summit in Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, and Egypt agreed to restore full diplomatic ties with Qatar thus ending a blockade that lasted for three and a half years.

That blockade began on 5 June 2017 when the four blockading countries-calling themselves the anti-terror quartet- imposed a land, air, and sea blockade on Qatar. The reasons for their blockade are clear. These countries view Qatar as an actor whose foreign policies are detrimental to regional security, and so these states took action in what they saw as their national interest. They enforced the blockade swiftly and suddenly, and immediately offered Doha a way out of its precarious position. The offer came in the form of thirteen points. In the briefest terms, these points call for Qatar to shut down Al-Jazeera, cease cooperation with Iran-especially the IRGC-and downgrade relations with it, shut down the Turkish military base in Qatar, cease any and all funding and cooperation with terrorists including Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, ISIL, and the Muslim Brotherhood, ceasing interferences in the domestic affairs of the blockading countries, compliance with the Riyadh agreement of 2014, and the payment of reparations to the blockading countries.

Qatar did not accept these terms. They opposed the blockade. The result created a diplomatic quagmire that paralyzed the GCC-the most functional of the Arab international organizations. This state of affairs continued for three and a half years and left academics and statesmen alike guessing until suddenly in late December 2020 tangible rumors of a rapprochement came to light, and sure enough in January there was a peace brokered by tireless Kuwaiti diplomacy and American mediation.

This solution is what Dr. Abdulla Al-Shayji described as the ideal solution in his 2018 book (Arabic) ‘The Gulf Cooperation Council Crises: The Root Causes, Mediation Efforts, and the Future of the GCC alliance 2011-2018’ Other scenarios he had described included the continuation of the crisis with no solution, the division of the GCC, and its relegation into dysfunctionality like so many other regional organizations.

Thankfully the ideal solution has been adopted, but to what extent is this peace sustainable? If one reads the transcript of the Al-Ula Declaration which ended the diplomatic row one finds no mention of any of the thirteen points. There is reference to the GCC Charter which calls for cooperation and integration among the Gulf States, but (unfortunately) the presence of these articles did not preclude the Gulf Crisis of 2017 nor the diplomatic row of 2014. Will Qatar prove to be trustworthy this time around or should we expect another diplomatic row in three years?

To conclude with my own humble opinion, a region divided is a region whose potential is impossible to realize. The Gulf Region is a place of remarkable homogeneity. It is place not just with one religion, but predominantly one sect. It is a place not just with one language but also one dialect. The ethnocultural and economic homogeneity is so great in this region that there is academic consensus that it is better suited than the Eurozone for a unified currency (for more on this see Worrall ‘The Gulf Cooperation Council: Economic Social and Cultural Cooperation’, and Pattanaik ‘How Closely the GCC Approximates an Optimum Currency Area’). Indeed, the potential present in the Gulf is immense. The Gulf possesses an abundance of both human capital and economic capital. These six states exist in a region that has acted as a crossroads between East-West for generations past and shall continue to act as such for generations to come. Yet, the pace of integration continues to stagnate. What for? Integration is clearly in the interest of all parties involved Why then should these small city-states continue to spoil all their competitive advantages over disputes that can very clearly be resolved with a single pen-stroke?