After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (31 page)

Canada has also been operating military bases in the Gulf monarchies, with a little-known military camp—dubbed ‘Mirage’—located outside Dubai and used as a rest and supply station for Canadian and Australian troops fighting in Afghanistan. Following a dispute over air landing rights for UAE airlines in Canada in 2010—likely the combined result of Canadian protectionism for Air Canada
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and the UAE’s alleged lobbying against Canada’s bid for a UN Security Council seat
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—existence of the camp finally became public knowledge when it was closed down by the UAE authorities in an apparent tit-for-tat retaliation. When the dust settles, however, it is likely that the camp will quietly re-open and Canadian access resume.

The Western military presence in Gulf monarchies will accelerate following an announcement by the US CENTCOM commander
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that at least four Gulf states were due to receive the latest US antimissile systems—new versions of the Patriot antimissile batteries—presumably in an effort to assuage fears of Iranian missile attacks. Tellingly, the general was unable to reveal exactly which states had agreed to deploy the US
weapons, with one media report explaining that ‘many countries in the Gulf region are hesitant to be publicly identified as accepting American military aid and the troops that come with it. The names of countries where the antimissile systems are deployed are classified, but many of them are an open secret’. Nevertheless it is widely understood that the unnamed states are Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain, and that the US will now also keep Aegis cruisers equipped with early warning radar on patrol in the Persian Gulf at all times.
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Equally, if not more, problematic than hosting so many foreign military bases, has been the Gulf monarchies’ ever-rising spending on Western armaments. With most of the arms being sourced from the US, Britain, and France, it seems this has become another price that these states must pay for their external security guarantees. Indeed, even if the purchased equipment is never used, is inappropriate for defensive capabilities, or is seemingly superfluous to the requirements of the Gulf monarchies’ described peacekeeping operations, it has long been regarded as a necessary part of the overall cost of their protection, much like the aforementioned sovereign wealth investments and the soft power strategies employed in the West. In recent years there have been many signs that this spending has been getting out of hand, with the Gulf monarchies now being by far the biggest arms purchasers in the world—at least as a proportion of their GDP. This even includes the poorer Gulf monarchies, which, as discussed, are now grappling with declining resources and serious socioeconomic pressures. With more and more information on their purchases appearing in the public domain, it will become much harder for governments and ruling families to justify these massive and usually opaque transactions to increasingly beleaguered national populations.

According to World Bank and Stockholm International Peace Research Institute data on total military spending, Saudi Arabia devoted somewhere between 10 and 11 per cent of GDP in 2010 to its military. This was the highest such proportion in the world and more than double the military spending of major military powers such as the US and Russia, and nearly five times greater than that of Britain, France, and China. Incredibly, the comparatively indigent state of Oman is the second biggest spender as a proportion of its GDP, with close to 10 per cent having been devoted to its military in 2009. The UAE is in third place among the Gulf monarchies, spending somewhere between 5 and 6 per cent of GDP on its military in recent years—still higher than the US and Russia.
Meanwhile the other Gulf monarchies have all been spending between 3 and 5 per cent on their militaries—a significantly higher proportion than other parts of the developing world.
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Most of the purchases have been valued at several billion dollars at a time, and have ranged from tanks and warplanes to naval vessels and missile systems. The Saudi and UAE procurements have tended to win the highest profile headlines given their commensurately higher GDPs than other Gulf monarchies and correspondingly greater ability to buy the very latest equipment. In 2009 alone it was reported that the UAE had purchased nearly $8 billion of US military equipment, making it the US’ biggest arms customer that year, while Saudi Arabia had purchased about $3.3 billion of American hardware.
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And in late 2010, after having invited fifty US-based arms manufactures to the country to ‘see the opportunities for growth first hand’,
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it was reported that the UAE had spent close to $70 billion on arms in recent years and had accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the Gulf states’ total purchases of tanks and rockets between 2005 and 2009. In addition to American arms, these imports are thought to have also been sourced from France, Russia, and Italy, and have included corvettes, frigates, and air defence systems.
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Moreover, with Abu Dhabi hosting the annual International Defence Exhibition (IDEX) and with Dubai hosting the biannual Dubai Air Show, the UAE has cemented its role as the region’s premier arms bazaar, with scores of major international weapons suppliers using these events to showcase their latest products to representatives from all of the Gulf monarchies and other nearby states.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring and increased conflict in the broader region it is likely that all six states are increasing their military spending further. In December 2011 the US government announced it had finalised a $30 billion sale of Boeing-manufactured F15 fighter jets to the Saudi Royal Air Force.
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With regards the UAE, following 2011’s IDEX it was announced that Boeing would be delivering new military transport aircraft, while France’s Nexter Corporation would provide support for the UAE’s LeClerc battle tanks and the US’ Goodrich Corporation would provide spare parts for its air force. Most controversially, it was also reported that a partnership was planned between a UAE-based company and the US-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems with the aim of selling Predator drones to the UAE. If successful, this would be the first time that US drone technology has been sold to a foreign buyer.
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Unsurprisingly, in addition to stiff criticism from domestic opponents, most of whom argue that the purchases are a colossal waste of precious national resources and send the wrong signals about the intentions of the Gulf monarchies, the recent sales have also generated opposition in the West. In the US, for example, the pro-Israel lobby repeatedly argues that the sale of such high grade equipment to the Gulf monarchies will erode Israel’s ‘qualitative edge’ in the region. Moreover, given the protests and other opposition movements that are stirring the Gulf—as discussed later—some Western governments have sought to stem the supply of equipment to states that are likely to use it to repress their own people. In early 2012 for example several American congressmen sought to block proposed arms sales to Bahrain worth over $50 million, given the pitched battles raging on Bahrain’s streets between protestors and security forces at the time.
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Although sales were resumed in May 2012, items such as teargas canisters and ‘crowd control’ weapons were withheld from trade.
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Other Western governments have baulked at the procedures associated with selling arms to the Gulf monarchies, with increasing opposition developing against what are perceived as corrupt practices. The British government’s long-running investigation into allegations of bribery surrounding the massive $86 billion Al-Yamanah arms deal to Saudi Arabia is well known, even though it was eventually called off. But more recently the German government has been forced to investigate alleged bribes and kickbacks connected to the sale of 200 German Leopard tanks to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, critics have argued that the sale ‘…contravened Germany’s strict rules on arms exports, which ban the sale of weapons to countries in crisis zones, those engaged in armed conflicts, and those with questionable human rights records’.
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Antagonising Iran

The increasing belligerence demonstrated towards Iran in recent years by some Gulf monarchies is symptomatic of the latter’s reliance on Western security guarantees and the presence of Western military bases on their soil; thus they have little choice but to align themselves with Western policies regarding Iran, and if that involves helping to enforce sanctions or otherwise limit Iran’s influence in the region then in practice there is little room for them to manoeuvre. Moreover, given the associated requirement of purchasing massive quantities of armaments from
their principal guarantors, it can also be argued that it is in the interests of the governments and military-industrial establishments of the vendor countries to pit the Gulf monarchies against their most powerful neighbour. Ideally, in terms of arms sales, this should develop into a tense and bitter cold war situation where both sides view each other as a posing a military threat, thus encouraging the further militarisation of the region and further expensive procurements. In this light, the Gulf monarchies’ present stance against Iran can be explained in the context of a dependent, core-periphery relationship:
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even if the centre of gravity of the Gulf monarchies’ economic relations may be steadily shifting eastwards, the Western powers are nevertheless still recognised as their principal security providers and can thus dragoon them into hawkish positions.

There are increasing signs that the posturing against Iran—no matter how dangerous—is also being viewed by certain Gulf monarchies as a convenient mechanism with which to contain domestic opposition. In addition to the routine creation of a nearby bogeyman state with which to frighten their national populations and thus help distract from some of the various socioeconomic pathologies and pressures that are building, the branding of Iran as a dangerous and unpredictable Shia-dominated enemy intent on acquiring nuclear weapons also helps to justify the sectarian manipulation that is taking place in several Gulf monarchies. It also serves to delegitimise any revolutionary actors and tarnish protestors on the grounds that they are agents of Iran. Indeed—as will be shown in the following chapter—since the beginning of the Arab Spring the Gulf monarchies’ governments have gone to great lengths to highlight the presence of any Shia in opposition movements, and to some extent this has allowed them to brand their opponents and critics as being fifth columnists rather than as pro-reform activists. Thus far, the strategy has enjoyed some limited success, with large sections of the national Sunni populations being quick to accuse Shia activists of being traitors, and with many Western opinion-makers continuing to lend support to the Gulf monarchies on the grounds that the alternative would be Iran-style theocratic, revolutionary and anti-Western governments. Such opinions have helped fuel what some writers have described as the ‘geopolitical fantasy’ of a ‘Shia crescent’ that would extend all the way from Afghanistan to the Lebanon, including the Gulf states, which would be headquartered in Tehran.
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The risks of such rabid elite-level anti-Iranianism in the Gulf monarchies are undoubtedly serious, and possibly existential. Self-evidently
these states are allowing themselves to be considered legitimate targets, or the ‘front line’, of any fresh conflict in the Persian Gulf. In this sense, their external survival strategies—in particular relating to the distribution of development aid in the region and the long-running efforts to position themselves as benign, active neutrals and peace-brokers—are being badly undermined by the current generation of Gulf rulers. It is unlikely that their fathers would have allowed such an escalation to have taken place, no matter how much they distrusted Iran. Most previous confrontations—including even the 1971 seizure of three UAE islands by the Shah’s Iran—were usually sidelined in favour of shared economic interests or the substantial Iranian-origin expatriate populations resident in many Gulf monarchies.

At the forefront of the antagonism are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE—or more specifically sections of the Abu Dhabi ruling family. According to a recently leaked US diplomatic cable, in 2008 the Saudi king had ‘repeatedly exhorted the US to cut off the head of the snake’ in reference to Iran, its perceived military capabilities, and the nuclear weapon-building programme that Iranian officials continue to deny exists.
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The former Saudi intelligence chief has gone on the record stating that Saudi Arabia should ‘consider acquiring nuclear weapons to counter Iran…’,
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and in another leaked cable from 2008 the veteran Saudi minister for foreign affairs
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suggested a US or NATO-backed offensive in southern Lebanon to end the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s grip on power. Warning US officials that a Hezbollah victory in Lebanese elections would likely lead to an ‘Iranian takeover’ of the state, he claimed that the situation in Beirut was ‘entirely military… and the solution must be military as well’. He also argued that of all the regional fronts on which Iran was advancing, Lebanon would be the ‘easiest battle to win’ for the ‘anti-Iranian allies’.
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Similarly, in a cable despatched in 2009 the Bahraini king had urged US military officials to ‘forcefully take action to terminate Iran’s nuclear programme, by whatever means necessary’. Moreover, he argued that ‘…the danger of letting it go on is greater than the danger of stopping it’.
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Closely connected to the sectarian policies in Bahrain and in particular the discrimination against its Shia population, the kingdom took maximum advantage of the region’s anti-Iranian sentiments in early 2011 by announcing that it would deport all those Shia ‘with links to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’. In practice, this meant expelling hundreds of long-serving Lebanese expatriates, much
as the UAE had been doing since 2009, suspending all flights between Manama and Beirut, and warning Bahraini nationals not to travel to Lebanon due to ‘threats and interference by terrorists’.
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