Unveiling new master plan for the persian gulf

Morteza Aminmansour

Unveiling New Master plan for Persian gulf:
History with the United States: Surrounded by the greatest oil reserves on Earth, the Persian Gulf has long been a vitally important part of the global economy. The British controlled much of the region during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. American interest (and military presence) in and around the gulf has increased steadily since the oil crisis of the 1970s. Maintaining good relations with the countries surrounding the Persian gulf is a mainstay of U.S. foreign policy. When this isn't possible, the United States has attempted to change governments (as with Iraq) or isolate governments.

The major players in Persian Gulf include Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. (The Persian Gulf States including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have a population of only 10 million, but their GNP exceeds any of the Arab states ) It has been an American objective since WWII to have regional hegemony in the Persian Gulf.
These three major players plus the Persian Gulf States hold a major part of the world’s oil reserve that is exported to the West as well as of natural gas deposits. Iraq’s western border include Syria, Jordan and Turkey. Iran’s eastern borders include Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as other central Asian countries. As a result the geopolitics of the Persian Gulf cannot be easily separated from the geopolitics of the Mid East.

Some in the Persian gulf region have tried to move beyond an oil-dominated economy. Qatar , site of a major American air base,. UAE also home to an American military base, has become a global leader in construction and media. Six countries around the Persian gulf (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia , Qatar, UAE, Oman and Bahrain) formed an alliance of sorts called the Persian Gulf cooperation council..
The idea for the United States to establish a formal defense alliance with the PGCC states and a new government of Iraq. To keep the Americans in forever, the Iranians out, and the Iraqis down but it did not work as expected. A formal defense pledge would be the best way to lock in an unflinching American commitment to the security of the region; would serve as the best deterrent by extending a security guarantee to Iraq, would effectively solve Baghdad's security dilemma as well, if Persian Gulf publics could be convinced that American forces were there as part of a community of equals, such an arrangement might also help legitimize the U.S. presence in the Persian gulf region.
Addressing systemic changes in the Persian gulf security environment since the Iraq War, prominent experts analyze the challenges these changes pose to U.S. strategy and policy. They examine the causes of profound economic, political and religious transitions and their implications for hopes of reform. Also examined are such long-term processes as population growth, environmental degradation, and educational failures.
The PCCC Gulf Project will convene a group of experts from academia and government to examine the current U.S. security strategy in the Persian Gulf. These experts will consider whether this strategy should be adjusted to reflect new threats and the evolution of the regional security environment over the last ten years.
At the end of the Persian Gulf War, the United States constructed a regional security architecture in the Persian Gulf designed to preserve stability and protect its long-range strategic interests in the area. The principal elements in this architecture are:
Ensuring access to host nation facilities for ongoing operations and contingencies through bilateral agreements.
Propositioning military equipment.
Building host nation self-defense capabilities through foreign military sales, training, and joint military exercises.
A continuously forward-deployed U.S. military presence.
This approach has proven remarkably successful in ensuring regional peace and security stability in the Persian Gulf during the last decade(according to James Russell). The last ten years has seen the United States nurture and build healthy bilateral political and military relationships throughout the Persian Gulf and, in parallel, it has developed a physical infrastructure for U.S. forces to fall in upon on short notice to defend the region. Iraq's conventional military forces have been effectively emasculated by the largely U.S.-enforced UN trade embargo, minimizing Saddam's ability to coerce and intimidate the smaller states in the region. And, Iran's objective of pursing regional hegemony has also largely been thwarted . While efforts to build host nation defensive capabilities are mixed, the United States is arguably better positioned now than at any time in recent memory to defend the region as a result of the strategy outlined above.
Given these conundrums, finding a workable new security architecture for the Persian Gulf will be far from easy. Iran must be kept in check while being pushed to liberalize its politics toward United States. The Corrupt governments of the PGCC states (UAE,BAHRAIN,QATAR, SAUDI ARABIA) must be given breathing room to reform but still be protected from their external(virtual enemy such as IRAN) and internal enemies(own people). Balancing these various interests, threats, and constraints will be difficult, so much so that it would not be surprising if the next American strategy for doing so ultimately failed, just as the previous ones did. Still, the situation is not entirely hopeless. There may not be a silver bullet, a perfect policy that secures every interest and counters every threat while avoiding all the strategic, political, and cultural minefields. But three broad approaches -- pulling back "over the horizon," trying to form a local NATO-like defense pact, or trying to establish a security condominium -- have enough merits to be considered seriously (according to M. Pollock).
In the Persian Gulf, such a security condominium would entail a similar set of activities bringing together the United States, the PGCC countries, Iraq, and Iran. The process would begin by establishing a regional security forum at which relevant issues could be debated and discussed, information exchanged, and agreements framed. The members could then move on to confidence-building measures, such as notification of exercises, exchanges of observers, and information swaps. Ultimately, the intention would be to proceed to eventual arms control agreements that might include demilitarized zones, bans on destabilizing weapons systems, and balanced force reductions for all parties. In particular, the group might aim for a ban on all WMD, complete with penalties for violators and a multilateral (or international) inspection program to enforce compliance
A timely and readable compendium of informed expertise; bridging the divide of internal and external security; addressing the sources of Persian gulf insecurity from the interdisciplinary perspectives of economics, politics, history, international relations and religion. To cope with such a variegated security environment the sources of potential instability and conflict are broken into their constituent parts.. Will the current security architecture continue to protect U.S. interests in the region over the next decade and beyond? The PCCC proposes to convene a group of government and non-government experts to review current US strategy in the Persian Gulf in the context of the emerging virtual threat environment. PCCC will frame a series of questions and issues to guide these experts in examining different aspects of US –Persian Gulf strategy and to make judgments about whether this strategy will protect US interests in the new century. For purposes of organizing the project, There are three proposals:
An examination of these issues from a U.S. perspective without the Persian gulf countries participation.
An examination of how the Persian Gulf would view the same issues.
A concluding section containing recommendations for U.S. policy makers based on the analysis in the first two sections.
Last, but not least, the three-way confrontation between the United States, Iran and Israel over Iran’s refusal to honor its commitments as a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty signatory hangs like the sword of Damocles over the region. Iran reopened its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz on January 10, 2006, had the International Atomic Energy Agency remove seals and surveillance system on other nuclear facilities in mid-February.
strategy and the role that the Saudis might play in a broader regional framework. The Persian Gulf and Middle East have related forces. First came the September 11attacks and the unwelcome (at least from the Saudi perspective) attention in the American press to alleged Saudi financial support for al-Qaeda in conjunction with stories of Saudi sponsorship of religious extremism through the funding of madrasas in Pakistan and elsewhere preaching a “Wahhabi” fundamentalist version of Islam to receptive Muslim audiences around the world. The situation seemed particularly acute in Pakistan, where Saudi financial support for the madrasas and the jihadists during the war in Afghanistan morphed into the Taliban, which eventually took over Afghanistan and provided al-Qaeda with a geographic base to build an infrastructure to support terrorist operations around the world.5 While the press and public justifiably focused on the fact that 15 out of the 19 attackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, this alone might not have been so serious but for the wider context of U.S.- Saudi relations. There had been a decade of drift in the U.S.-Saudi security relationship, highlighted by the obvious discomfort of the House of Saud with the continuing presence of U.S. forces operating out of Prince Sultan Air Base. With the presence of these forces seized upon for criticism by emerging domestic political forces in the kingdom, the House of Saud found it could no longer quietly conduct business with the
Americans out of the public view. Moreover, despite various critics pointing to an
alleged cozy relationship between the Bush family and the House of Saud, it seemed
unclear after 9/11 whether the Bush administration was prepared to continue
“business as usual.” These strains converged to undermine the U.S.-Saudi
relationship; just how seriously remains to be seen

Most Middle East experts think that a revolution or civil war in any of the PGCC states within the next few years is unlikely, but few say so now as confidently as they once did. In fact, even the Persian Gulf regimes themselves are increasingly fearful of their mounting internal turmoil, something that has prompted all of them to announce democratic and economic reform packages at some point during the last ten years. From Corrupt Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to the unpopular emir of Qatar to the new puppet king of Bahrain, the Persian Gulf rulers recognize the pressure building among their populations and the need to let off some of the steam. If the reforms do not succeed and revolution or civil war ensues, the United States might face some very difficult security challenges. Widespread unrest in Saudi Arabia, for example, would threaten Saudi oil exports .
Growing Saudi concern over its security dilemma can be detected in the smoke wafting around this issue. It started appearing in the fall of 2003, with further hints throughout the winter and spring of 2004. Following the September 18, 2003, story in The Guardian on the options under consideration to ensure Saudi security, the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq al- Awsat published an editorial on October 8titled “Yes, We Fear Iran’s Uranium.” The editorial, penned by editor Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashad, dismissed the idea that the Iranian nuclear program was directed at threats from the United States and Israel:



According to James Russell: The Iranians are enriching uranium to produce nuclear weapons!!! aimed, essentially, at its neighbors, mainly Pakistan. However, the danger encompasses the other neighboring countries as well, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. The editorial further opined, Commitment conveyed to the House of Saud on a number of occasions in the post-World War II era – and would use force and/or deploy forces to the kingdom if necessary on those occasions when the House of Saud and the U.S. political leadership agreed that the situation warranted;• The United States would seek to develop Saudi internal and external security capabilities through the sale of defense equipment and training supported by the presence of advisory elements to help manage the complicated programs and day-to-day training activities;• The Saudis would use their influence as the dominant supplier within OPEC and world oil markets to ensure that crude reached the market in a relatively predictable stream; The Saudis would generally support U.S. interests in the region, such as the Middle East peace process, though it would not take the lead publicly in supporting these interests; The United States would not push substantial internal political or economy reform, leaving the House of Saud to fulfill its part of the tacit bargain. While Saudi Arabia remains a constructive The House of Saud eventually must address the contradictions between its partnership with the United States and the arguments for ending the relationship being advanced by a powerful domestic political constituency that has been a central pillar of the regime’s governing structure. The confluence of positions between the dissident clerics and the religious establishment restricts the House of Saud’s bargaining power on domestic and international issues, since the regime’s legitimacy stems from its historic pledge to uphold the conservative tenets of Wahhabi Islam in coordination with the religious establishment. The shrinking domestic political maneuvering room may help explain the caution in placing new military orders with the United States. There have been major arms sales after the 1997 purchase of the F-15I fighter aircraft. The eroded U.S.-Saudi political partnership cannot but lead to the re-emergence of the doubts frequently voiced by the Saudi leadership during the early 1980s about the reliability of the United States as a supplier of advanced weaponry.
An approach to securing the Persian Gulf would be to create a new regional defense alliance of the kind that worked so well in Europe during the Cold War. This approach has an even worse reputation in the region than offshore balancing, but it is somewhat undeserved. In 1954, the United States convinced Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom to sign the Baghdad Pact, pledging them to mutual defense. Four years later, Iraq withdrew, leaving Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey to form the Central Treaty Organization, which became little more than a vehicle for the United States to arm the shah of Iran for the next 20 years. These alliances performed poorly because their members had widely divergent security problems (Pakistan was concerned with India, Turkey with Russia and Greece, and Iran with the Middle East) and because of the revolutions in Iraq in 1958 and Iran in 1979, which knocked out the central players. In today's circumstances, a regional alliance would stand a better chance of succeeding.


The Persian Gulf ( Foreign Policy: US From Keith Porter),SAUDI ARABIA IN THE 21ST CENTURY: A NEW
SECURITY DILEMMA
James A. Russell
--Glen M. Segell, FRGS, Director, Institute of Security Policy
James Russell Department of National Security AffairsNaval Postgraduate School Securing the GulfBy Kenneth M. Pollack From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2003
THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE PERSIAN GULF: Rabbi Moshe Reiss