Research & Commentary Results

After boycotting parliamentary elections in 2012 and 2013, the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, Hadas, ran their candidates in last year’s snap election. Four out of five of the party’s candidates won, bringing Hadas back into Kuwait’s 50-member National Assembly.

The introduction of the draft in Gulf monarchies — after decades of sovereign statehood — presents an interesting puzzle. What are the reasons behind the newly implemented conscription? What broader implications does this phenomenon have for the Gulf? This essay addresses these questions.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Khaled al-Sabah has arrived in Tehran today to deliver a message from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on a strategic dialogue between the Gulf Arab states and Iran, the Iranian and Arab media report. “Gulf states have a true desire that relations with Iran are normal and based on international law,” Sabah said on Tuesday after attending the inauguration of a NATO center in Kuwait.

In this week’s Monday Briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Alex Vatanka, Gerald Feierstein, and Charles Lister provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including U.S.-Middle East relations in the new Trump administration, the view of Trump’s inauguration from Tehran, the Gulf’s ‘wait and see’ approach to the new administration, and Russia’s public position on Syria talks at the outset of talks in Astana.

In this week’s briefing, MEI experts Gerald Feierstein, Robert S. Ford, Yousef Munayyer, Eran Etzion, and Ruba Husari provide analysis on recent and upcoming events including the ongoing confirmation hearings for key members of the incoming administration’s foreign policy team, the upcoming Syria talks, the recently convened Paris talks on Israel and Palestine, and OPEC’s assessment of its agreement to cap oil output.

Salman al-Dossary, Editor-in- Chief of al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, observed that the Iranian response to the January 1 terror attack on a Bahraini police station, killing a police officer and allowing prisoners to escape, proves that there is no basis for a constructive dialogue between the Arab Gulf states and Iran.

A Lebanese company fronting for Hezbollah allegedly has contracted with Kuwait University to provide students with training in computers and information science, according to the Kuwaiti daily al-Shahed. Alarmed Kuwaitis have asked the Ministry of Education to investigate the reports. According to the al-Shahed report, the sources claim that the front company is using its program to “brainwash” the students and is providing them with free travel to Lebanon, including tickets and accommodations, which includes arranging visits to Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut.

Regional Cooperation Series

This Policy Paper is part of the Middle East Institute’s Regional Cooperation Series. Throughout 2016, MEI will be releasing several policy papers by renowned scholars and experts exploring possibilities to foster regional cooperation across an array of sectors. The purpose is to highlight the myriad benefits and opportunities associated with regional cooperation, and the high costs of the continued business-as-usual model of competition and intense rivalry.

The United States will confront a new and very different set of challenges in its relationship with the G.C.C. states over the coming four years. For the first time since the end of World War II, a new administration will come to power in Washington next January facing a ‘trust deficit’ in its management of relations with its G.C.C. partners. The overwhelming Congressional vote to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the JASTA legislation was interpreted in the region as a lessening of popular support for the U.S.-G.C.C. relationship.

In this special edition of our weekly briefing, MEI experts Paul Salem, Robert S. Ford, Eran Etzion, Gonul Tol, Alex Vatanka, and Gerald Feierstein provide analysis on the impact of Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. Presidential Election on the future of Middle East policy, its particular effect on the crises in Iraq and Syria, and how the news has been received across the region, including in Turkey, Iran, and the GCC.

In this Weekly Briefing, MEI experts Robert S. Ford, Gonul Tol, and Ruba Husari provide analysis on issues including the UNSC’s inability to administer diplomatic solutions in Syria, the rebuilding of diplomatic ties between Russia and Turkey, and OPEC’s ongoing consideration of how to control member state oil production.

Diplomatic Dead-End on Syria
Robert S. Ford, Senior Fellow

“[Food insecurity has] the potential to amplify destabilization, engender violence, and even accelerate state failure processes in an already geopolitically charged region”

– Andy Spiess in Food Security in the GCC Economies (2012)

I. Introduction

Continuing low oil prices have prompted Persian Gulf states to diversify their heavily petro-dependent economies. This issue is forcing the oil-rich states to invest and expand their potential as international trade hubs as a pathway away from the time bomb of single commodity exports. As many Gulf states have outlined in economic plans, as well as developed on the ground, maritime trade is an increasingly essential link connecting the Middle East to the global economy.

China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative does not provide an equal opportunity for all states, and, in the case of the Gulf, it is Iran that will likely benefit over all others. The states of the G.C.C. also factor into Beijing’s plan, just not to the same degree―and that is the problem. Yet, as this essay shows, using OBOR and existing comparative advantages will allow the states of the G.C.C. to balance Iran’s potential windfall.

Summary