The Road of Interdependence

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Introduction By Dr. John Duke Anthony

The author of the essay that follows heads the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Founded in Abu Dhabi on May 25, 1981, the GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Its Secretariat, comprised of representatives of all six of the Member States, is headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

His Excellency Dr. Abdullatif Bin Rashid Al Zayani is the GCC’s fifth Secretary-General. He was appointed by the GCC’s Supreme Council, which is the organization’s highest decision-making body. The Supreme Council is composed of the Heads of State of the GCC’s member countries.

The GCC has long been viewed as the most successful sub-regional organization in modern Arab history.

Incorrect and Flawed Perceptions

Some take issue with this description. They disagree. In the eyes of some of the GCC’s critics, such a positive assessment is incorrect and misleading.

Some contend that the GCC has failed to live up to its aspirations regarding maximum cooperation. Others emphasize how the GCC has fallen short of integration. Still others point to the lack of success in forging a more unified set of achievements.

The GCC’s leaders do not deny that there is a significant measure of truth in these complaints. They acknowledge their shortcomings. They admit to their having failed to achieve what some had hoped and others expected the organization to accomplish at the time of its founding.

In fairness, though, one needs to ask: what organization’s achievements have not fallen wide of what its founders hoped to effectuate? No such organization exists. In this, the GCC is no different.

This writer was present at the GCC’s founding meeting. He has attended each of the GCC’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since then. He has experienced firsthand the heady atmosphere and the genuinely euphoric mood that accompanied the GCC’s establishment. He has witnessed firsthand also the genuinely jubilant climate that has followed many of its subsequent summits.

Regional Comparisons

Shortcomings and all, the six east Arabian Peninsula countries never cease to amaze. Their material progress has been and continues to be mind-boggling. The nature, pace, and extent of their modernization and development can be catalogued in myriad ways.

Lest one suspect such comments are a paid advertisement, which they are not, check them out. For comparison, examine the entire 22-country Arab region and, regarding the 16 other Arab countries, see if there is anything remotely comparable to what the GCC, as an organization, and its Member States as its components, have accomplished. One will not find it because it does not exist.

The unconvinced are urged to apply a different test. Use another set of contexts to test the viability and robustness of the GCC. Attempt to find another international organization in the region that meets with as much frequency. Searchers will not find a comparable example nor even a remotely similar one.

What one will discover instead is that the GCC Secretariat hosts and administers no fewer than 400 meetings a year. They will learn that, in some years, it hosts as many as 700 meetings. What is more, there are no absences; all six of the members convene to discuss common issues and challenges. No Arab organizational grouping and no Arab countries meet as regularly to anywhere near the same degree.

Additional Frames of Reference

Still not persuaded? Try another frame of reference.

To determine the robustness, and overall appeal and attractiveness to local and foreign investors of a given region, or even of a single country, the following test might be useful. Examine the nature, pace, and extent of people clamoring to enter the GCC region or one of its specific countries. Determine whether it could be classified as: (1) many, (2) some, (3) few, or (4) none. In many countries, the answer is either of the latter options. In the GCC region, it is the first.

Flip the coin and examine the trend from the opposite perspective. Ask how many people are trying to leave the region. Ask what the reality is in terms of the same four options. The answer will be between (3) and (4).

The reason for these positive realities is clear to specialists if not to generalists. It has to do with the six countries being globally distinctive in terms of their domestic safety and external defense. Search the globe and one will not find six other geographically contiguous countries or six identical systems of governance that illustrate these same realities.

In other words, the negative, pessimistic, and dismissive views that one will find in much of the media are at once incorrect, unfair, and misleading. The extraordinary frequency with which the GCC Member State representatives meet to further their countries’ and peoples’ progress is but just one example.

Agenda Items

Of related importance is the range of matters that the GCC brings members together to discuss: security, defense, intelligence, economics, commerce and trade, investment, and technology cooperation. In addition, the members meet regularly to plan operations pertaining to the members’ periodic security and defense maneuvers and exercises designed to enhance their common deterrence and protection.

These facets of the GCC’s forward momentum in matters of a material, social, and economic nature have no rival among any of the world’s other sub-regional organizations. More specifically, the region as a whole and each of its countries exhibit a range of truisms, certainties, and predictability that would-be investors find a marvel to behold. These do not, however, exist in a vacuum.

At The Helm: Preparation, Preparation, and Preparation

They are present alongside the author of the remarks that follow, His Excellency Dr. Al Zayani. Abiding by the strictures of three-year terms in office, Dr. Al Zayani is presently in his ninth year as head of the six-country organization’s Secretariat in Riyadh. What is it that to date has made this particular leader so effective in the eyes of his peers as well as his superiors?

Dr. Al Zayani, a native of the Kingdom of Bahrain, is a graduate of Sandhurst, Great Britain’s premier military academy. Upon returning to Bahrain, he began a period of service in his country’s armed forces and its Ministry of Defense for the next three decades.

From there, Dr. Al Zayani was transferred to Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior, which is not like America’s Department of Interior but rather, in close association with the administration of an effective system of civil justice, is focused on the maintenance of law and order. He served there as Bahrain’s Chief of Public Security with responsibility for all aspects of the Kingdom’s domestic security and safety.

After that, Dr. Al Zayani could have taken up a full-time teaching position—he holds a PhD and has taught at several universities. Rather than do so, however, he accepted an appointment at Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was serving in that role when he was appointed Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council by the GCC’s Supreme Council in 2011. Dr. Al Zayani was elected for a second three-year term in 2014 and elected yet again to a third three-year term in 2017.

In October 2018, Dr. Al Zayani addressed the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations 27th Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference in Washington, D.C. In his remarks, Dr. Al Zayani stepped outside of his role helming the Gulf Cooperation Council’s Secretariat. In doing so, he drew upon his deep knowledge of public service to issue a personal call for a brighter future for the region’s people.

Dr. Al Zayani is mindful of the pessimism and feeling of hopelessness stemming from regional violence and turmoil. Despite this, he has charted a specific path forward through regional collaboration and cohesion. If national leaders were but to heed Dr. Al Zayani’s advice, they would realize the benefits in how it could breed optimism and bring shared peace.

The National Council is privileged to share here an edited transcript of his remarks.

John Duke Anthony, PhD
Founding President & CEO
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations

THE ROAD OF INTERDEPENDENCE

By H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani,
Secretary-General, Gulf Cooperation Council

Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani addressed the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations 27th Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference in Washington, D.C., on October 31, 2018. This transcript of his remarks was lighted edited for publication.

Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests,

I am delighted to be with you this evening. It is a privilege and an honor to be among such a distinguished gathering of leaders in the capital of one of the world’s most important and powerful countries. I come before you to say a few words on some of the difficulties facing the Gulf and the Middle East. I do so also to briefly outline my vision, as a citizen of the region, of how such challenges might, in the longer term, be turned into an opportunity for genuine peace, stability, and prosperity.

Of course, any vision for the future must be rooted in the reality of today’s challenges. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, these geopolitical challenges are at once well known and exceptionally complex. Among the more intractable are those in and associated with Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

Any vision for the future must be rooted in today’s challenges. In the Middle East and North Africa region, these challenges are at once well known and exceptionally complex.

The opportunity you have offered me is one that is seldom extended to someone in my part of the world.

It is not every day that one is asked to offer a vision of what may lie ahead. Even less frequently is one requested to suggest how one might best proceed to address the challenges they represent.

Lebanon as But One Example

Of the various challenges we face, Lebanon is but one among others. The structure of governance and the system of political dynamics in that Arab country are steered by Hezbollah (literally, “the Party of God”). People may differ in their descriptions of the party, but there is no doubt that many regard a significant proportion of it as a violent, sectarian, extremist militia.

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An Existential Political Economy of Post-Conflict Syria, Yemen, and Libya

Syria, Yemen, and Libya are clear cases of de-development via destruction and devastation. Each has its own inter-ethnic, tribal, historical, political, resource, and economic stresses that have contributed to its present astonishing violence. One could write a library of books about what brought each country to the state it is in now. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the multitude of crises each faces.

Post-Conflict, Long-Term Needs

It may be that Syria, Yemen, and Libya will ultimately be divided into smaller countries. While this would be unfortunate, it may be an inevitable part of the region’s transition.

It also may take many years, if not decades, for these countries, whatever they end up being, to reach the point where the guns are silent. But silencing the guns will not necessarily bring stability and peace in the long run. If the underlying causes of the violence are not properly dealt with, these countries will endure recurring nightmares of destruction.

Staffan de Mistura, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, meets with representatives of the Assad government on February 2, 2016 in Geneva.
Staffan de Mistura, United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, meets with representatives of the Assad government on February 2, 2016 in Geneva.

Indeed, if these countries are not developed and their people are not given realistic hopes and dreams for a better future, they will fall back into violence. Syria, Yemen, and Libya have shattered economies. Getting them back to a state from which they can grow with their people will involve massive injections of funds. Syria may need at least $500 billion, Yemen at least $250 billion, and Libya at least $200 billion. These amounts will need to be provided fairly quickly to stave off the demons of war and conflict, but not so quickly that the countries cannot absorb the funds and as a result fall into hyperinflation or worse.

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Desperately Seeking the Arab Center

The uprisings of 2011 dramatically revealed the weakness of the Arab state. That earthquake unleashed aftershocks that are still being felt, and even states and ruling elites that did not experience severe protests have been shaken. As the Egyptian political scientist Nazih Ayubi observed some years ago, Arab states may be fierce, but that does not mean that they are strong, let alone legitimate.[1]

The modern Arab political order that began to take shape after World War I seemed to have consolidated into durable states following the nationalist revolutionary upheavals of the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s political scientists spoke of how the Arab state system had “matured.” But they had matured (if that is the right word) into states of persistent authoritarianism of either the “republican” or monarchical variety. While many of these states saw quite impressive economic and social development – due in part to oil wealth – they did not experience significant political openings and remained under the tight control of self-perpetuating elites. With one or two exceptions, organized political participation independent of the governments was suppressed.

Collapsing States

The uprisings of 2011 were by no means the first societal protests against this authoritarian order; there is a history of protests, strikes, and attempted coups in most of the Arab countries. In fact, the first major regime collapse came in Iraq in 2003 owing to the American invasion and occupation. But the upheavals of 2011 were unique in that they were contagious, indicating that there was an Arab community of protest that crossed state frontiers. Not only did rulers fall in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, but neighboring regimes were also shaken, notably Bahrain and especially, of course, Syria.

The upheavals of 2011 were unique in that they were contagious, indicating that there was an Arab community of protest that crossed state frontiers.

Today, a survey of the bleak Arab landscape would reveal four arguably failed states – Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. But the tremors are felt more broadly. Bahrain remains unsettled. Jordan and Lebanon are severely stressed. Tunisia is widely praised as having made a successful democratic transition, but the situation remains fragile. Faced with the triple challenge of potential popular protest, growing Iranian power, and, of course, the Islamist extremism of ISIS and its cousins, the wealthy Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates feel forced to wage a defensive “counterrevolution” against these currents. The human toll – mainly civilians dead or injured, or refugees – is appalling, especially in Syria and Yemen.

Outside powers inevitably have become involved. Just as European powers nibbled away at Turkey – “the sick man of Europe” – a century and more ago, today they cast nervous, and often predatory, eyes on the Arab world – “the sick man of the Middle East.” American hubris sought to remake Iraq and the region as a whole into compliant liberal entities; Russia strives to expand its foothold by clinging to a brutal Syrian regime; Iran bides its time; and Europe dithers. Foreign “boots on the ground,” air strikes, and drone attacks exacerbate rather than ease the multiple ongoing conflicts.

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