Author Archives: John Duke Anthony

Dr. John Duke Anthony is the Founding President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. On June 21, 2000, H.M. King Muhammad VI of Morocco knighted Dr. Anthony, bestowing upon him the Medal of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, the nation of Morocco's highest award for excellence. His most recent involvement in America's policies toward the Arab region, the Middle East, and the Islamic world was to serve as a Member of the U.S. Department of State Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy's 12-person Subcommittee on Sanctions (with special reference to Iran).

Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC's inception in 1981. (The GCC is comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates). His firsthand reports of the summits exceed those of any other scholar.

For the past 50 years, Dr. Anthony has been a consultant and regular lecturer on the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf for the Departments of Defense and State. He has served as an Associate Professor, Visiting Professor, and/or Adjunct Professor at the American University in Cairo; Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service; the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; the Universities of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas; the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; the U.S. Joint Intelligence College; and the Virginia Military Institute. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Dr. Anthony continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor at the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (formerly known as the Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management).

Dr. Anthony's best-known works are Arab States of The Lower Gulf: People, Politics, Petroleum; The Middle East: Oil, Politics, and Development (editor and co-author); and, together with J. E. Peterson, Historical and Cultural Dictionary of The Sultanate of Oman and The Emirates of Eastern Arabia. He has published more than 200 articles, essays, and monographs on a variety of topics related to the Arab region and specific Arab countries as well as America's interests and involvement in the Arab countries, the Middle East, and the Islamic world. For sixteen years, Dr. Anthony was the annual author of the essays on "Oman" and "Qatar" for the Encyclopedia Britannica Year in Review.

Dr. Anthony's full biography is available at: https://ncusar.org/board-and-staff/john-duke-anthony

The Gulf Cooperation Council: Deepening Rifts and Emerging Challenges

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On May 22, 2014, the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress conducted a hearing. The hearing was the Congress’ first-ever on The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The title of the hearing was “The Gulf Cooperation Council: Deepening Rifts and Emerging Challenges.” The hearing examined the implications for key U.S. foreign policy objectives and developments in America’s strategic relations with the GCC countries.

The GCC is a six-nation alliance comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Among the issues the Subcommittee discussed were various frictions among the GCC countries that have surfaced in recent months, the policy differences between some of the members and the United States with regard to Egypt, Iran, and Syria, and the potential, once Americans reach a greater degree of self-sufficiency regarding their energy requirements, for a waning of U.S. interest and involvement in the GCC region.

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony, who also serves as Secretary of the U.S.-GCC Corporate Cooperation Committee, submitted the statement below for consideration by the Subcommittee. Dr. Anthony is the only American to have been invited to each of the GCC’s Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the GCC’s inception in 1981.

 

Statement from Dr. John Duke Anthony to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Representatives, United States Congress

May 22, 2014

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Madame Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to submit a written statement for the record. I commend you, Ranking Member Deutch, and your fellow Subcommittee Members for your and their interest in what is arguably one of the least understood and most misunderstood sub-regional organizations on the planet – the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

I am pleased to be asked to identify GCC-related opportunities that are largely overlooked by the rest of the world and especially by many in the United States. Among these opportunities are ones that will continue to have an extraordinary impact on U.S. national security, economic, and geopolitical interests and the interests of America’s allies worldwide.

The Gulf Cooperation Council.

Such an opportunity is the little known but growing and increasingly formalized American relationship with the six GCC member-countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. Let me be forthright and state at the outset. This opportunity has come about as a result of the multifaceted range of the cooperation between these countries and the United States since the GCC’s establishment in1981. Much the same can be said about a similar range of benefits that have accrued to the GCC countries during this period from the multifaceted range of their cooperation with the United States.

The context for my statement about the U.S.-GCC relationship is my privilege of having been the only American invited to attend every one of the GCC’s annual Ministerial and Heads of State Summits since the organization’s formation 33 years ago this month. In addition, since 1986 until the present, I have had the personal privilege of accompanying, at their request, more than 200 Members of Congress, their chiefs of staff, defense and foreign affairs advisers, and legislative and communications directors on fact-finding missions to the Arab world, with a particular emphasis on the six GCC countries.

Hardly Marginal

The GCC member states are hardly marginal to the overall strength, health, and material wellbeing of a large swath of humanity. For example, the GCC member-states represent one third of the world’s proven hydrocarbon fuels, one fifth of the world’s natural gas, and an increasing percentage of the world’s petrochemicals. Their proven oil reserves alone are more than 15 times the proven reserves of the United States.

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Dr. John Duke Anthony on “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux”

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On March 11, 2014, Dr. John Duke Anthony spoke to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs on “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux.” A video recording of the program is available below, and a podcast of the program is also available below as well as in iTunes with recordings of other National Council programs: http://bit.ly/itunes-ncusar.

Dr. John Duke Anthony – “The United States and the Arab World: Dynamics and Dimensions of a Relationship in Flux” podcast (.mp3)

Dr. John Duke Anthony on Al Youm (Al Hurra TV)

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On March 25, 2014, Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President & CEO of the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, appeared on Al Youm on Al Hurra TV. The discussion touched on Iran, Syria, and President Obama’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia. [Program in Arabic.]

Post by ‎Al Youm Show برنامج اليوم‎.

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From Arabia to Asia: Does a Policy Shift Make Sense?

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President Obama’s Coming Visit to Saudi Arabia in Perspective

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That the foreign policies of various governments often appear to be contradictory is because they frequently are.  Certainly of late, this seems to characterize aspects of the Obama administration’s relations with the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

President Barack Obama walks with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and members of the Saudi Arabian delegation during the King's visit to the White House on June 29, 2010. Photo: White House.

President Barack Obama walks with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and members of the Saudi Arabian delegation during the King’s visit to the White House on June 29, 2010. Photo: White House.

This ambiguity and the confusion and uncertainty that accompany it are among the things that President Barack Obama will need to dispel and clarify in the course of his upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia.  As this essay seeks to demonstrate, what he will have to contend with in terms of background, context, and perspective will not be easy of resolution, amelioration, or even abatement.

Despite the many largely unreported positives there are numerous negatives that need to be addressed lest a situation that is seen by many within this globally vital region as increasingly tendentious and quarrelsome become the more so, for no good reason.

On one hand, Washington has strengthened and extended its overall position and influence in the GCC region.  For example, the multi-year, multifaceted U.S.-Saudi Arabia Strategic Dialogue has been elevated for the past three years to a GCC-U.S. Strategic Dialogue, and there have been strategic, reassurance-themed visits to multiple GCC countries by U.S. Secretaries of Defense and State Chuck Hagel and John Kerry.

Additionally, there have been continuing sales to GCC countries of tens of billions of dollars of U.S.-manufactured defense and security structures, systems, technology, and arms. ((“$10.8B U.S. Arms Sale Reassures Gulf Allies at Touchy Time,” United Press International. October 18, 2013. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2013/10/18/108B-US-arms-sale-reassures-gulf-allies-at-touchy-time/UPI-92581382116294/.)) Americans have also signed long-term contracts with these countries for the provision of munitions, maintenance, repairs, spare parts, and equipment sustainability, all of which have translated into the generation and extended life span of millions of American jobs.

Yet, simultaneously, signals from Washington and the mainstream U.S. media indicate that the Obama administration is recalibrating the strategic focus of its international priorities. Great emphasis, for example, is being placed on the Asia-Pacific regions.

Affecting the need to recalibrate are major budget reductions and their impact on strategic concepts, forces, and operational dynamics.  At issue and under examination, according to the Secretary of Defense in advance of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) are America’s assumptions, ambitions, and abilities. ((Richard L. Kugler and Linton Wells II, Strategic Shift: Appraising Recent Changes in U.S. Defense Plans and Policies.  Washington, D.C: Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2013. p. vii.)) Understandably, the GCC region’s reaction to these trends and indications has been mixed.

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Dr. John Duke Anthony on Iran’s Exclusion from the Syria Peace Conference

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Q: Was the exclusion of Iran from the Syria peace talks taking place in Montreux, Switzerland inevitable? What are some possible implications?

Bashar Ja'afari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations, speaks to the media during the Geneva II Conference on Syria, in Montreux, Switzerland. Photo: UN.

Bashar Ja’afari, Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations, speaks to the media during the Geneva II Conference on Syria, in Montreux, Switzerland. Photo: UN.

John Duke Anthony: The exclusion of Iran may be the price the conference conveners believe they had to pay to have any talks at all in keeping with the advance hype about there being a January meeting. I believe the rebel groups we want represented would have gone under any circumstances. Certainly the price for their not doing so would have been high, perhaps prohibitively so. The global image of their being irresponsible and refusing to engage in the give and take of discussion, debate, and negotiations may well have proved ruinous. It would have practically guaranteed that the Syrian government’s image would correspondingly improve, as indeed would Iran’s, Russia’s, and everybody else’s. In an echo of Shakespeare’s “Beware the wrath of a rejected suitor” and “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Iran, having been provoked, antagonized, and told to stay home, will be tempted to extract a price for being excluded. By leaving no fingerprints — so as not to add further fuel to American Congressional threats to increase the sanctions against Iran — Tehran could instigate here or there, and possibly here and there, violent attacks or other harm to American and/or other prominent conference attendees’ interests by groups or individuals it controls.

For Reference:

“Excluded Iran Says Its Role at Talks on Syria Will Be Missed” – The New York Times, January 21, 2014

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony periodically responds to questions posed by friends of the National Council for the Arabia, the Gulf, and the GCC Blog. Find Dr. Anthony’s full biography here and read more from Dr. Anthony here.

Saudi Arabia-U.S. Relations Reconsidered

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On October 18, 2013, Saudi Arabia turned down a hard-won invitation to join the United Nations Security Council. Riyadh’s rejection of the much-coveted seat on the world’s highest deliberative body was described by many Americans in highly unflattering terms.

HRH Prince Saud Al Faisal, the world’s longest serving foreign minister (since 1975). Photo: UN.

The decision comes in the wake of Saudi Arabia’s long-serving Minister of Foreign Affairs, HRH Prince Saud Al Faisal, opting to forgo deliverance of what for decades had been his annual address to the United Nations General Assembly.

Following the announcement, the Kingdom’s Chief of General Intelligence and Secretary-General of the National Security Council, HRH Prince Bandar bin Sultan, expressed his heightened concern about the state of the Saudi Arabian-U.S. relationship.

At the 2013 Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference days after the kingdom declined membership on the Security Council, HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal, a prominent member of the kingdom’s monarchy, quoted numerous derogatory comments that U.S. opinion writers have used to describe the country’s actions and the reasons given for its decisions in this regard.

Some Perspectives

More seasoned commentators provided background and context for what occurred.

Some cited the kingdom’s profound disappointment at the Council’s recent inability, lain at the veto-wielding feet of mainly China and Russia, to bring an end to the continuing bloodshed in Syria.

Others agreed but added Saudi Arabia’s astonishment and anger at the way the Obama administration was so quick to turn its back on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Additional commentators noted the country’s long-held concerns over the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, including both Iran’s developing nuclear program and Israel’s stockpile of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

HRH Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s Chief of General Intelligence and Secretary-General of the National Security Council, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Russian Federation.

Further commentators remarked on Saudi Arabia’s frustration over the perceived naiveté of the United States in moving to open a dialogue with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani despite Iranian meddling in the affairs of GCC countries, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen – this, after the gift of Iraq to Iran as a direct result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq against the advice of Riyadh and the capitals of most of the other GCC states, plus the envisioned possibility that the United States might somehow eventually reach one or more agreements with Tehran at the kingdom’s and its fellow GCC members’ expense.

Still others cited Riyadh’s ongoing deep disenchantment with the continuing tragic consequences of the Security Council’s larger, more pervasive, and continuing failure, lain primarily at the veto-wielding feet of the United States, to settle the much older conflict between Arabs and Israelis.

Given the number, nature, and magnitude of the Security Council’s noted failures and shortcomings, what Riyadh did — the negative comments of critics notwithstanding — was hardly petulant.

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‘HOW’ Questions for the 2013 Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference

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October 22-23, 2013

Before the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations launched its first Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference in 1991, we asked numerous policymakers a single question:

“What bedevils you the most in your tasks to recommend effective policies?”

The answers differed only slightly from one person to the next. A common theme running through all the responses was, and I paraphrase, the following: The “W” questions are ones that policymakers deal with all the time. In and of themselves, they are difficult enough. They include:

“What” needs to be done;
“When” does it need to be done;
“Why” does it need to be done;
“Where” will we likely be if we do this or if we do not;
“Who” needs to do it; and, sometimes even,
“Whether” something needs to be done.

But the most difficult questions of all, the ones policymakers inform us they find most vexing, are “How” questions, for these, unlike most of the others, cannot be answered with a yes or no. Rather, the answer to each comes with a cost.

  • Sometimes the cost is political, as when leaders of an administration’s political party or a government’s most important advisers or constituents are certain to put their foot down and say no.
  • Sometimes the cost is financial, as when it is pointed out that there are no funds allocated, authorized, or appropriated for that which is recommended.
  • Sometimes the cost lies in having to admit that the requisite competent human resources to implement a policy recommendation simply do not exist.
  • Sometimes the cost is one of technology, equipment, and/or structures or systems that do not exist or, if they do, would have to be transferred from where they are to where they are needed more at what, arguably, is a prohibitively high cost in terms of time, effort, and money.
  • Sometimes the cost is in credibility, as when an administration or government is on record as being strongly opposed to exactly what someone has just recommended as a solution or a palliative.
  • Sometimes the cost is moral in the sense that it clearly violates the Golden Rule of Do Not Do Unto Others What You Would Not Have Others Do To You.
  • Sometimes the cost will likely be a sharp downturn in the public approval rating of a president, premier, or head of state.
  • Sometimes the cost might be a definite setback to the country’s image and the degree of trust and confidence it seeks to cultivate and maintain among its allies.

With this as background, context, and perspective, there follows a series of questions relating to contemporary Arab-U.S. relations. The questions are ones that policymakers on one side or another, and sometimes both sides, grapple with daily. They are provided in the spirit of a public service. To whom? To not only the policymakers entrusted to improve Arab-U.S. relations and not make them worse. They are also offered as food for thought. Again, to whom? To intellectuals, scholars, teachers, students, analysts, investment strategists, specialists in public policy research institutes, and many others eager to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the state of play in the relations between the United States and the Arab world, and who want to improve these relations.

Dr. John Duke Anthony
Founding President and CEO
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations

 

Eight Categories of “ HOW” Questions

 
U.S.-ARAB ENERGY COOPERATION

U.S.-ARAB DEFENSE COOPERATION

GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL: ROLE IN REGIONAL DYNAMICS

THE PALESTINIAN FUTURE

GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: SYRIA, LEBANON, IRAQ, & IRAN

U.S.-ARAB BUSINESS, FINANCE, AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

GEO-POLITICAL DYNAMICS: EGYPT & ARAB NORTH AFRICA

ARAB-U.S. RELATIONS: VIEWS FROM THE ARAB MEDIA

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Dr. John Duke Anthony on the GCC as an Opportunity

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Statement from Dr. John Duke Anthony, Founding President and CEO, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations; Member, Secretary of State Kerry’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and its Subcommittee on Sanctions; and Adjunct Professor, Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management; on occasion of the C3 Summit 2013 in New York.

Wael Fakharany, Ransel Potter, and other distinguished speakers and guests, I am honored to have been asked once again to address you at this second annual C3 Summit in New York. I am also pleased to be asked to identify an opportunity largely overlooked by the rest of the world and especially by many in the United States that will continue to have an extraordinary impact on global affairs. Such an opportunity is the little known but growing and increasingly formalized American relationship with the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Arabian Peninsula

The GCC and its members arguably represented such an opportunity from the beginning of its establishment in May 1981. Certainly, the region they inhabit then as now is the one area more than any other on the planet to which the United States has mobilized, deployed, and led an internationally concerted coalition of the world’s armed forces three times in the last quarter century.

Even so, and despite the GCC countries wishing it were otherwise from the outset, and despite also the European Union (EU) and its member countries taking advantage of the opportunity practically from the beginning, often at America’s expense despite the latter’s economic and strategic comparative advantage, the United States mainly failed to do so.

Instead, for reasons arguably anchored in the deep-rooted and pervasive American negative stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, and an undeclared suspicion of the potentially controversial use to which the extraordinary resources of such a collectivity might one day be put, one set of American Executive and Legislative Branch leaders after another paid little heed to the Riyadh-based GCC General Secretariat. Neither did Washington officialdom take seriously or respond credibly and respectfully to the members’ various overtures to try and place their relationship with world’s strongest power, and vice versa, on the firmest foundation possible.

Now, however, this has largely changed. At least on the economic and strategic fronts as they relate to America’s and the GCC’s respective quests for greater regional and global security and stability, and the respective potential for increased prosperity at both ends of the relationship, there is the end of an error and the beginning of an era quite unlike any before.

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