On September 26, 2023, National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Board of Directors Member, former Senior Military Advisor to the U.S. Department of State, former U.S. Defense and Army Attaché to Saudi Arabia, and HyphenPoint LLC Founding Principal Colonel (Ret.) Abbas Dahouk took part in an online discussion about strategic ramifications for relations in the Gulf with reference to Dorra Gas Field and the the Khor Abdullah waterway. (Program in Arabic.)
On the occasion of its 31st Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (“National Council”) announced its first-ever DISTINGUISHED GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTAL ASSISTANCE AWARD was presented to the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development (“Kuwait Fund”). The award was bestowed in recognition of its humanitarian efforts to raise the standard of living of peoples and communities around the world.
National Council Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony noted that the Kuwait Fund has been and remains a regional pioneer in international development efforts. Since its establishment in 1961, the Kuwait Fund has remarkably supported the financing of more than 1,000 projects in 105 developing countries by providing approximately $22 billion. Dr. Anthony highlighted how the Kuwait Fund’s work included making possible development projects for agriculture and irrigation, transport and communications, energy, industry, water, and sewage. Its reach was extended outside of the Middle East in 1974 to include Africa; the Pacific and South, East, and Central Asia; Europe; Latin America; and the Caribbean.
H.E. Marwan A. Al-Ghanem, Director General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, makes remarks upon accepting on behalf of the Kuwait Fund the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ Distinguished Global Developmental Assistance Award presented at the 31st Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference in Washington, D.C.
The award was accepted by the Director General of the Kuwait Fund H.E. Marwan A. Al-Ghanem. His Excellency the Director General was joined by the Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States H.E. Jasem Albudaiwi.
On August 30, 2022, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations was honored to host a program welcoming H.E. Jasem Albudaiwi, the new Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States, to Washington, D.C. It was attended by representatives from the United States government, private sector, and public policy research organizations as well as fellow diplomats.
H.E. Jasem Albudaiwi, Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States, makes remarks at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ program welcoming His Excellency back to Washington, D.C. National Council Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony and Executive Vice President & Director of Development Patrick Mancino look on behind him.
During the program, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arabian Peninsula Affairs Daniel Benaim, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Ilan Goldenberg, and U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking contributed remarks highlighting the mutual benefits of the U.S.-Kuwait relationship. Council Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony served as Context Provider for the event, and provided historical frames of reference for better appreciating the role of Kuwait in regional and global affairs. Ambassador Jasem Albudaiwi gave keynote remarks stressing the importance of the Kuwait-U.S. relationship, and the value of strengthening and expanding bilateral and regional ties to meet the challenges of tomorrow.
At the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ program for H.E. Jasem Albudaiwi, the new Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Arabian Peninsula Affairs Daniel Benaim (top right), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Ilan Goldenberg (top left), U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking (bottom right), and National Council Founding President & CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony (bottom left) contributed remarks highlighting the mutual benefits of the United States-Kuwait relationship.
Washington, DC: On September 7, 2017, at the International Peace Institute (IPI) in New York City, the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (National Council) was honored and privileged to present its Distinguished Global Leadership and Humanitarian Award to Mr. Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain. The Award was conveyed in recognition of his indefatigable and extraordinary international efforts to promote cultural understanding, education, and bridges of knowledge between East and West.
[Left to Right] National Council Board Member Ms. Paige Peterson, Council Executive Vice President Mr. Patrick Mancino, Council Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony, Mr. Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain, and International Peace Institute President Mr. Terje Rød-Larsen.
For the last twenty-seven years, today has marked the anniversary of an infamous event: Iraq’s brutal invasion and subsequent occupation of Kuwait, which began on August 2, 1990, and which was brought to an end on February 28, 1991. The regional and international effects of numerous aspects of the trauma then inflicted upon Kuwait remain ongoing. Like Kuwait itself, the world, even now, has yet to fully recover.
National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations Founding President and CEO Dr. John Duke Anthony was one of the first American civilians into Kuwait following its liberation. He would return there twelve times over following year with delegations of American leaders tasked with assisting in one or more facets of the war-torn country’s reconstruction. He is here with his escort observing one among over 650 of Kuwait’s oil wells set ablaze by the retreating Iraqi armed forces. Photo: National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
Over a quarter century later, important postwar facets of what Iraq did to Kuwait fall short of definitive closure. And they defy effective description. The international legal requirement that an aggressor provide prompt, adequate, and effective compensation for a war’s victims was not honored at the end of hostilities. Despite continuing United Nations-supervised efforts to collect on this inhumane debt, what is due has still not been paid.
A full accounting of Kuwait’s and other countries’ missing citizens swept up and carted off to Iraq in the war’s waning hours – in the immediate aftermath of the conflict its main cause celebre – continues to remain incomplete. The reason is not for lack of effort. After Kuwait’s liberation, an informal and unofficial effort was mounted by George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs to provide an estimate of the MIAs’ status.
The focus group included diplomats, scholars, media representatives, American armed forces’ civil affairs personnel, and other individuals who fought to liberate Kuwait. Their unscientific consensus reported that more than 400 of the missing Kuwaitis died after they were captured. The fate of more than 200 of the missing, however, was unknown.
In the immediate hours and early days following Kuwait’s liberation, when none of the country’s electric power, desalination water purification plants, and far more of the country’s infrastructure were left operative, and domestic security prospects had been rendered uncertain, armed personnel carriers and mounted automatic weaponry units were omnipresent in the country. Photo: Dr. John Duke Anthony.
That possibly countless others remain missing is no small matter. The numbers in question, to some, may seem few. Not so, however, for those among the loved ones who tear up at the thought of them. Not so either for those who, despite the absence of grounds to warrant optimism for a fortuitous ending to their pining, and continue to wait and pray for their return.
We Americans would do well to stop and think about this for a moment. We are often criticized, and rightly so, for having an empathy deficit when it comes to understanding the suffering of people in other countries and situations. An irony in this needs to be understood and underscored. The irony is that many in the United States demand that people in other countries understand us. For those in front of an American Consular Officer with ticket in hand to visit a friend or relative in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, or wherever, but who lack such empathy along with the understanding and civility that comes with it, they need to be wished good luck in obtaining a visa to the United States.
That the foreign policies of various governments often appear to be confusing or contradictory is because they frequently are. During Barack Obama’s presidency, such inconsistency has seemed to characterize aspects of America’s relations with the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The ambiguity and uncertainty that accompanies it is among the things that Obama has sought to dispel and clarify in the course successively of his March 2014 visit to Saudi Arabia, his May 2015 summit at Camp David with senior leaders of all six GCC countries, and his mid-April 2016 attendance at a similar meeting with leaders of the same countries. As this essay seeks to demonstrate, what he has had to contend with – and what others of late have had to contend with regarding aspects of his administration — in terms of background, context, and perspective has not been easy of resolution, amelioration, or even abatement.
Dating from before and since these high-level GCC-U.S. meetings, Washington has taken steps to strengthen and extend America’s overall position and influence in the GCC region. A principal means for doing so has been through the GCC-U.S. Strategic Dialogue.[1] But one example among several was when former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, came with approvals for billions of dollars in sales of U.S.-manufactured defense and security structures, systems, technology, and arms to GCC countries, together with long-term munitions and maintenance contracts.
President Barack Obama attends a U.S.-GCC summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in April 2016. Photo: Saudi Press Agency.
Yet, simultaneously, signals from Washington and the mainstream U.S. media before and since Obama’s meetings with his GCC counterparts have not always been as clear as the signalers thought would or should be the case. That said, what specialists have had no doubt about for some time is that the Obama administration is recalibrating the strategic focus of its international priorities in hopes of being able to accomplish two objectives at the same time. One objective has been, and continues to be, a steadfast resolve to remain committed to the security, stability, and prospects for prosperity in the GCC region. The other has been and remains a parallel determination to emphasize the Asia-Pacific regions.
Affecting the need for such a recalibration have been major U.S. budget reductions and their impact on strategic concepts, forces, and operational dynamics. At issue and under examination in this regard, according to the Secretary of Defense in advance of the most recent Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), are, and for the foreseeable future will continue to be, America’s assumptions, ambitions, and abilities.
Understandably, the GCC region’s reaction to these trends and indications was and continues to be mixed.
Session on Gulf Cooperation Council: Role in Regional Dynamics with Dr. John Duke Anthony, Ambassador (Ret.) Dr. Richard J. Schmierer, Mr. Khaled Almaeena, Dr. Abdullah AlShayji, and Ms. Elizabeth Wossen from the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ 24th Annual Arab-US Policymakers’ Conference, “U.S.-Arab Relations at a Crossroads: What Paths Forward?,” on October 14, 2015, in Washington, DC.
An unprecedented and extraordinary event is about to occur: a heads of state summit. These, by any standard, can be and often are extraordinary events. That’s what this one is. It is so because it gathers in the capital of the United States President Barack Obama with the representatives of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The two-day summit is set for May 13-14, 2015.
GCC leaders are scheduled to meet with the president in Washington on day one and on day two gather with him in the more capacious and secluded confines of Camp David. The latter venue is a longtime private presidential meeting place in the Maryland foothills, which is conducive to wide-ranging and deeply probing discussions on matters of common, timely, and varying degrees of urgent interest to the president, his advisers, his guests, and their advisers. The focus of this essay is the issues, challenges, and opportunities that will focus the principals’ attention while there.
That the summit is occurring at this time is no mere coincidence. In terms of the GCC-U.S. relationship, it brings to the forefront the chief representative of the world’s most militarily, economically, and technologically advanced nation. Joining him will be the leaders of six neighboring Arab Gulf countries from what is arguably the world’s most strategically vital region that are little known and even less well understood by the American people as a whole.
What needs to be better comprehended by the American public regarding these countries are the roots and nature of their multifaceted strategic importance not just to their peoples and immediate region, but also the United States and the world in general. To begin with, the six GCC countries possess thirty per cent of the planet’s proven reserves of oil, the vital strategic commodity that drives the world’s economies. Collectively, they are also the holders of the developing world’s largest reservoir of financial assets, as measured in the trillions of dollars.
In addition, the GCC countries have no rivals in their combined positive impact on the American aerospace and defense industries. In the past half-decade, their purchases of U.S.-manufactured defense and security structures, systems, technology, weaponry, ammunition, training, maintenance, and operational assistance have massively impacted and continue to impact the American economy.
The dynamism and mutuality of benefits in the U.S.-GCC relationship are envied by virtually every country that wishes it could accomplish anything remotely similar.
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