The recent agreement to end the boycott of Qatar by the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Bahrain is a welcomed development that also hides some uncomfortable realities about the past, the present, and the future. It reflects a striking combination of failed old ways and promising new realities in inter-Arab foreign policy and diplomacy, but its most important lesson might prove to be the peak it gives us into internal decision-making in the states involved.
It is noteworthy above all for being the first formal, if silent, validation of the failed policies that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have pursued in the region in the past seven years or so. Some other Arab states often followed in tow for their own domestic or economic reasons, so the abrupt about-face by the boycott leaders might also suggest slow changes in the worldviews of the followers. The reconciliation accord is a positive development that all should welcome, particularly in view of the disasters that resulted from the more dynamic, often politically and militarily aggressive, regional actions they took since their two crown princes effectively assumed control of policymaking.
The blockade of Qatar was the most flamboyant and bizarre move by the Emirati-Saudi duo, largely because it was based on fabricated accusations against Qatar that in turn emanated from slightly hysterical Emirati/Saudi fears about how the region was evolving in political and geo-strategic directions they feared. These fears were well captured in the original list of 13 demands they made from Qatar in summer 2017, which were widely seen as a fantastic, rather than a credible, list of actionable political concerns.
This proved to be the correct assessment in view of the UAE’s foreign policy spokesman’s admission last week that these 13 points were more like maximalist negotiating demands than realistic moves Qatar could make. The logical conclusion is that the UAE-Saudi duo and their supporters were as incompetent in negotiating as they were in foreign policymaking. This is also evident since no meaningful international party supported the boycott, and many leading countries, like Kuwait, the USA, Germany, and others, tried repeatedly to end it.
The agreement silently affirms the failure of the boycott, in the typical Middle Eastern manner of admitting your mistake but not admitting it explicitly. Whether this is an honorable face-saving technique or the consequence of weak statecraft will be for history to determine. For now, we can only say that the underlying and real political tensions among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states that triggered the boycott, along with the earlier episode of tensions in 2013, have not been resolved, but they can be addressed through serious dialogue instead of impetuous temper-tantrums.
Most of the complaints against Qatar reflect differences in political values and national ideologies which Qatar feels serve it well, but which the boycotters fear threaten their own wellbeing. The most practical include issues like allowing freewheeling coverage, analysis, and commentary on Al Jazeera television and other Qatari-backed media outlets in Arabic and English; good working relations with Turkey and Iran; and supporting Islamist political movement across the Middle East, some of which have won free elections. The recurring incompetence in UAE-Saudi foreign policymaking, even a tendency to backfire on their aims, is evident in how Iran and Turkey have stronger political and strategic links across the Arab region than they did three and a half years ago, Qatari-backed media continue to flourish, and Qatar is much less vulnerable today to crude political bullying by its neighbors.
Yet ending the boycott policy without evidence of resolving any of the underlying issues the boycotters raised repeats the enduring old way of inter-Arab diplomacy that has largely failed to achieve stability or security. It perpetuates the danger that future policy follies could occur again, only later to be swept under the rug. Such a never-ending cycle of failed and impulsive decision-making by unaccountable powerful men has ravaged the lives of tens of millions of innocent people in the past half-century, and this boycott-ending agreement does not signal any end to it.
Nevertheless, this positive agreement offers a glimmer of hope for fewer Saudi-Emirati joint ventures in regional overreach and militarism that has usually backfired, most notably, in Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Somalia. We do not know what caused the Emirati and Saudi leaderships to agree to end their blockade. Speculation includes most notably the Saudi king’s desire to relieve pressure on his son Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman before President Donald Trump retires in disgrace and President Joe Biden assumes power — given the Biden pledge to hold Saudi and other regions accountable for their actions, whether in Yemen, Qatar, Libya, or elsewhere.
Qatar’s response to the boycott, on the other hand, shows again how national resolve and steadfastness can triumph over lies backed by aggression. It helps Qatar that it is a small and wealthy country that could quickly enjoy support from powerful friends across the world. Yet standing up to the potentially grave dangers it faced required a measure of self-assuredness that is not common among Arab leaderships. Qatar’s energetic economic adjustments to foster greater self-reliance also hold out promise for reducing its vulnerabilities — offering lessons that many others can benefit from.
Many unanswered questions about the agreement remain, related to what Qatar offered to make the deal work, the role of the USA, Donald Trump’s eviction from the White House, and the shadows of Iran and Joe Biden hovering over the region. Did Gulf states’ expanding ties with Israel play a role, perhaps making them feel more secure in case the USA starts pressuring them or Iran keeps meddling in the region? Time will tell.
But time is also important here in another dimension — the past. The location of the GCC summit in Al-Ula in northwestern Saudi Arabia should remind any Arab leaders who pay attention to history that we have much to learn from what happened in the area around Al-Ula some 2300 years ago. That was when the Nabataean Arab kingdom flourished for around four centuries, in the land of northern Saudi Arabia and southern Jordan today. The Nabataean capital at Petra remains one of the wonders of the ancient world, and its rock-carved monuments are also well preserved in the region of Madain Salah near Al-Ula.
The Nabateans still whisper to us today secrets about how small and vulnerable countries can survive and thrive, which should interest both small countries and bigger, more aggressive, ones. These secrets are about preserving one’s delicate natural resources (especially water), balancing one’s economy among trade, agriculture, and industrial/mineral production, leaders serving their people with dignity and humility, and — most importantly — maintaining peaceful and negotiated relationships with potentially threatening bigger foreign powers.
The Nabataeans survived and thrived for centuries in the face of stronger empires that eyed their resources because they usually evaded war, occupation, or destruction by negotiating agreements to allow the flow of international trade that was a main source of their wealth. Boycotts on fabricated grounds? No thanks, that’s the fool’s tool. War and sanctions? No siree, that rarely achieves desired results, and usually worsens conditions for all. Negotiate a sharing of resources and wealth — and security — for all? Yessiree, I’ll take that!
The next time the Saudi and Emirati crown princes — or any other Arab leaders — travel around Saudi Arabia they might peek into the past and remember what its ancient civilizations bequeathed to us in the timeless arenas of diplomacy and statecraft. These are more relevant than ever in view of important relationships that must be negotiated one day soon among Arabs, Iranians, Turks, and Israelis, and which can only be negotiated on the basis of mutual and equal rights, rather than hallucinatory accusations that are humiliatingly reversed when they fall flat.
Rami G. Khouri is Director of Global Engagement and senior public policy fellow at the American University of Beirut, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter: @ramikhouri
An earlier version of this article appeared in The New Arab https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/Comment/2021/1/8/History-whispers-to-blockading-states-as-GCC-rift-ends
Copyright ©2021 Rami G. Khouri — distributed by Agence Global
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Released: 18 January 2021
Word Count: 1,292
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