By John Chipman, Director of IISS
Personal diplomacy is a well-rehearsed art form throughout the Middle East. Leaders talk to each other constantly on the telephone, travel to greet and confer with each other, and meet formally at large set-piece regional meetings.
But the organisation of regional security is still in its infancy. This is of particular concern in the Gulf where so many security problems come together.
The Gulf Co-operation Council, (grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman) is able to animate productive intramural discussions and implement policy decisions, but the membership does not comprise all those who can and do make an impact on regional security. Anyone looking at the Gulf today sees Saudi Arabia coping with a large internal problem of terrorism, Yemen searching for greater productivity and more internal stability, Iraq groping towards elections in the midst of an insurgency, and Iran flirting with a nuclear programme that, unconstrained, could easily have a military dimension. These countries need more ways to talk to each other in a multilateral format.
The six countries of the GCC talk to each other. They also talk, as individuals, to the other two great regional powers, Iraq and Iran, and from time to time collectively with neighbouring Yemen. These six states also have important individual relations with outside powers with which they have formal and informal security arrangements - the US, UK, France and even Russia, as well as more distant states, such as Singapore, Japan and Australia, that have recently made direct security contributions to the region.
Yet these countries do not have a forum in which to meet. It was against that background that the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) organised the inaugural "Gulf Dialogue" in Bahrain last week, bringing together the national security establishments of the nine regional Gulf countries and the key outside powers. Delegations were led by ministers and national security advisers.
Five regional issues loomed large.
The counter-terrorism campaign had its tactical and strategic dimensions, delegations agreed. Tactically, members of terrorist networks would have to be captured or killed; strategically it would be necessary for societies to modernise and for political disputes in the region to be settled if the recruiting swamp of potential terrorists was to be drained. Intriguingly, Gulf leaders entered willingly into debate on the tensions between a tough military policy and the need to keep open lines to "civil society" and secure the prospects of ever-widening civil liberties.
The recent deal crafted by the European Union with Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities was cautiously celebrated. Other Gulf states were as anxious for Iranian transparency on its nuclear programme as were the US and the Europeans. Some delegates from the Gulf argued that they also had to voice their concern so that Iran saw that counter-proliferation was as much a regional as an external issue.
It was reiterated that the elections in Iraq on January 30 were impossible to postpone, if only because the legitimacy of the existing government rested uniquely on its promise to deliver elections and the organisation of a new Iraqi polity to the people. Security conditions on election day would be challenging and it would be difficult to inspire people to join queues in the three to four provinces that were still very unsettled.
US calls for political and economic reform were falling on willing ears as all states were preparing their own ideas for modernisation. But it was not enough, one regional figure argued, for people to rush to Washington and cry the mantra of reform: effective progress required conviction, a plan and a timetable to achieve specific goals. The US acknowledged that everyone would need to move at their own pace.
On security, an Iranian proposal for a regional assembly was put forward. Prince Saud al-Faisal, Saudi foreign minister, argued that the local base for a new regional framework had to come from a unified GCC, a prosperous Yemen (that should in time be welcomed into the GCC), a stable Iraq and a friendly Iran. He called for new bilateral agreements within the region to formalise improving ties.
At the inaugural IISS Gulf Dialogue, the Rubik's cube of regional arrangements began to be turned. It will take time for all the colours to align themselves harmoniously. But, with the right countries beginning to involve each other in the effort, the prospect of a more coherent framework for regional security discussions in the Gulf has become real.
